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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Tony Roche [AUS]Born: 17 May 1945
Career: 1961-80
Plays: Left-handed (one-handed backhand)
Peak rank: 2 (1969)
Peak Elo rating: 2,132 (2nd place, 1969)
Major singles titles: 1 (1966 French)
Total singles titles: 55
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If you’re anything like me, you’ve heard quite a lot about Tony Roche, just not for reasons that would put him on this list.
The Australian lefty is not only better known for his doubles prowess than for singles–he won 13 men’s doubles majors, 12 of them with John Newcombe–but he’s most familiar to younger fans as a super-coach, the man in Roger Federer’s box from 2005 to May of 2007. That was a pretty good run for Federer. Before that, Roche worked with Ivan Lendl, Pat Rafter, and Lleyton Hewitt.
It’s true that, in contrast with double-digit majors as both a coach and a doubles specialist, Roche’s singles career pales in comparison–whose wouldn’t? His sole slam title as a singles player came at the 1966 French Championships over István Gulyás, and he lost his other five other major finals. Those five defeats summarize the challenge of men’s tennis in his era: Four different opponents, all multi-major winners, all number ones at some point in their careers, and all Australian.
How obscenely loaded was Australian men’s tennis in the 1960s and early 70s? Roche didn’t play a Davis Cup singles rubber until 1974, when he was 28 years old. Yes, he missed some chances because he turned pro as a member of the “Handsome Eight” in 1968, a bit earlier than the Aussie establishment approved of. Yet he won 11 singles titles in 1966 and another 14 in 1967, and he still spent those two years relegated to doubles duty while Newcombe and Roy Emerson handled the singles.
The dawn of Open tennis made things even worse. Once professionals were again welcome at majors, the road to a title often went through Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, or both. I’m not sure that Roche was the player of his era that suffered the most from bad timing, but there sure were a lot of roadblocks in his path.
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Tony Roche’s peak years ran from about 1966, when he turned 21, to 1970. My Elo ratings place him in the top ten (combining both amateurs and professionals) for only those five seasons. He rated a top-five place from 1967 to 1969.
He peaked at #2 in 1969 behind Laver, who won all four majors that year. When I wrote about Frank Kovacs as part of this series, I listed several ways that players can be underrated in the eyes of history. Let’s add one more piece of advice for would-be legends: Don’t have your best year when one of the greatest players of all time is putting together one of the outstanding seasons in the game’s history.
Take a look at this list of slam exits for Roche. I’ve omitted a handful of bad early-round losses, but only a few.
Year Major Round Opponent
1964 AO QF Emerson
1964 US QF Emerson
1965 AO SF Stolle
1965 RG F Stolle
1966 AO QF Ashe
1966 W QF Drysdale
1967 AO SF Emerson
1967 RG F Emerson
1967 W 2R Richey
1968 W F Laver
1968 US 4R González
1969 AO SF Laver
1969 RG SF Rosewall
1969 W SF Newcombe
1969 US F Laver
1970 W QF Rosewall
1970 US F Rosewall
This isn’t bad draw luck, at least not most of the time. It was a field so packed with great players, especially when the pros returned in 1968, that there were almost no cheap majors. The one time that a draw really opened up for Roche–at Roland Garros in 1966–he won it.
The most striking thing to me about the list of losses is that Roche could–and did–beat these guys. He won a set in four of his five major final defeats, and he came within a whisker of stopping Laver’s grand slam before it began. Their 1969 semi-final in Australia ran to 7-5, 22-20, 9-11, 1-6, 6-3, and that’s right after Roche played a five-set, 63-game quarter-final to get past John Newcombe!
Roche (right) with John Newcombe
In Laver’s career year, Rod lost only seven matches between the beginning of the year and the US Open in tournament play. Four of them were against Tony.
It wasn’t just Rocket Rod who was vulnerable. Here are Roche’s career head-to-head records against his main rivals:
Opponent Record Emerson 8-13 Laver 8-9 Newcombe 16-28 Rosewall 9-7 Stolle 8-12
Roche wasn’t quite the equal of his multi-major-winning countrymen, but he wasn’t far off, either. Newcombe said, “Some of the hardest matches I’ve ever played, real blood and thunder five-setters, were against Tony.” The long-time doubles partners played eight five-set matches on tour, and they each won four.
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In his book The Golden Era, with co-author Larry Writer, Laver offers a sketch of Roche’s weapons:
A leftie, there was no match he went into without a chance of victory. He had possibly the best backhand volley, played with heavy top-spin, in the business. He could play it straight, go under it, hit through it. He connected with the ball sharply with a short back-swing, racquet head up. His first serve was a beauty and his second wasn’t too far behind. His approach shots and backhand volley were top-notch; his forehand volley, which had too much whip, wasn’t always accurate. He could mis-hit because he put on too much top-spin. To me, Tony had a great ability to win points, not necessarily to win matches.
Rod’s last remark is a common assessment of the players on the Tennis 128 list who finished their careers with zero or one major titles. The implication is there was some strategic or mental component that prevented him from maximizing his talent. It’s also a familiar refrain when talking about doubles greats with underwhelming singles careers. I hesitate to disagree with the Rocket about anything, but I’m not sure he’s right this time.
The first piece of evidence is the obvious: Roche won more than just points: he won a whole lot of matches. TennisArchives.com gives him credit for 761 of them, including 55 title matches and six major semi-finals. As we’ve seen, those victories included a whole lot of upsets over more highly-regarded players.
Roche at Wimbledon in 1967
Roche was also effective in fifth sets, when mental stamina, strategic thinking, and match management come most dramatically into play. In the first twelve years of his career, before accumulated injuries took their toll on his staying power, he won 31 of 46 five-setters.
As a product of the Harry Hopman system of Australian tennis, he was physically prepared for a grueling match every time he went on court. That off-court mentality was part of what he brought to the young Roger Federer:
[W]hen Tony asked me, ‘can you play seven times, five sets [to win slams]?’ That was the question. I looked at him, I go, ‘I don’t know’.
He said, ‘you want to be able to answer that question, yes, with no problem’. That’s what I’ve worked for. Ever since then, I’m confident I can do it.
It’s never easy to separate a coach’s contribution from how a player might have otherwise developed, but it’s worth noting that while Fed was 7-7 in five-setters before working with Tony and 2-3 during their time together, he has won 24 of 37 since. That’s almost exactly the same win rate as Roche’s own.
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Ivan Lendl said of Roche, “I think he’s the best coach in the business.” What’s remarkable about Tony’s off-court contributions is not just his list of slam-winning charges, but the variety of coaching roles in which he has excelled.
Roche (left) with Federer and Laver
His influence on Federer is a good place to start. As we’ve seen, he encouraged Fed to practice harder and think in terms of the toughest physical challenges he could face on court. Roche also contributed a major element to the distinctive style that would ultimately win 20 majors:
I was able to lift [my backhand slice] up one more level when I started working with Tony Roche, who in my opinion had one of the great slices ever. He explained to me how important it was to punch the ball, how important it was to not have just a defensive slice but also an offensive one, and one with variation that sets up stuff beautifully.
Roche had some motivational tricks up his sleeve, too. In 1974, the first year of World Team Tennis, he served as player-coach of the Denver Racquets. His lineup was uninspiring, with himself and Françoise Dürr as the biggest names on a team that would take on the likes of Billie Jean King’s Philadelphia Freedoms and and the Jimmy Connors-led Baltimore Banners. It’s easy to see how Denver won only two of their first ten matches.
The Australian’s solution? He took his team out drinking. The squad had an opportunity to vent their frustration, and within a week, Denver had narrowly edged out Billie Jean’s Freedoms. Roche’s squad made the playoffs, and with another victory against Philadelphia in the final round, the Racquets were WTT’s inaugural champions. In what must have been the easiest-ever vote for an end-of season award, Roche was named Coach of the Year.
In the late 1990s, after working his magic on Lendl, Roche teamed with John Newcombe as an unorthodox coach/captain duo for the Aussie Davis Cup team. The nation’s dominance had waned since Tony’s playing days, and the trophy hadn’t been in Australian hands since 1986. Armed with Mark Philippoussis, a young Lleyton Hewitt, and the doubles pair of Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde, Roche helped Newcombe bring home the Cup in 1999.
Newcombe said of his long-time doubles partner, “I always felt there was a man with immense talent and strength of character beside me. He was a brick wall, utterly dependable.” Most of those traits have more value in doubles and coaching than in singles, but Newk–with his 40-plus matches against Roche–knew better than anyone just how versatile the man was. The second-best Australian lefty serve-and-volleyer in the Rod Laver era was still pretty damn good.