"I'd never been on a yacht before, but it ended up with me, Eamonn Holmes and Peter Skellern going off to Guernsey to shoot a programme where we learnt how to race a yacht.

"Mel, who had simply bought again from Australia after the America's Cup, was one of many yachtsmen and that's how we met."

The pair ran a local tennis school outside of their main careers and in their spare time would take their modified van and travel across the country on long road trips.

Coleman kept a low profile while Croft, 56, is regularly seen on TV as a tennis pundit for the BBC, Eurosport and Sky Sports. The couple lived in Coombe, close to Wimbledon, and had three grown-up youngsters collectively - Charlie, Amber and Lily.