Rory McIlroy openly admitted to then girlfriend Holly Sweeney that he fancied tennis star Caroline Wozniacki – as they watched the major tennis championships together.

Ireland’s top golfer has since taken up with the world number one after ditching Sweeney for the Danish star after they met at a boxing title fight in Germany.

The 21-year-old Belfast university student has told the leading Irish magazine RSVP that McIlroy admitted to a liking for Wozniacki when they watched televised tennis together.

But little did Sweeney, a part-time cheerleader with the Ulster rugby team, realise where the infatuation would end up for either of them.

“I always suspected he had a thing for her. He’s always been a big fan of tennis. When he was watching the women’s games he always said he fancied her but I didn’t take that seriously. Little did I know,” Sweeney told RSVP magazine.

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“It was Rory that ran away with Caroline - not the other way around - so I guess I blame Rory or both of them if I’m honest.”

McIlroy, who lost out to England’s Luke Donald in the European Order of Merit chase in Dubai on Sunday, first met Wozniacki when he went to a boxing match in Germany after his US Open triumph in June.

“I saw a Tweet from Caroline saying that she met Rory and he was a great guy or something along those lines and my heart sank. I thought something was up as I didn’t hear from him during the boxing match in Germany that she was at,” said Sweeney, McIlroy’s girlfriend for six years.

She described to the January edition of the magazine how she accepted his decision to end their relationship ‘calmly’ and then rang her friends for a sleepover and ‘a bitch’.

Sweeney added: “It killed me - that’s why I went to Dubai as soon as we split up so I didn’t have to look or think about it. But when you are on a beach with nothing to take your mind off things, it still crops up...you couldn’t get away from it no matter what you did, it was all over Twitter as well.

“I felt like all the effort I had put in to make the relationship work was completely wasted.”

Just a fortnight ago, it was revealed that Holly hosted a ‘golf pros, tennis hoes’ themed dinner party as part of the TV3 Celebrity Come Dine With Me special to be screened over Christmas.

Former lover McIlroy texted her begging her not to go ahead with the themed event but she just ‘laughed and carried on’.

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