jsackmann – Page 18 – Heavy Topspin

May 4, 1973: A British Disgrace

*Virginia Wade, Joyce Williams, and Ann Haydon Jones at Wimbledon in 1969*

The Federation Cup barely registered on the packed tennis calendar. The international women’s team competition was still relatively new: The ILTF launched it in 1963. The arrival of the Open era almost immediately shunted it to second-tier status, as the game’s stars increasingly focused on prize money, none of which was available here.

1973 couldn’t have driven the point home any more clearly. At the same time that women’s teams from South Africa to Norway to Korea competed for the Cup, $100,000 was at stake in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Needless to say, plenty of stars were missing at the quaint, old-world club in Bad Homburg, Germany where the one-week event was held.

Virginia Wade, however, was always ready to wear the colors. She had played every installment of Federation Cup since 1967. She led the British squad to runner-up finishes in each of the previous two years, falling to the hosts–Australia in 1971, South Africa in 1972–each time. Aside from another Cup stalwart, Evonne Goolagong, Wade was the best player there.

She had extra motivation, as well. The British team was well-financed, with cash prizes for players who recorded wins. The arrangement was not entirely novel, but the fact that it became public–even discreetly–was rare.

The Brits knew there were no guarantees, especially if it came down to a final against Goolagong and the Aussies. But Wade’s side had never, in a decade of Federation Cup play, failed to reach the semi-finals. With so much top-tier talent missing, anything less was unacceptable.

The 30-country field was whittled down to eight in a just a few days of best-of-three-match ties. Two nations didn’t play at all: Poland refused to compete because of South Africa’s participation, and Chile’s team didn’t show up at all. (It’s possible they stayed home for the same reason.) There were few early surprises. The United States needed a deciding doubles rubber after an unknown Korean named Jeong Soon Yang upset Patti Hogan. But the Americans weren’t expected to make a deep run anyway: The four-time champions were missing a football team’s worth of stars. Billie Jean King, Rosie Casals, and Nancy Gunter were at Hilton Head, and Chris Evert was finishing her senior year of high school.

On May 4th, Great Britain took on Romania in the quarter-finals. Romania was well-known for its exploits in the men’s game: Ilie Năstase was arguably the best player in the world, and with Ion Țiriac, he had made his country a perennial Davis Cup contender. The women had no such résumé. Veteran Judith Gohn was no threat against someone like Wade, and unknowns Mariana Simionescu and Virginia Ruzici were 16 and 18 years old, respectively.

Embed from Getty Images

Simionescu (left) and Evert in 1980, when both were married to fellow tennis pros

Wade dispatched Gohn with ease, handing off the baton to Joyce (Barclay) Williams, a 28-year-old Scot who had reached the quarter-finals of the US Open two years earlier. Alas, the British number two had no way of preparing for this crucial rubber. Lance Tingay captured the youthful verve of Simionescu:

She exploded into action, this strong, jolly lass of only 16, who laughed when she hit winners, laughed when she had winners hit against her and laughed when she fell over. And what fine winners hers were!

Simionescu’s forehand was “forked lightning,” the best weapon off that wing of any of the women in Bad Homburg. While she was every bit as inconsistent as you’d expect of a hard-hitting, inexperienced teen, she pulled out the victory, 6-3, 6-8, 6-3.

That left the stage open for Virginia Ruzici. Veteran journalist David Gray, who sang Simionescu’s praises nearly as heartily as Tingay did, judged Ruzici to be even more talented. The Romanians played as if they had nothing to lose, and the attack of Gohn and Ruzici snatched the deciding doubles rubber from Wade and Williams, 7-5, 6-2.

More than anything else, the British defeat was a reminder that women’s tennis was–finally–truly global. A dozen years earlier, the only international women’s competition was the Wightman Cup, which pitted the Brits against a United States squad each year. Now there were 28 more nations to contend with, most of them outside the Anglosphere. Romania hardly had a presence in the women’s game just a few years earlier; now they were two rounds away from a Federation Cup title.

This being 1973, though, it wasn’t that simple. Romania, like Poland, objected to the inclusion of South Africa in international sporting competitions. All of the sudden, the surprise victory against the UK set up a semi-final against South Africa. The Romanian coach had instructions from the upper reaches of his government to default such a tie if it arose. The country’s Davis Cup team had done so just five years earlier.

ILTF and federation officials spent the rest of the day in a flurry of diplomacy. For five hours, phone calls and telegrams bounced back and forth between Bad Homburg and Bucharest. The semi-final was rescheduled from Saturday morning to Saturday afternoon to give the negotiations more time. At last, the Romanians agreed to play. The potential for glory was, at least this time, on this stage, greater than the implicit approval of the apartheid regime.

The unexpected political brouhaha had at least one positive effect: It pushed the British loss out of the UK papers. No one was happy about the early exit, but it was easy to forget. This was, after all, just the Federation Cup. There were bigger events in tennis happening around the world, and the next two months would bring a crop of exploits and controversies guaranteed to keep British tennis fans focused elsewhere.

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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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May 3, 1973: Chasing $30,000

The Family Circle Cup wasn’t officially a circuit-ending championship, like the men’s WCT doubles finals in Montreal the same week, or the WCT singles finals in Dallas the week after. But it might as well have been. The Virginia Slims women’s tour settled its conflict with the USLTA just in time for 16 of the best players in the world to compete for record-setting prizes.

For Margaret Court, it was her final tournament before taking on Bobby Riggs in a much-anticipated exhibition. Billie Jean King was healthy again, and she no longer had to worry about fighting an international legal battle just to enter Wimbledon. Chris Evert and Evonne Goolagong remained outside the Slims fold, but this week even offered an apparent Evert clone: 17-year-old Floridian Laurie Fleming. Fleming won four qualifying rounds, then demolished veteran Julie Heldman for a place in the quarter-finals.

A likely Court-King final was nothing new: The two women had been facing off for more than a decade. This week’s story was the prize pot that one of the stars would take home. This wasn’t just the Family Circle Cup, it was the $100,000 Family Circle Cup, with a $30,000 check for the singles winner. No women’s tennis tournament had ever offered such a rich reward. In fact, it was the biggest prize in the history of women’s sports altogether.

Most of the 16 ladies in Hilton Head had been competing for years with five-figure stakes on the line. But this was something different. They could be forgiven a few jitters this week.

On May 2nd, the first day of play, the nerves-of-steel award went to Nancy (Richey) Gunter, a 30-year-old veteran with two major titles to her name. In the first round, she drew Frenchwoman Françoise Dürr. Dürr had come through qualifying and had vast experience on slow surfaces like the South Carolina clay. After a see-saw battle, Dürr reached match point in the third set. Gunter saved it–and two more–to force a tiebreak. The Frenchwoman came close again in the sudden-death, first-to-five-pointer, taking a 4-2 lead. But Gunter, perhaps the strongest baseliner in the women’s game, cracked three winners in a row to fend off Dürr and advance to the quarters.

Not for nothing did Cliff Richey–Gunter’s brother and a top player himself–say that Rafael Nadal reminded him of Nancy.

Waiting in the round of eight was top seed Margaret Court. The Australian had dominated Gunter for years, winning 11 of 12 since 1965, including their last five meetings. But after dispatching 16-year-old Kathy Kuykendall in the first round, Court came down with a cold. Three victories away from a financial windfall and ten days ahead of her match with Riggs, Margaret’s body betrayed her.

On May 3rd, a sluggish Court dropped the first set to Gunter, 7-5. She mustered the energy to even the score with a 6-1 second set, then grabbed a 2-0 edge in the third. Just when she had secured the momentum, leg cramps struck. She stalled so much that umpire Mike Blanchard threatened a default. Margaret’s husband Barry told a reporter, “She’ll stay in there until she gets cramps on her hands.” He recommended that she play without shoes to improve her circulation. Through some combination of socks, stalling, and sheer stubbornness, Court reached 5-2, 40-15 on her own serve.

For the second day in a row, Gunter played her best with her back to the wall. She saved the match points, and after breaking the Australian’s serve, didn’t allow her another game. Court was in no shape to compete; it just took Nancy a little while to react appropriately. The American took the match by a final score of 7-5, 6-1, 7-5.

Gunter’s victory earned her a substantially bigger chunk of that $100,000 prize pool, along with a semi-final date with third-seed Kerry Melville. King and Rosie Casals comfortably advanced to fill out the final four. While Court was optimistic that her illness would pass, she would have to head to California–and her date with Bobby Riggs–on a losing streak.

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April 30, 1973: Truce

*Margaret Court (left) and Billie Jean King holding a Waterford vase full of cash ahead of the $100,000 Family Circle Cup in Charleston*

“In tennis,” said a Philip Morris staffer involved with the company’s sponsorship of the women’s game, “it seems like it takes three to tango.”

Quite a challenge, he might have added, when two of them despise each other.

When the Open era began in 1968, the sport’s governing bodies made it clearer than ever that women’s tennis was not a priority. Many tournaments went men-only, and equal prize money was a pipe dream. In September 1970, the “Original Nine” women players, managed by magazine publisher Gladys Heldman and supported by Joseph Cullman of Philip Morris, struck out on their own. Independence was the only possible path to respect.

By 1973, the Philip Morris-backed Virginia Slims tour was a thriving concern. Tennis boomed as both a spectator sport and a recreational activity for men and women alike. The women still relied on Cullman’s support, but the tour’s stops around the United States–led by stars such as Billie Jean King and Margaret Court–were major events, drawing thousands of fans.

The USLTA belatedly realized what it was missing. Just a few years earlier, the organization had put women’s stars on outside courts and signed off on prize money distributions that sometimes gave men nine-tenths of the pot. Now, it scrambled to organize a women-only circuit. With a combination of financial inducements, appeals to personal loyalty, and threats–the Slims tour was non-sanctioned, after all–the USLTA attracted a decent slate of players.

The mud-slinging began even before the first ball was struck. The US federation had the power to ban American players from events such as the US Open. Now with its own tour, the USLTA served warning that it might do just that. Heldman filed suit in January, charging an “illegal trade boycott,” among many other offenses.

“Heldman” became a dirty word in USLTA circles. But the real victims were tennis fans. Both Slims and USLTA events could be outstanding: The Slims didn’t lack for stars, and the presence of young Chris Evert on the federation circuit guaranteed a solid turnout at every stop. Yet the events paled in comparison to what could have been. Neil Amdur of the New York Times wrote that the divide “saddled both circuits with watered-down player draws and produced dull, often routine first-round matches.”

Marilyn Fernberger, a long-time tournament promoter in Philadelphia, was more direct. “The girls have to get together,” she said. “They’re not strong enough to make it alone. If they don’t, they’ll only hurt themselves and women’s tennis in the long run.”

Little progress was made until April, when the stakes rose even higher. The ILTF, the international governing body that worked closely with national associations, said that it would ban all Slims players–not just the Americans–from federation-run events around the world. King, Court and the rest would be suspended from Wimbledon, the US Open, and every other notable tournament for the rest of 1973.

A reporter asked King what she would do if the ILTF blocked her from entering Wimbledon. Well, she said, she’d probably have to sue.

In the end, the whole kerfuffle was shown to be nothing more than a cash grab. The three sides–the USLTA, Philip Morris as the backer of the Slims tour, and the players–sat down on April 27th. The outline of a deal was quickly reached: Philip Morris would pay $20,000 to the federation in lieu of sanction fees. No players would be suspended. The tours would continue to operate as planned over the summer, and Heldman would manage a combined circuit after the US Open.

The players made it official when they okayed the deal on April 30th. They met the ILTF’s deadline, so they could compete in Europe over the summer. Billie Jean, in particular, was relieved. As the lead player representative, she had faced the stress of the circuit’s legal situation at the same time that she promoted the tour and attempted to win a title every week. Now she could head to Hilton Head, South Carolina, and compete for a record-setting $30,000 winner’s check at the inaugural Family Circle Cup.

Arthur Ashe had been through similar struggles in the men’s game. In mid-April, a reporter asked him about the Slims situation. “There has to be cooperation, a meeting of the minds,” Ashe said. “The sport has never been this big before. So everyone is going to have to have that spirit of cooperation and pull together. There’s enough for everybody.”

So it proved–especially once the federation got out of the way.

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April 29, 1973: Mark Cox’s Consolation Prize

Arthur Ashe had good reason to be confident. Entering the final of the United Bank Classic in Denver, he had beaten Mark Cox seven times in eight tries. The two times they met on the 1973 WCT circuit, Ashe had conceded eight games–combined.

“For some reason, I always play pretty well against him,” Ashe said after whipping Cox in the Charlotte semi-final a week earlier. “His game complements mine better than my game complements his. Mark has no junk in his game; he just hits nice, flat, fluid strokes.”

But Cox, a 29-year-old Cambridge economics graduate from Leicester, was no pigeon. The left-hander held a permanent place in the record book. His 1968 defeat of Richard González at Bournemouth made him the first amateur to defeat a pro in the Open era. He scored upsets of Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall in the years that followed. To reach the Denver final, he won three-setters over Jan Kodeš, Brian Fairlie, and the big-serving Roscoe Tanner.

(How hard did Tanner hit a tennis ball? One fan with baseball on his mind suggested that if Hank Aaron didn’t break Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record, they ought to give Tanner a bat.)

Playing for the Denver title on April 29, Cox’s “nice, flat, fluid strokes” often proved unreturnable. Ashe’s typically booming serve went awry, and he was forced to come in behind too many weak offerings. The Brit feasted, hitting what Arthur called “winners and winners and winners.” The match was even more lopsided than Ashe’s recent wins: Cox took the final, 6-1, 6-1.

While the surprise victor could hardly complain about his $10,000 winner’s check, the triumph was bittersweet. It was the final week of the WCT’s 1973 circuit. The top four players in Group B–the gang in Denver–advanced to the tour finals beginning May 9th in Dallas. Rosewall, Ashe, and Marty Riessen already had their spots locked up. Cox’s points from the Denver title moved him into a fourth-place tie with countryman Roger Taylor. The Dallas berth was decided by the two mens’ head-to-head record. Cox and Taylor had played once in 1973, a quarter-final in Copenhagen back in February. That match went to Taylor in a third-set tiebreak.

So by the slimmest of margins, Taylor, not Cox, would head to Texas to meet the best of Group A: Laver, John Alexander, Roy Emerson, and the hottest man in tennis, six-time winner Stan Smith. Cox would have to settle for a flight to Italy and an early start on his clay court campaign.

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April 27, 1973: Battle of the Undergrads

*A 1973 college match at the Nicollet Tennis Center in Minneapolis*

By the time she was 19, Molly Hannas had been playing against boys and men for years. It wasn’t until she was 1973 that her story caromed off the zeitgeist.

Hannas started her career playing high school tennis in Kansas City–on the boys’ team. She headed next to Purdue, competing against women and finishing runner-up in the Big Ten conference tournament. After a year, she transferred to Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. There was a women’s team there, but like at most institutions in 1973, it was nothing more than a club sport–an opportunity to get some practice with a part-time coach and play a few matches against local opponents.

Molly quickly got the lay of the land at Macalester and realized she could compete with anybody there, regardless of gender. The men’s coach, Jack Bachman, didn’t have any problem with her trying out for his team. She not only made the cut, she won the ladder competition and began the 1973 season as the squad’s number one player. Hannas’s first victim smashed his racket in frustration. Bachman kept the damaged stick as a souvenir.

In her own telling, Hannas wasn’t fighting any larger battle: She just wanted to play tennis. She assumed the same of the college boys across the net, and few of them treated her badly. Still, her success marked another tiny step on the road to gender equality in college sports. Title IX, the U.S. law that forbade sex-based discrimination at schools receiving federal funding, had passed in 1972. But no one had yet applied the law to athletics. Progress remained in the hands of one-off lawsuits and small-scale trailblazers like Molly.

The reputation of Macalester’s new star spread quickly. Bachman’s tally of broken rackets remained at one–it’s harder to get angry when you expect to lose. Hannas’s teammates were supportive–her doubles partner, John Molder, was especially complimentary–and competitors around the conference* learned that they needed to ignore her gender. “I thought I’d be embarrassed if I got beat,” said a vanquished rival from Bemidji State. “But I don’t. She’s just a real good player.”

* The best team in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference belonged to Gustavus Adolphus College, where the squad included a strong doubles player named Tim Butorac. Tim’s son Eric would star with the Gusties 30 years later, then go on to reach the Australian Open doubles final in 2014.

On April 27, Macalester’s season was winding down when the Associated Press sent Molly’s story out over the wire. She made the paper back at home in Kansas City. She even got a squib in the “People in Sports” column of the New York Times. The Times didn’t make an explicit connection to the upcoming Bobby Riggs–Margaret Court match, barely two weeks away, but no reader would’ve missed the link. It had been the biggest story in tennis for a month.

Hannas stayed focused on her local battles. “I like to think I play in Billie Jean King’s style,” she said. “But I’d never be able to match her.”

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April 22, 1973: How Good Is Chrissie?

*Chris Evert and Evonne Goolagong play for a packed house*

The USLTA circuit in the beginning of 1973 was sometimes referred to as the “Chrissie and Evonne show.” Most of the leading lights of women’s tennis were signed up to Gladys Heldman’s rival Virginia Slims tour. Chris Evert and Evonne Goolagong had the talent and star power to draw crowds, but the rest of the field at the USLTA events was an often motley mix of juniors, journeywomen, and Eastern Europeans.

In fact, it was generous to include Evonne’s name at all. She was Chrissie’s equal in name recognition only. Evert entered the St. Petersburg final on April 22nd on a 21-match win streak. She had won five of six events, losing only a single match to Virginia Wade, a 9-7, third-set nailbiter in Dallas. She had dropped only two other sets in that time. Goolagong had won the first encounter between the two ladies, in the previous year’s Wimbledon semi-final. But since then, Chrissie had won four in a row.

The St. Pete event, held at Bartlett Park, had good memories for Evert. She had picked up her first adult title there two years earlier, when she was just 16. Steady as a backboard, she overcame an injured Billie Jean King in the semis, then allowed just three games to Julie Heldman in the final. She was soon popular enough to draw crowds anywhere, but her star was at its brightest in her native Florida. Fans in St. Petersburg “did everything but tear down the fence” to watch the final.

The championship match didn’t disappoint. Chrissie played her typical relentless game, forcing errors to take the first set. In the second, Goolagong evened the score with élan. Recovering the effortless brilliance that had won her the French and Wimbledon titles in 1971, she took the set, 6-0.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve lost a love set,” Evert said. “It was kind of frightening the way she did it.”

Chrissie could only be shaken so far. Goolagong’s streaks were famous for vanishing as quickly as they arose, and today was no different. The Australian won the first game of the final set, then Evert took five in a row. Goolagong fought back to 4-5 before the Floridian’s two-handed backhand finished the job.

Evert finished the eight-tournament USLTA circuit with six singles titles and total prize money of $41,350. She was, by far, the best player on the tour.

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But how did she stack up against the Slims group? The division in women’s tennis left that question to be answered in Europe, where the field would finally come together in May.

The same day that Evert beat Goolagong in St. Petersburg, Margaret Court outlasted Rosie Casals across the state in Jacksonville. It marked Casals’s 23rd straight loss to the imperious Court, this time by a score of 5-7, 6-3, 6-1. Rosie had taken the first set on several other occasions, but she could only warn her colleagues on tour: “If you don’t beat Margaret in straight sets, you’re in trouble.”

Casals would have said the same thing to Chrissie. She was well aware of the young talent, having lost to Evert twice in 1972. But the Australian was still the woman to beat. “Without question,” Casals said after the final, “Margaret Court is the greatest in the world and will continue to be as long as she continues to play.”

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Elsewhere this week:

Ken Rosewall won his third title in as many weeks with a final-round victory in Charlotte over Arthur Ashe. He had struggled throughout the week, needing three sets against each of Ismail El Shafei, Tom Gorman, and Roscoe Tanner. But when the second set of the championship match went to a tiebreak, he took no chances, reeling off six points in a row to secure the decision.
16-year-old Björn Borg reached his first final as an adult, progressing through the all-European field in Monte Carlo before losing a straight-set final to Ilie Năstase.
In other men’s events, young Americans made a mark. With the top players gone in Johannesburg, 21-year-old Brian Gottfried took the title on a walkover from Chile’s Jaime Fillol. Back at home, in Columbus, Georgia, Eddie Dibbs knocked out Jimmy Connors while 18-year-old Vitas Gerulaitis upset both Richard González and Clark Graebner. Dibbs won the final.
As if that wasn’t enough teenage success stories for one week: The sibling duo of Buster (17) and Linda Mottram (15) won both singles events at the Cumberland Hard Courts tournament in Hampstead, England. Linda’s breakthrough was particularly impressive, as she overcame both Virginia Wade and former Wimbledon finalist Christine (Truman) Janes. The prize money was a pittance compared to other events around the world, but Buster and Linda didn’t even get the £60 and £45 promised to the winners. The International Lawn Tennis Federation didn’t allow any prize money at all for players under the age of 18. Tony Mottram, father of Buster and Linda, could sympathize: When he won the event in 1949 and 1951, there wasn’t prize money for anybody.
16-year-old Nick Saviano triumphed at the prestigious Easter Bowl junior tournament in Manhattan. Taking the 14-and-under title was a promising lefty from Queens named John McEnroe.
Billie Jean King lost early in Jacksonville, a surprise victim of Wendy Overton in the deciding point of a nine-point, sudden-death tiebreak. By the end of the week, she was back in New York City, making a public appearance where she played three-point “matches” against all comers. Anyone who aced her won a prize. Sadly, I can’t find any reports of how the public fared that day against Madame Superstar.

And you thought the tennis calendar was crowded now.

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April 21, 1973: One Down, Three To Go

After nearly six years of waiting, the Aussie steamroller was back in action. The once-invincible Davis Cup squad from Down Under began its 1973 campaign in Japan, a giant against a minnow for a place in the Eastern Zone final.

Australian captain Neale Fraser wasn’t yet able to call upon his full forces. Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, and Roy Emerson had commitments elsewhere. But despite a hiccup in Hong Kong on the way to Tokyo, the Aussie side looked strong. Leading the team was 30-year-old Australian Open champ John Newcombe. Slated for second singles was 38-year-old Mal Anderson, who returned to Davis Cup play in 1972 after a 14-year absence.

Not long before, the Davis Cup trophy had a near-permanent home in Oz. Australia won the tournament on 15 of 18 tries between 1950 and 1967, replenishing its stock of stars as one after another defected to the pros. Coach Harry Hopman identified and developed talent like no one else in the world, helped by his nation’s passion for tennis and a federation that prized the Davis Cup above all else. Anderson had played for the Cup-winning side in 1957, Fraser had contributed to titles from 1958 to 1962, and Newcombe had donned the colors from 1963 to 1967.

But when tennis went “Open” in 1968, the Davis Cup didn’t quite follow suit. Professionals were allowed, but not “contract” professionals–the men signed to deals with the likes of the National Tennis League and World Championship Tennis. That included all of the best Australian players: Laver, Rosewall, Newk, Emerson, and more. The second-string Aussies couldn’t compete with the teams from the United States and Romania that dominated the Cup in the first years of the Open era.

Then, in 1973, contract pros were allowed back in. The U.S. was the defending champion, but in a fully open Davis Cup, there could be only one favorite.

In a tie that began on April 21st, Japan became the Aussies’ first victim. Armed with little other than home-court advantage, Jun Kamiwazumi and Toshiro Sakai took on Newcombe and Anderson, respectively. Both played better than expected; neither managed an upset. Kamiwazumi, the Japanese number one, was a particular surprise. He snatched the second set before Newk streaked back, taking 20 of 24 points to secure the third.

The next day, the Japanese doubles pairing of Kamiwazumi and Sakai targeted Geoff Masters, the Australian they considered to be the team’s weakest link. But there weren’t really any weak Aussies on the doubles court. Masters certainly belonged there, leading Newk to a straight-set victory, clinching the tie.

Reclaiming the Davis Cup would require victories in four rounds: The opening tie in Tokyo, the zonal final, an inter-zone semi-final against a European champion, and the final in December. While the Aussies took care of Japan, Vijay Amritraj and his Indian team swept past Pakistan, setting up an India-Australia clash for early May.

Newcombe looked ahead from the moment he stepped off the doubles court. The first words out of his mouth: “One down–three to go.”

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The End Goal of Tennis Analytics

I was about a thousand words into a meandering first draft when I realized that the ultimate goal of tennis analytics could be described simply:

The ability to quantify the impact of each individual shot, probably using camera-based player- and ball-tracking.

The purpose of every shot is to increase the odds of winning the point. (There are exceptions; you might hit a suboptimal shot to make a later shot harder to read or otherwise mislead your opponent.) Serves offer clear-cut examples. Carlos Alcaraz wins about 66% of his service points. If he hits an ace, that one shot increases his chances of winning the point from 66% to 100%, a swing of 34 percentage points. A missed first serve is worth -11 percentage points, as his chance of winning the point drops from 66% to 55%.

Shots that don’t end the point have a more modest effect than an ace, winner, or error. If you respond to a neutral forehand down the middle with a slightly more powerful forehand back down the middle, you might be upping your odds from 50% to 55%. If you run down a strong drop shot and just barely chip the ball back into play, your chances of winning the point might increase from 3% to 5%.

Point being: Each shot has some impact on the likely result of the point. If someone has, say, an above-average backhand, that will show up in these hypothetical numbers. Not every one of his backhands will move his single-point win probability in the right direction, but when we put them all together, we would be able to say that in a given match, his backhand was worth 1 point above average, or 2.5 points, or whatever else the sum of the individual impacts worked out to.

Shot-by-shot stats like these probably require camera-based ball and player tracking. We can come up with rough estimates using Match Charting Project data. (I’ve tried; results are mixed.) To get anything close to accurate measurements of win probability when a point is in progress, though, we need to know where each player is positioned as well as the progress of the ball.

Of course, the “end goal” of analytics differs depending on your own aims. If you are a player or coach, you want to know how to get better, or what tactics to use against your next opponent. These individual shot-impact stats wouldn’t identify mechanical flaws, but they would make it possible to isolate each individual type of shot at a very granular level–for instance, running backhands against left-handed forehands hit harder than 80 miles per hour. In terms of tactics, the benefits should be clear. The more detailed your understanding of an opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, the better your ability to tailor a game plan.

If you are a bettor, you are primarily concerned with predicting the future. A key component of that is to separate luck from skill. That’s the purpose of every sports stat with the word “expected” in it, from baseball’s xwOBA to soccer’s xG. Tennis doesn’t have much in the way of “x” stats because we generally don’t have access to underlying data that would allow an estimate of how many points each player “should” have won. Done correctly, “expected service points won” (call it xSPW) would be a better predictor of future results than the actual SPW we work with now.

Finally, if you’re a fan like me just hoping to better understand the game, these numbers would be a gold mine. Impressed by a “steal” when Andy Murray runs down a lob and hits a winner in return? How much better would it be to know exactly what his chances were of winning the point–and how it compared to his career bests? The next time Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev slug out a 20-stroke rally, wouldn’t it be fascinating to know exactly who had the edge at each stage, and which shots shifted the momentum?

Now imagine those numbers for every steal, every momentum shift, every rally. We would learn so much about each player’s skills and tendencies, far beyond the few examples I’ve given so far.

The possibilities are endless. Having these numbers, especially if they became available in real time, would transform the way we talk about the game. Every time a baseball player hits a home run, we immediately find out the exit velocity and launch angle–measurements that tell you just how well it was hit. The more we can talk about the details of fundamental skills athletes are asked to execute, the better we understand just how well or poorly they are playing. Top-level results like set scores and match wins are lagging indicators, not leading ones.

I don’t know how, when, or even if the tennis-loving public will get stats like these. But I get excited just thinking about it.

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April 17, 1973: Upsets Abound in Johannesburg

Tennis had a fraught relationship with apartheid-era South Africa, but it didn’t have much of a problem with South African money. At precisely the same time that South Africa made a controversial appearance in Davis Cup play in Montevideo, half of the top stars in the men’s game hopped on airplanes to take them from Brussels to Johannesburg. Just two weeks after their arrival in Europe, the men of World Championship Tennis’s Group A were swapping continents again.

Lamar Hunt’s WCT circuit was on the hook for six-figure prize money guarantees for many of its big-name players. The South African metropolis offered a $50,000 pot at the Clows Classic. No matter that the traditional tour stop in Monte Carlo took place at the same time and would have made for a much more sensible journey from Belgium. That event was outside of Hunt’s orbit, so the gang crossed the equator instead.

There was little, if any, concern about what the trip represented. Arthur Ashe was the only Black player of note in men’s tennis. He was–conveniently enough–part of the other half of the WCT troupe, which spent the week in Charlotte, North Carolina. He didn’t have to worry about South Africa’s racist immigration policy or, if they let him in, grapple with whether he should go. Rod Laver didn’t play, but he was clearly struggling with a back injury. Protesters around the world were outraged when South African teams arrived in their countries for a visit, but there was much less argument when American and European stars made a quick jaunt to Jo’burg for a paycheck.

That didn’t mean the 5,500-mile detour was easy. Immediately upon arrival, the seeds began to fall. Stan Smith, riding a 20-match win streak, went on court 18 hours after his plane touched down. 19 hours after arrival, he was out of the tournament, a 6-2, 6-2 victim of Puerto Rican veteran Charlie Pasarell.

Pasarell was more famous for his marathons. In 1968 at the US National Indoors, he and Ron Holmberg lost a six-and-a-half-hour doubles match. A year later, he nearly upset Richard González in the Wimbledon first round, falling in a five-hour duel of big servers, 22–24, 1–6, 16–14, 6–3, 11–9. He was named the top-ranked American in 1967, but by 1973, he was essentially a journeyman, more likely to last to the weekend in doubles than in singles.

On the first day of play in Johannesburg, he served as well as ever. Smith was “tired and listless,” double-faulting away the final point of the match.

Fatigue got to some other stars, too. Fourth seed Roy Emerson and fifth seed Dick Stockton also lost on opening day. Cliff Drysdale, the top-ranked South African, managed just five games against Rhodesian Andrew Pattison. None of the top ten seeds would even reach the semi-finals. Even Pasarell didn’t last another round.

The lackluster play probably wasn’t any kind of protest against apartheid, but it was still a kind of statement. After the Johannesburg event was over, the troupe would make a U-turn, playing the following week in Gothenburg, Sweden. And the tournament that the top men really cared about–the WCT Finals in Dallas–was only a few weeks away. Contractual obligations prevented men like Smith, Laver, and Emerson from taking a break. The only way to get a breather was to lose early.

It was a long season. No one would scoff at the $10,000 winner’s check, but compared to the laurels available over the next few months, the prestige of a title at the Clows Classic was a sacrifice worth making.

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April 15, 1973: A Wake-Up Call From India

Australia did not take the 1973 Davis Cup campaign lightly. The lads from Down Under had watched the trophy go to the United States for five years running, the longest Australian drought since the 1930s.

1973 promised to be different. While tennis went Open in 1968, the Davis Cup did not. The International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) banned contract professionals from the competition, leaving a Murderer’s Row of Australians–Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, John Newcombe, and more–on the sidelines. The ILTF finally came to its senses and dropped the exclusion in 1973. The Aussie stars were getting old, and they weren’t about to let this first opportunity slip by.

Captain Neale Fraser got his squad together well in advance of their opening Eastern Zone tie, a tilt hosted by Japan starting on April 20th. En route, the Australian stopped in Hong Kong for the National Hardcourt Championships. Laver and Rosewall were committed to pro events elsewhere, but Fraser’s group was still the class of the Hong Kong event. Newcombe was there, joined by veteran Mal Anderson, former Wimbledon quarter-finalist John Cooper, and doubles stalwart Geoff Masters.

Hong Kong was supposed to be a warmup–both a confidence-builder and an opportunity for Fraser to get a final look at his charges.

Instead, it turned into the Vijay Amritraj show. The 19-year-old Indian had Davis Cup aspirations of his own, and he was rapidly developing into his country’s best player. The year before, he had spent two weeks in Las Vegas working on his serve with none other than his idol, Richard González.

In the quarter-finals, Amritraj upset Anderson, the 1957 US National champion and a likely singles player for Fraser’s side. In the semis, as Cooper knocked out Newcombe in a five-setter, Amritraj beat Masters in a marathon of his own. Finally, on April 15th, Vijay went another five sets, taking advantage of eight net-cord winners to beat Cooper and complete his set of Australian Davis Cup scalps.

Amritraj’s title was worth $3,000, just short of his entire 1972 haul of $3,500.

The Aussies had reason to worry: Assuming they beat Japan, they would likely face Vijay and company in the Eastern Zone final. The tie would be hosted by India, in Amritraj’s hometown of Madras.

Fraser managed to put a positive spin on the Australian oh-fer. “I am not really upset by their losses,” he told The Age. “It’s probably a blessing in disguise. Firstly the boys may have tended to take the Indians too lightly, but now Mal has been beaten by Vijay, they realize it won’t be easy in India if we beat Japan.”

Then he called ahead to Tokyo. His boys were arriving soon, and he needed to make sure that practice courts were booked and ready.

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Elsewhere this week:

Billie Jean King quickly recovered her form after a one-month layoff, but not enough to beat Margaret Court. In Quincy, Court added yet another title to her 1973 haul with a 6-2, 6-4, 59-minute victory over Billie Jean.
On the rival USLTA circuit, Evonne Goolagong played some of the best tennis of her season, reaching the final in Miami Beach. She lost only five games in four matches. But it still wasn’t enough to topple Chris Evert, who beat Evonne for the fourth time in a row in the final.
Ken Rosewall, the “old man” of the circuit, picked up his second title in a row with a straight-set win over Roger Taylor in Cleveland. His backhand passing shots, always his bread and butter, were in top form.
Stan Smith continued to roll, winning in Brussels for his fourth consecutive title. Even sweeter, it was his third straight victory against Rod Laver. Laver was slowed by a back injury, and the American reeled off three sets in just 80 minutes.

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