MIAMI — Tennis star Martina Hingis considers a pesky admirer to be crazy, frightening and irrational.
A jury will be asked to decide whether the stranger who professed his love to her crossed the line to criminal stalking.
The top-ranked women's tennis player and accused stalker Dubravko Rajcevic offered vastly different accounts of their encounters and his motives on the witness stand Monday.
Rajcevic, 46, an Australian citizen born in Croatia, took the stand against his attorney's advice, claimed he knew former President Clinton well and said Hingis communicated with him mainly through television interviews.
If convicted, Rajcevic faces up to four years in jail on one count of stalking Hingis and three counts of trespassing at the 2000 Ericsson Open near Miami. Three psychologists who examined him last July concluded he was mentally competent.
Hingis testified that on one occasion, he would not stop ringing the doorbell until he talked to her at her gated home in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1999.
"It must be love," the defendant blurted out in court. His outbursts prompted a stern warning from the judge that Rajcevic would be ejected from the courtroom unless he stopped interrupting.
"I told him he should get out of my life, I didn't want to talk with him anymore, I wouldn't want to spend any time with him," Hingis testified. "I told him he should go away and get out of my life."
Defense attorney Frank Abrams contends Rajcevic was romantically but legally interested in the 20-year-old Swiss star.
The naval architect sent flowers and at least six love letters to Hingis and frequently called her at hotels while she was on tour. He has told reporters that he and Hingis are in love and invited a police officer who arrested him to their wedding.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Kevin Emas gave Rajcevic the night to think about whether he wanted to add anything to his testimony. Attorneys were prepared to give closing arguments Tuesday to the six-member jury.