The first week of October 1973 found elite players spread across the world. Billie Jean King wrapped up a title in Phoenix, while Eddie Dibbs scored a victory in Fort Worth and Jimmy Connors added to his title haul in Quebec. Half a world away, a new regional circuit was getting underway, with both men and women competing in Japan.
The first stop of the men’s Asian swing took place in Osaka. At the same venue, a group of women–headlined by Evonne Goolagong–played a round-robin event that would extend over two weeks. 1973 would see more top-flight tennis in Asia than ever before: After Osaka, the men would head to Tokyo, Manila, New Delhi, Tehran, Hong Kong, and Jakarta.
On October 7th, 38-year-old Ken Rosewall secured the first leg of the Asian jaunt, defeating home hope Toshiro Sakai, 6-2, 6-4. Since dropping a first-set tiebreak to fellow Aussie Ian Fletcher in the first round, Rosewall had been impeccable, losing just 21 games in 10 sets.
“Kenny Losewall” was a hero to the growing legions of tennis players in Japan. He had won a title in Tokyo the previous year, as well. His small stature and graceful game appealed to developing players who realized they would never be able to smoke the ball like John Newcombe or the six-foot, two-inch Cliff Drysdale–Rosewall’s victim in the Osaka semis.
Cliff’s wife, Jean, went along for this trip and wrote about the growth of the game in Japan for World Tennis. There were already one million tennis players in “The Land of the Rising Tennis Boom,” and many more were poised to join their ranks. Three million Japanese played a traditional variant called “soft tennis” that used old-fashioned rackets and (you guessed it) a softer ball. Coaches could spot soft-tennis players in an instant: They swung so hard that they sent groundstroke after groundstroke sailing over the fence.
Japan’s crop of internationalists was the strongest since the 1920s, when Zenzo Shimizu reached the all-comer’s final at Wimbledon. Sakai, the Osaka runner-up, was just the tip of the arrow. He had excelled when the Australians visited for their Davis Cup tie in April, taking a set from Mal Anderson and then beating Newcombe in a dead rubber. Five local players had reached the Osaka round of 16, and one of them, Jun Kuki, had beaten American Jeff Borowiak to reach the quarters. Another Davis Cupper, Jun Kamiwazumi, would become the first Japanese player on the World Championship Tennis circuit in 1974.
The country still had some ground to cover: For all the aspiring players, there were only eight registered teaching pros. No wonder Rosewall, Newcombe, and the Drysdales were so popular when they gave clinics. The boom arrived a bit later than it did in the West, but judging from the enthusiasm on display in 1973, the tennis scene in Japan was going to be a big one.
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This post is part of my series about the 1973 season, Battles, Boycotts, and Breakouts. Keep up with the project by checking the TennisAbstract.com front page, which shows an up-to-date Table of Contents after I post each installment.
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