In 2022, I’m counting down the 128 best players of the last century. With luck, we’ll get to #1 in December. Enjoy!
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Manolo Santana [ESP]Born: 10 May 1938
Died: 11 December 2021
Career: 1956-80
Played: Right-handed (one-handed backhand)
Peak rank: 1 (1965)
Major singles titles: 4
Total singles titles: 69
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I don’t know exactly when Manolo Santana said, “Grass is just for cows.” Most sources claim only that he said it before winning Wimbledon in 1966. It’s one of the most famous quips in tennis history, often repeated by frustrated clay-court warriors in the half-century since.
Obviously he said it before his Wimbledon title. Only a first-class jerk would say it after winning the sport’s most prestigious championship–and Santana would never have been so rude. But “before” is vague. Are we talking about 1958, when the 20-year-old lost his first match at the All-England Club in straight sets? Or was it in an interview right before the 1966 event, which he entered as the 4th seed with a Forest Hills title under his belt?
There’s no doubt Manolo preferred the dirt. He was the greatest clay-court player of his generation, twice ousting Nicola Pietrangeli in the final at Roland Garros. He rarely entered more than three grass-court events in a season. In 1965, his title-winning run at the US National Championships was his only appearance on turf apart from Davis Cup.
For all his reluctance to spoil a good pasture, he began sorting out the secrets to grass-court success long before 1966. In 1962, he reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals, beating a young Cliff Drysdale and American Davis Cupper Frank Froehling before taking a set from Rod Laver in the round of eight. The next year, he went one round further.
All it took for Santana to turn in a good result on grass, apparently, was a bit of preparation. In his second attempt at Forest Hills, in 1964, he crashed out in the second round. Roger Taylor beat him in a five-setter, and Manolo pointed to his late arrival in the States, two days before the tournament began. The following year, he got two weeks of practice time on turf. The result: Seven wins, and his first major title on grass.
He told the journalist Herbert Warren Wind that even two weeks wasn’t enough. Six weeks would be ideal. And if he had to play on grass, he preferred the harder surface of the All-England Club.
In 1966, he skipped the French to give himself five weeks of proper Wimbledon prep. He needed every minute of it. It took a lucky break and two narrow escapes, but Santana ultimately proved that the grass wasn’t just for cows. It was prime grazing land for Spanish dirtballers, too.
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Santana’s list of firsts is seemingly endless. He was the first Spanish Wimbledon champion, and the first from Continental Europe since Yvon Petra in 1946. (1954 titlist Jaroslav Drobný was Czech, but he had defected and then represented Egypt.) When he won Forest Hills, he was the first champion from the Continent since Henri Cochet in 1928.
His Roland Garros titles were the first majors ever won by a Spaniard. In 1965, he led his national team to the Davis Cup Inter-Zonal round for the first time, advancing all the way to a date with the Australian side in the Challenge Round.
Even in 2006, with a new Spanish star undeniably on the rise, Manolo relayed to a journalist what his countrymen still said: “Santana is tennis and tennis is Santana.”
His preeminence obscured the utter implausibility of his rise to stardom. Society in Generalissimo Franco’s Spain was as stratified as any in Europe. Tennis was an upper-class sport. Santana was the son of an electrician, a working-class kid with few prospects.
Santana, in 1965, expressing his opinion of grass court tennis
It wasn’t that there were few public tennis courts in Madrid–there were no playing opportunities outside of the city’s exclusive clubs. The youngster dropped out of school at age 10 and worked as a ballboy for tips at the Club Tenis de Velasquez. His first racket was one that he carved himself at age 12. The next year, he won the club’s tournament for ball boys, which earned him a membership.
Even then, Manolo’s chances of an international athletic career were effectively nil. It took a tragedy to open the door. When he was 16, his father died, and a family from the club–the Romero Giróns–took him under their wing. Gloria Girón not only paid for his tennis training, she also provided a tutor to make up for the schooling he had missed. Gloria couldn’t give him a proper society pedigree, but she could ensure that he represent his country well. He wasn’t allowed to travel abroad on his own until she thought his social skills were up to the job.
Santana’s took his first trip to the States in 1959, when he was 21 years old. He made friends easily, as he always would, and he impressed Frank Froehling by picking up a $25 check at a dinner with players who were presumably earning more expense money than he was. On the other hand, his game still needed work. Froehling’s first impression was that the youngster was “really bad.”
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Froehling witnessed one of the Spaniard’s first stabs at grass court play. On the familiar clay, Santana showed much more promise. He won his first tournament abroad in 1959, when he beat Luis Ayala for the International Championships of Argentina. The next year, he reached his first major quarter-final, overcoming 4th-seeded Rod Laver in the third round, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, 5-7, 6-3.
He would beat Laver in another five-setter the following year, defeating the Australian in the semi-finals before beating Pietrangeli for his first major. Laver narrowly got the better of Manolo in those days, winning 7 of 13 meetings between 1960 and 1962. But on clay, Santana was the superior player, taking 6 of 9. He certainly made an impression on Rocket Rod:
He was a magician on clay. Manolo could hit the most incredible angles, drive you crazy with topspin lobs or drop shots. And he improved his volleying so that he was dangerous on grass, too. He toyed with me a couple of times in Europe, letting me know I had a lot to learn about clay.
Laver figured out how to play on the crushed brick, of course–he won Roland Garros in 1962 and 1969. But even in 1970, with the Australian remaining at the top of the game and Santana on his way toward retirement, Manolo could work his magic. One of his last titles came at Barcelona that year, straight-setting Laver in the final.
Bud Collins dubbed Santana the “Godfather of the Groundstrokes.” His forehand was a topspin weapon ahead of its time, one that made his well-disguised dropshots even more deadly. His contemporary, the American player and journalist Gene Scott, credited him as having “literally invented” the backhand topspin lob.
As if that wasn’t enough, another commentator said, “[H]e sees the ball a yard faster than most others.” Scott considered him a genius. Manolo was so confident in his return of serve that he never worried about a strong server. “I’m more scared myself,” he told Sports Illustrated in 1967, “when I see that a player is returning serve well, rather than just serving well.”
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Manolo’s record at majors is rather sparse. Between his first Wimbledon in 1958 and his last appearance at Forest Hills in 1977, he played only 25 slams. He never entered the Australian Championships, and only once–in 1964–did he play all three of the others in the same season.
The Wimbledon title solidified his status as a sporting legend in Spain, but he would’ve been a megastar without it. Perhaps more than any other player of his era, Santana made his reputation with exploits in the Davis Cup.
When he first traveled to the United States, the Davis Cup had spent more than two decades shuttling between only two homes, America and Australia. Every year between 1938 and 1959–with a break for World War II–those two nations contested the Challenge Round for possession of the Cup.
Australia continued to churn out an endless stream of stars–Laver, Roy Emerson, Fred Stolle, and more–while the Americans failed to keep pace. Other nations, especially in Europe, became more competitive. Italy reached the Challenge Round in 1960 and 1961, and Mexico was the runner-up in 1962. Pro champion Richard “Pancho” González sometimes coached the US team, and he recognized how the field had changed since he played Davis Cup in 1949. “It is a much bigger thing now. For the first time many of these small countries have a chance, and they work hard at it.”
The plural “they” is a bit deceptive. A Spanish Davis Cup campaign in those years meant that one man almost single-handedly took on the rest of Europe.
Before the 1965 Challenge Round.
L to R: Juan Gisbert, Santana, Emerson, and Stolle
Spain’s effort in 1963 gives you some idea of what Manolo was up against. Playing in the European zone, the Spaniards opened against the West Germans in Cologne, the first weekend in May. Santana won his two singles matches in straight sets, and since he skipped the doubles, his side only barely squeaked through. Four weeks later–just after Roland Garros–Spain hosted Italy in Barcelona. Manolo lost the opening singles to Pietrangeli, but he won the doubles and his second singles rubber to secure the victory.
Two more weeks, and the French came to Barcelona. Santana played and won three rubbers. After Wimbledon, the Europe zone semi-final pitted Spain against Great Britain, and this time they had to play on grass. Manolo’s teammate Lis Arilla failed to win a set in either of his singles matches. Santana managed to get past Bobby Wilson in five, but he and Arilla dropped a tight doubles rubber. His final singles match, against Mike Sangster, was a dead rubber, but you wouldn’t have known by the way they played. The Spaniard drew even through four sets before falling, 7-5 in the fifth.
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Santana gave four weeks of his season, won 8 of 11 matches he played, and his side didn’t come anywhere near the vaunted Challenge Round. Great Britain went on to lose to the United States, who lost to Australia.
There were plenty of years like that. Manolo played a whopping 46 ties in his career, winning 92 matches–69 singles and 23 doubles. Only Pietrangeli and Ilie Năstase won more.
The breakthrough finally came in 1965. Spain defeated Greece, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, and South Africa to win the European zone. Santana won 11 of 11 matches, dropping only two sets, both in doubles. The reward was an Inter-Zonal match with the Americans, to be played at home in Barcelona. On red clay.
The home team got off to a stunning start when the 23-year-old Juan Gisbert upset the top American, Dennis Ralston. Then Manolo took over. He straight-setted Frank Froehling to give Spain a commanding 2-0 lead. The next day, he and Arilla outlasted Ralston and Clark Graebner, 9-7 in the fifth, to secure the tie.
The crowd was enthusiastic but not knowledgeable. In Sports Illustrated, Frank Deford joked that Spanish fans “assumed that Spain had as much chance of beating the U.S. in tennis as in nuclear warfare.” The reaction after the clinching doubles rubber was bedlam:
But if the crowds seemed noisy at first, it became obvious later on that they had been behaving with considerable restraint. The scene that transpired when the verdict was clinched with a victory in the doubles for a 3-0 lead was something straight out of your neighborhood bullring. Santana and his partner, Lis Arilla, were hoisted on willing shoulders and carried about like matadors. Cushions, flung high and long, glided to rest on the court in a gay litter. Ball boys scooped them together and rolled on them, tumbling in an aimless ecstasy. Then Jimmy Bartroli, the Spanish captain, got out the ball bags and started flinging tennis balls to the happy spectators. There may have been past receptions in Barcelona equal to this one–Columbus came back there after discovering America–but it is difficult to conceive of one surpassing it.
In November, the Spaniards beat India–nine sets played, nine sets won for Santana–to advance to the Challenge Round.
After six ties and 16 straight match victories for Santana, the Challenge Round was a bit of a victory tour. No one, probably including the challengers themselves, thought that they had a chance against the Australians, in Australia, on grass. The Spanish team spent several weeks practicing Down Under, but they didn’t enter any tournaments, and the local press hinted that they weren’t giving it their all.
The accusation was probably meritless–some locals were just miffed because their tournaments would’ve made more money with Spanish headliners. In any case, the conventional wisdom was proven right. Santana narrowly lost the opening rubber to Stolle, 10-12, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4, 7-5. Gisbert was helpless against Emerson, the reigning Wimbledon champion. Manolo and Arilla were bested by the youngsters Tony Roche and John Newcombe in four sets.
The Cup would stay in Australia, but there was a consolation prize. On the third day of play, Santana upset Emerson, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, 15-13. Sure, the tie was over, but it was a clash between the two great amateur champions, and the Spaniard had come out on top. The Spanish crowd was smaller than the one in Barcelona, but it was every bit as vociferous. It may be the only time in Davis Cup Challenge Round history that a player was carried off on the shoulders of his fans after winning a dead rubber.
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In Santana’s era, players often used majors to prepare for the Davis Cup. By 1965, Manolo was more modern in his outlook. He saw the Challenge Round–and its many weeks of pre-competition training on grass courts–as a perfect way to ready himself for Wimbledon the following year.
By the time he took the court against Isao Watanabe in the first round of the 1966 Championships, he was, probably for the first time, ready for Wimbledon. He held the US National crown. He had beaten two-time defending champion Emerson in Australia. He had skipped the French Championships in favor of more time to prepare on turf.
All the work was nearly wasted when Santana faced the Australian Ken Fletcher in the quarter-finals. Fletcher was best known as a doubles player; he never passed the quarters of a major outside of his home country. Yet after a long, see-saw battle, he served for the match against Manolo. One game from defeat, the Spaniard needed his entire arsenal of backhand lobs and drop shots to escape, winning in the fifth set, 6-2, 3-6, 8-6, 4-6, 7-5.
Watch the whole thing, with Manolo’s commentary in Spanish, here.
The draw lined him up for a semi-final meeting with Emerson. But fate intervened. Against another Australian doubles maven, Owen Davidson, the defending champ took off after a short ball, slipped on the grass, and crashed into the umpire’s chair. He limped to a four-set defeat in the quarters. Santana, seeded fourth, was now the favorite, at least on paper. Roche and Stolle, the second and third seeds, also failed to reach the final four.
Davidson should’ve been easy pickings for the Spaniard, but he played what he later called “the best competitive tennis of my life.” Santana led 5-1 in the fifth, and the Aussie broke him. When Santana reached triple match point at 5-4, Davidson won five points in a row. But that was the underdog’s last gasp. Manolo advanced to the final by a whisker, 6-2, 4-6, 9-7, 3-6, 7-5.
His opponent for the title was the American Dennis Ralston, who had so disappointed his Davis Cup side in Barcelona the previous year. Once the great hope of American tennis, the 23-year-old had to settle for near-greatness and a constant struggle for confidence in big matches. He didn’t have Santana’s track record at majors, but his game was better suited to the surface, and he had beaten the Spaniard at Queen’s Club a few weeks earlier.
With another Wimbledon fortnight and two tight matches under his belt, Santana was simply too good. He played the net like a born serve-and-volleyer, winning more than two-thirds of his 128 net approaches. While Ralston double-faulted nine times, Manolo made only three unforced errors from the baseline. It was over in straights, 6-4, 11-9, 6-4.
Princess Margaret congratulated the victor after the match. She said, “Muy bueno.”
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Santana hurt his ankle, and he failed to defend his Forest Hills title, losing to John Newcombe in the semi-finals. He underwent ankle surgery in the offseason, and the step he lost was evident when he crashed out of Wimbledon in the first round the following year.
Still, he managed to bring his best when Spanish pride was on the line. As they had in 1965, Santana and company fought through six Davis Cup ties to reach the 1967 Challenge Round. The Americans weren’t a factor this time, as they had lost a shocker in the early going to Ecuador. Manolo got a glimpse of the future in his own early rounds, facing Romania. He beat both Ilie Năstase and Ion Țiriac in the singles, but not before losing a bagel set to Năstase and dropping the doubles against them.
In the 1967 Challenge Round, Emerson was ready for him. Santana managed only six games. Once again, the Spanish team was finished at the end of the second day, and their hero had to settle for a victory in a dead rubber, this time against Newcombe.
Manolo would continue to enter tournaments until the late 1970s, but he gradually stepped away from the game. Even in 1967, it was clear to journalist Frank Deford that he wanted to make time for other pursuits: a growing family and a job at Philip Morris. The former ballboy realized he had talents that went beyond the tennis court, and he wanted to prove it.
Santana with Nadal in 2009
Yet his influence remained. Every Spanish player of the last half-century, from Manuel Orantes to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario to Rafael Nadal, has acknowledged that Spanish tennis would not have developed the way it did if it weren’t for Manolo.
When Santana died last year, Nadal credited him “for opening the way for others.” He wasn’t able to deliver the Davis Cup to Spain, but his progeny finally won it in 2000. They’ve done it five more times since. His major titles in the 1960s created a tennis boom that eventually led to grand slam wins for eight more of his countrymen.
Spaniards still mostly prefer clay. But today they grow up knowing that grass-court heroics are also within their grasp. The nation waited 89 years for their first Wimbledon champion, and it took 42 more before Nadal became their second man to hoist the trophy. Thanks in part to the long shadow of Manolo Santana, the wait for the country’s next hero at Wimbledon will be shorter still.