History – Page 2 – Heavy Topspin

December 4, 1973: Interest Revived

*Tom Gorman at the 1973 Davis Cup Finals*

Pity poor Tom Gorman. Two days after a five-set loss to Rod Laver in the 1973 Davis Cup finals, the 27-year-old American was blown off the court by John Newcombe in a dead rubber. Two days after that, he opened play at the Grand Prix Masters in Boston, the distant eighth seed in an eight-man field.

Gorman had barely made the cut, securing his place in the draw with a title run in Stockholm a month earlier. As if to underscore his long-shot status, his first assignment in Boston was a round-robin match against Grand Prix leader and defending champion Ilie Năstase, who had beaten him in 16 of 17 previous meetings. In their latest encounter, when Gorman unexpectedly reached the semi-finals of the French Open, Năstase allowed him just eight games in three sets.

One could forgive the Seattle native for admitting that he had “no interest in this even at all.”

Yet on the morning of December 4th, Gorman woke up eager, realizing he had nothing to lose. Pity poor Năstase. Or don’t: It was a typical “mercurial” performance from the Romanian, who unexpectedly found himself battling an opponent in peak form, then came up with an excuse for his lack of a response.

Gorman saved break point for 3-all in the first set, when Năstase claimed that someone in the crowd called him a “bum.” The American didn’t hear anything, but he took advantage of his distracted foe, reeling off ten straight points and grabbing the first set. Năstase, who hurled far worse slurs at officials on a regular basis, later claimed that he “couldn’t play” after being mildly heckled. However flimsy the explanation, it holds up: His serve fell apart in the second set and he stumbled to a 6-4, 6-1 loss.

That, for the American, was the good news. The bad news was that his next assignment was a second match in four days against Newcombe. Newk had arrived in Boston as engaged as Gorman had been detached. While Năstase fumbled, the mustachioed Australian dominated Jan Kodeš, winning 11 of the last 13 games for his own 6-4, 6-1 victory. Newcombe at his best was perhaps the most fearsome force in tennis. Gorman’s path to an unlikely triumph in Boston wasn’t about to get any easier.

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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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December 1, 1973: Sweep

After twelve months of play around the world, the 1973 Davis Cup came to an end in 66 minutes.

The Australians entered the second day of the final tie, on December 1st, with a two-nothing lead over the United States. American hopes fell to the doubles team of Stan Smith and Erik van Dillen, the country’s best player and its most skillful doubles specialist. Van Dillen was known to be erratic, but at crucial moments–including the 1972 Cup final in Bucharest–he had outshone the much bigger names with whom he shared the court.

The Americans expected to face a pairing of John Newcombe and Ken Rosewall. Instead, the Aussies threw a curveball, sending out Newcombe with Rod Laver, despite the fact that Laver was 35 years old and both men had played more than three hours the previous day. Captain Neale Fraser had been considering using the duo for more than a month; he had suggested the two men team up for the Australian Indoors in November. They did, and they won the title. Newcombe had partnered Tony Roche to ten grand slam titles, and he liked sharing the court with a left-hander.

Rosewall was disappointed to be left out: His professional status had kept him from competing in Davis Cup matches since 1956, and at 39 years old, he knew this might be his last chance. Fraser didn’t take the decision lightly, and by the end of the day, no one was going to second-guess him.

Newcombe served well, and Laver served better. The Americans didn’t earn a single break point, stumbling their way to a 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 defeat. It was the worst doubles loss for the United States in the history of Davis Cup play, and it secured the trophy for the visitors.

“I think it’s the best I’ve played in doubles,” said the usually modest Laver. American captain Dennis Ralston said he’d only seen the Rocket play so well once before–and that was several years earlier in a singles match.

Smith had few answers, and van Dillen had even fewer. Sports Illustrated called the specialist’s play “out-and-out lousy.” Van Dillen didn’t argue, but he didn’t think a better performance would’ve changed the outcome. “I think if I had had eight arms we might not have won,” he said. “You get out there and find it’s tough that your best shots are coming back at you better than they left.”

Aussies exploded in excitement and relief, both in Cleveland and back home. They had waited six years to reclaim the most prestigious trophy in tennis. Laver had sat out the competition for more than a decade. While Davis Cup was no longer the be-all and end-all of the sport–as evidenced by the half-full stadium and non-traditional indoor venue–it had always been particularly treasured Down Under.

Stan Smith was a traditionalist, too, an American who would put his national team ahead of personal interests even when younger countrymen did not. As soon as Laver won his final service game to put the match on ice, Smith headed for the net to congratulate his opponents. “Well,” he told them, “it looks like we go Australia next year.”

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November 30, 1973: Pure Talent

*John Newcombe (left) with Australian Davis Cup captain Neale Fraser*

The home fans seemed to know what was coming. The 1973 Davis Cup final, pitting the United States against Australia, was hosted in Cleveland, Ohio, the site of several recent international competitions, many of them attended by full houses of enthusiastic supporters.

On day one of the tie, which featured four of the best players on the planet, Cleveland’s Public Hall was half-empty. Certainly the Cup meant less to Americans than it did back in Australia: The US squad had held the trophy since 1968, while the Aussies hadn’t fallen short for so many consecutive years since before World War II. The matches were broadcast by satellite Down Under, and untold thousands of fans dragged themselves out of bed at five o’clock in the morning to see the first ball struck.

Stan Smith, the star of the US side, didn’t complain about the lackluster crowd. The previous year, his team had overcome hostile crowds, biased officials, and soggy clay in Bucharest. “The only condition against us here,” he said in Cleveland, “is pure talent.”

On November 30th, Smith kicked off the tie against US Open champion John Newcombe, proving that there was plenty of talent on both benches. The opening rubber could hardly have been any closer. Newcombe built a two-sets-to-one lead and led by a break in the fourth, when Smith chanced into a mis-hit return lob winner that brought him back even. The fifth set was a roller-coaster, with the returner taking a lead in eight of ten games, five of which went to deuce. Two overrules forced crucial points to be replayed, and Newcombe won both. Those near-misses, combined with a net-cord winner that gave the Australian match point, were the extent of the difference. In three hours and one minute, Newk pulled out the decision, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4.

The second match pitted Rod Laver against 27-year-old Tom Gorman. Gorman had sat out the semi-final against Romania, yielding his place to the veteran Marty Riessen. American captain Dennis Ralston felt that Gorman had the higher peak level of the two. (Ralston had also declined to call upon Arthur Ashe or Cliff Richey, two contract professionals who were technically ineligible for Davis Cup competition, but whom Australia had said they would allow to play.)

Gorman did indeed produce some of his best tennis, outplaying Laver for three sets before Rocket–probably the best come-from-behind player in the history of the game–discovered his own. Gorman took a hard-fought first set, 10-8, conceded the second, 6-8, and regained the lead in the third, 8-6. Only then did Laver fully let loose. By the fifth set, the 35-year-old was in control, breaking at love to open the frame and breaking again in the third game on the way to a 6-1 deciding set.

In seventy-plus years of Davis Cup play, only one team had ever come back from a two-love deficit in the final round, and that was Australia, who had overcome Bobby Riggs and the United States in 1939. Newcombe was in top form–Smith said he had never seen his opponent play better–Laver was revitalized, and no less of an alternate than Ken Rosewall was ready on the bench. The crowd in Cleveland was subdued, and it was easy to see why.

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November 26, 1973: A Mile In My Shoes

For Arthur Ashe, South Africa didn’t hold any big surprises. At the end of his trip in November of 1973, he told reporters that everything he had read about the country was “accurate enough.” Now, he could only reflect on a whirlwind week in which he accumulated as much first-hand experience of the apartheid nation as he could.

Alas, the tennis went more or less as expected, too. In front of large and adoring crowds at Johannesburg’s Ellis Park, Arthur blasted through the draw, winning four straight matches in straight sets to reach the final round. Particularly satisfying must have been his quarterfinal defeat of Bob Hewitt, who had told him that in South Africa, the blacks were “happy.”

The fans wanted to see Ashe go all the way. It certainly would have made for a better story. But Jimmy Connors, the brash, hard-hitting left-hander, had other ideas. The two men had met for the title at the U.S. Pro in Boston back in July, when Connors pulled out a victory in five sets. The 21-year-old had picked up two titles since the US Open and had already locked up a spot at the year-end Masters; Ashe needed the title here to overtake Tom Gorman for the last place in the eight-man field.

On November 26th, Connors was simply untouchable. His kick serves seemed to defy gravity, his groundstrokes skimmed the baseline, and his passing shots left Ashe helpless at the net. One reporter described it as “the peak of his game.” Arthur, still processing his visit to Soweto the previous day, didn’t stand a chance. It was another straight-set decision, only this one in favor of Connors, 6-4, 7-6, 6-3.

Ashe had some consolation: He and Tom Okker advanced to the doubles final with a five-set win over Hewitt and Frew McMillan. The next day, Ashe and Okker would pick up the title by beating Lew Hoad and Bob Maud.

Having missed his last chance to crack the Masters field, Ashe called it quits on his season. He planned to spend much of his time preparing a report on his historic trip, which he didn’t expect others to readily understand. “You would have to walk a mile in my shoes here,” he said, “to be able to know how I feel about it.”

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November 25, 1973: Play On

Tennis never had an official offseason. The global nature of the sport ensured there was always some place to play: Australia in December and January, the French Riviera or the Caribbean (or indoors!) in February and March, then Europe and North America straight through to September or October. Individual athletes could take time off, and many did. But there was never a true break.

The schedule became even more crowded in the early 1970s as promoters seized the opportunities of the Open era and the ensuing tennis boom. Circuits in the United States hit the gas in January and didn’t ease up until May. New destinations such as Japan to Iran plugged gaps in the fall. If a marquee name somehow ended up with a free date, an exhibition could be arranged anywhere from Hawaii to Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin.

On November 25th, 1973, Arthur Ashe had a day off in Johannesburg ahead of his final against Jimmy Connors. He gave a clinic in the township of Soweto, earning legions of new fans and expanding his horizons still further on his historic trip.

Ashe and Connors, it seemed, were the only stars not in action on this day, eleven months after they kicked off their 1973 campaigns. Elsewhere on the 25th:

Rosie Casals beat Billie Jean King for the title at the Lady Baltimore tournament, a charity benefit for, among other beneficiaries, the Medical Eye Bank of Maryland. Both women showed signs of rust, but Rosie’s intensity was hardly dimmed. Angered by a pair of bad calls in the third set, she loudly asked if the linesman had recently donated to the eye bank.
In Buenos Aires, home favorite Guillermo Vilas outlasted Björn Borg for the title at the Argentine Open. The duel had the makings of a classic as it headed to a fourth-set tiebreak with Vilas leading two sets to one. But Borg injured his hand and called it a day. It was the first meeting between the pair, who would face off more than 20 times before the end of the decade, including twice for the French Open title.
Remarkably, that wasn’t the only victory Vilas tallied that day without winning a match point. He and countryman Ricardo Cano had split sets with Ion Țiriac and Jean-Baptiste Chanfreau, the score standing 4-6, 7-5, 3-2 in favor of the latter, when the umpire changed a call that had initially gone against the Argentinians. Țiriac stormed off, handing the semi-final to Vilas and Cano by default.
Jiří Hřebec proved that his Davis Cup heroics were no fluke by winning the South Australian Championships in Adelaide. It was his second title in a month–and his second ever. The 23-year-old Czechoslovakian continued to get help from his teammates: His opponent in the final, Bob Giltinan, was exhausted after a five-setter the previous day against Jan Kodeš. Hřebec won in four.
Even with the 1973 Davis Cup still in play, the 1974 competition was gaining steam. On the 25th, Mexico wrapped up a preliminary-round defeat of Canada, while Colombia edged out Venezuela. Canada was already contesting its second tie for the ’74 Cup; they had beaten the Caribbean/West Indies team in October. Mexico and Colombia would play in December, with the winner advancing to challenge the United States in January.
At the Port Washington Tennis Academy in New York–the training facility run by legendary Australian coach Harry Hopman–several national indoor champions were minted in the 14-and-under and 12-and-under categories. The match of the day decided the 12s title, which Californian Kelly Henry lost in three sets to an astonishing ten-year-old backboard named Tracy Austin.

The stars who weren’t in Johannesburg (or Adelaide, or Baltimore, or Buenos Aires, or Mexico City) were practicing hard. The Davis Cup final was only a few days away, with the Grand Prix Masters to follow. After that, maybe a week or two at home, and the whole cycle would begin again.

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November 22, 1973: Expected Points

Chris Evert played a lot of tennis in her home state of Florida, but at the end of 1973, she had to travel all the way to South Africa to establish her supremacy over Evonne Goolagong and the rest of the Grand Prix field.

For two months, Evert had held a modest lead in the Grand Prix points standings, a table based on the results of the season’s sanctioned tournaments. A lot hung on the word “sanctioned.” The Grand Prix was organized in part to help traditional events attract stars and fend off competition from World Championship Tennis and the Virginia Slims tour, so results from those upstart circuits didn’t count. Goolagong had made a late push by reaching the US Open final, together with titles at the Canadian Open and in Charlotte, where Evert had withdrawn due to illness.

The only Grand Prix event on the ladies’ calendar in the last quarter of 1973 was the South African Open. Goolagong was the defending champion; if she won the title again and Chrissie stayed home, the Australian would claim the Grand Prix crown and its $23,750 bonus. (The runner-up would collect a healthy consolation prize of $16,250.)

Airfare from Florida to Johannesburg wasn’t cheap, but with $7,500 on the line–not to mention another $6,000 for the South African title–it would be foolish to stay home.

On November 22nd, Evert justified the journey. By defeating 17-year-old local Ilana Kloss in the quarter-finals, she secured enough points to put the Grand Prix laurels out of reach, even if Goolagong defended her crown.

It wasn’t easy. Even though Evert hadn’t lost a set since Margaret Court beat her at the US Open and the Floridian won her first two matches in Jo’burg without the loss of a single game, Kloss came out fighting. Under the lights at Ellis Park, the left-handed Kloss pushed Evert behind the baseline and relentlessly attacked the net. She took the first set, 6-2, and after dropping the second, she grabbed an early break in the third. Only at 4-all in the third set did Evert find the form that had won her 84 matches and 10 titles since February. The American won 8 of the last 9 points to advance, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Chrissie was officially the queen of 1973, even if her title came with an enormous asterisk. The dominant player of the season was Court, who won three of the four majors as well as just about every other tournament she entered. But most of those events were on the Slims circuit, while Evert and Goolagong piled up points on the weaker spring junket sponsored by the USLTA. Even without entering many of the Grand Prix-affiliated tournaments, Court finished third on the league table. Bonus money was contingent on participation, though, so the $12,500 third-place check went instead to Virginia Wade, and Court would have to settle for her existing season haul of just over $200,000.

Still, Evert’s star was on the rise. She had reached two major finals, beaten Court at Wimbledon, and led the season series with Goolagong. Few would have questioned her status as the world’s top player on clay. Court and Billie Jean King wouldn’t be around forever, but promoters had little to worry about. With Chris and the wildly popular Evonne holding sway, the game was in good hands.

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November 20, 1973: Good Use

*Arthur Ashe on his 1973 South Africa trip*

Getting the job done between the lines was the easy part. On November 20th, 1973, Arthur Ashe made his first-ever appearance on a South African tennis court, straight-setting a fellow American, Sherwood Stewart.

1973 marked a watershed for the South African Open, as it did in the nation’s sporting scene as a whole. The government loosened its apartheid policies on athletics, if only slightly, by allowing a handful of dark-skinned visitors and permitting a limited amount of interracial competition. The headliners were Bob Foster–an American heavyweight who would fight South African Pierre Fourie in Johannesburg in December–and Ashe.

“Sports is the Achilles’ heel of South Africa,” Ashe said. “Now, I know the government is using me, but I’m using it, too.”

Foster was unabashedly mercenary in his aims. The $200,000 he picked up for the bout was his only interest. He holed up in a hotel room for the duration of his stay, and though he defeated Fourie, he left the country less of a hero to the black population than he had been when he arrived.

Ashe, on the other hand, barely left himself any time for tennis. He met with everyone from local activists to the national Minister of Sports and Recreation. The situation was more complicated than international newspapers made it out to be: Most whites welcomed him (though some admitted they didn’t believe in racial equality), while some blacks objected to his visit, believing it gave credibility to an illegitimate government.

Some things, however, were clear. “It is amazing how few people realize what South Africa really is,” Ashe told Frank Deford, a Sports Illustrated staffer who tagged along. “It is a police state. The greatest, most influential variable here is fear. Wherever I go I see that everybody is afraid.”

The entire trip was, fundamentally, a negotiation. Ashe believed in engagement and recognized that compromise was inevitable. One of the terms he set for his visit was integrated seating at the tennis stadium, and he quickly discovered that his hosts would only go so far. (Tournament director and doubles whiz Owen Williams was stuck in the middle: He may have done more negotiating than anyone.) Some black spectators were given tickets to traditional whites-only area of the grandstand, but the “blacks-only” section remained. Ashe kept most of his gripes to himself, and before leaving the country, he was persuaded to tone down his official statement.

Perhaps all of the off-court contortions turned the tennis itself into an escape. In other circumstances, the pressure would have mounted as Arthur progressed through the draw: He was within shouting distance of a place in the eight-man field at the season-ending Grand Prix Masters, and a title here would push him over the line.

No matter the result, the growing crowds and nationwide adulation meant that Ashe would leave South Africa in triumph. He knew, as well as anyone, the limits of influencing social policy through sport. But his trip represented incremental progress, a step that only Arthur Ashe could have taken.

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November 18, 1973: Cleveland-Bound

When 23-year-old Jiří Hřebec arrived in Australia for the 1973 Davis Cup semi-final, he was coming off the best win of his career: a five-set triumph in Prague over his countryman, Cup teammate, and idol Jan Kodeš. He followed it up–albeit after a three-week break–with another career highlight, an upset win in Melbourne over reigning US Open champion John Newcombe.

Going into that match, Hřebec said, he gave himself a 30 percent chance of winning. That’s confidence for you: Few of the 11,000-plus fans at Kooyong would have given the unknown Czech so much as a 3 percent shot. Yet in four focused sets, the youngster knocked out one of the best players in the game to even up the Davis Cup tie at one rubber apiece.

The Aussies came through a grueling doubles match the next day, and the no-longer anonymous Hřebec was on the hot seat again. On November 18th, he faced none other than Rod Laver in an elimination match. If Laver won, Australia would advance to play the United States for the trophy. If Hřebec pulled off another miracle, the tie would come down to a decider between Newcombe and Kodeš.

On paper, it was a near-guarantee for the lads from Down Under. Hřebec refused to see it that way.

In a tight first set, the Czech made the first move, breaking in the 11th game for a 7-5 opener. He eased up a bit to start the second, and the wily Laver pounced. The 35-year-old Rocket had played seven sets in the previous two days, but he had enough energy to secure two more in succession, 6-3 and 6-4. Hřebec’s game was, according to the Melbourne Age, “not quite so exciting or brilliant” as it had been against Newk, but he didn’t back down, taking the fourth set 6-4.

Once again, Laver immediately seized the advantage after his opponent won a set. In the decider, he broke in the first game and ran out to a 5-2 lead. Hřebec, however, just wouldn’t give up. He needed just five points to break back, then held serve for 5-4. The Australian crowd couldn’t help but cheer on the underdog. Even when Laver took the tenth game to a 40-0 lead and triple match point, Hřebec lashed a cross-court forehand to wrong-foot the Aussie, then came up with one of the best shots of the match, a diving drop-volley that left him sprawled on the ground.

Only then did Rocket fire off an unreturnable serve and complete the victory, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4.

Laver was unique in the admiration he inspired from opponents. Hřebec declined to speak to the press–his English wasn’t good and besides, it was Australia’s day–but he provided a written statement: “[T]o play the tennis that Laver played today under that sort of pressure was magnificent.”

As for Hřebec, he had turned in his third consecutive career highlight. Never again would an Aussie underestimate him.

Australia had waited a long time to return to the Davis Cup finals. Laver hadn’t played for his country since 1962; Ken Rosewall, incredibly, hadn’t been eligible to suit up since 1956. The competition maintained a ban on “contract” professionals, players who received an annual guarantee from the World Championship Tennis circuit. The restriction had severely limited the pool of Davis Cup players since 1968, but as the economics of the game shifted, stars stopped signing long-term deals and competed strictly for prize money. Laver’s and Rosewall’s contracts had each run out before the 1973 campaign.

After five years in the Davis Cup wilderness due to what it viewed as an unreasonable rule, Australia wanted to win it the right way. Two of the few remaining contract pros, Arthur Ashe and Cliff Richey, were Americans, and both were strong enough to merit a place on the United States squad had they been eligible. Immediately after Newcombe polished off his dead rubber against Kodeš, team captain Neale Fraser invited the Americans to use anyone they wished, including Ashe or Richey.

In two days, the Aussies departed for Cleveland, Ohio, to begin their preparations for the last hurdle. The Davis Cup had, for decades, been the defining competition of the sport of tennis, and no country had mastered it like Australia. The 1973 championship round would, for the first time in years, pit the best against the very best. Laver, revitalized after a frustrating season, was ready to lead one final charge.

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November 17, 1973: Tears of a Clown

A sense of humor, Tom Okker might have pointed out, was overrated.

Ilie Năstase, clown nonpareil and probably the most talented tennis player on earth, was seemingly incapable of staying serious for long. Some of his best performances came against buddy Jimmy Connors, who was happy to joke around as well. Facing a dour opponent like Okker or Stan Smith, however, the Romanian looked to the crowd for approval, forgetting that style didn’t count toward the final score.

Năstase reached the final of the 1973 Dewar Cup at London’s Royal Albert Hall with a glittering, final-set-tiebreak victory over Connors. On November 17th, battling Okker in the championship match, the magic was gone. His legions of teenage British fans adored him regardless of the outcome, and he didn’t seem to care too much either.

Okker, the “Flying Dutchman” and second place in the Grand Prix points race, was one of the few puzzles Năstase couldn’t solve. The two men had played five times already in 1973, and Okker had won three of them. Perhaps the Romanian was tired: London was his 38th week of the year in competition. But, as Lance Tingay pointed out in the Daily Telegraph, the Dutchman had played nearly as much.

The first set was a 6-3 breeze for Okker, marred only by his opponent’s usual antics. In the fifth game, Năstase gestured with his left arm while waiting to connect with a smash, apparently indicating where he planned to hit the ball. Okker protested that it was a distraction, but the umpire didn’t think it was worth a penalty. Indeed, by Năstase’s abrasive standards, it barely merited any notice at all.

The Romanian ran off four of the first five games in the second set, and he came within one point of a 5-1 advantage. But there, Tingay wrote, “his talents died.” Okker’s down-the-line passing shots hit the mark again and again, and Năstase didn’t win another game. Oddly enough for a consensus number-one player, Ilie found himself flummoxed by a challenger. “I can’t beat Okker,” he said after the match.

The victory was worth £3,000, and the title went a long way toward securing even more for the Dutchman in the Grand Prix race. Second place in the season-long competition was worth £15,000, while the third-place finisher earned £11,000. (Năstase had already clinched the £22,000 first prize.) Okker started the week with a five-and-a-half point lead over John Newcombe, and Newk’s loss the day before to Jiří Hřebec in the Davis Cup semi-final meant that he couldn’t match Okker’s 40-point Dewar Cup haul. Both men would have just one more shot to pad their totals: Okker at the South African Open, and Newcombe in the Davis Cup final, if Australia got that far.

Newk’s window had yet to close: Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall won the doubles rubber to give the Aussies a 2-1 edge against Czechoslovakia. But catching the Dutchman was never easy. Unlike his most familiar foe, Okker wasn’t one to beat himself.

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November 16, 1973: Form Horses

Pundits have always said that Davis Cup isn’t about the chalk: the pressure of the international event is such that you can throw the usual rankings, forecasts, and odds out the window. Anyone, regardless of stature, can step up and deliver a big win for his country.

When Australia met Czechoslovakia in the 1973 Davis Cup semi-finals, both captains took a chance. Aussie honcho Neale Fraser picked the in-form Rod Laver over the steadier Ken Rosewall–admittedly, a choice most captains would have killed to make. Czechoslovakia’s leader, Antonin Bolardt, took a bigger gamble, leaving hard-hitting veteran Vladimír Zedník on the bench in favor of Jiří Hřebec, a 23-year-old who had won just eight career matches on grass.

Rosewall understood Fraser’s decision. He acknowledged that Laver and John Newcombe were the “form horses,” and Rocket had beaten him just a few days previously. By choosing Hřebec, Bolardt went all-in on recent results: The youngster had beaten his countryman, Wimbledon champion Jan Kodeš, in a five-set match just before departing for Australia.

On November 16th, both captains looked like geniuses. Laver straight-setted Kodeš 6-3, 7-5, 7-5, in a match defined by stellar serving, questionable line calls, and bad bounces on the Kooyong turf. Both players frequently appealed to the umpire, and several points were replayed. Kodeš seemed to attribute the outcome to poor officiating, but in truth, Laver was in control of every aspect of the match. “I haven’t served so well in years,” said the Rocket.

Fraser was surprised to see Hřebec’s name on the lineup card. “I immediately reckoned that was two rubbers to Australia,” he said. The press box was even more baffled, as reporters couldn’t agree on the pronunciation of his name. It was “Yearie Schebetz,” clarified Rod Humphries of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Three of the biggest servers in the game–Laver, Newcombe, and Zedník–were in the stadium. Yet Hřebec turned in the day’s star performance from the line. He overpowered an inconsistent Newk to win the first set, 6-4, and held on in the second through 16 games before the Australian took it, 10-8.

One-set all, packed house, Davis Cup pressure: This was where experience should have told. Instead, the youngster kept cool and relied on the support of his teammates. “Whenever Newk got close,” said Fraser, “Hřebec would pull out a tremendous shot.” Often it was an unreturnable serve: He tallied 14 aces in the match. Newcombe couldn’t turn the tide, and the unheralded Czech finished the job, 6-4, 7-5.

The tie was suddenly a whole lot more complicated, and both captains would have restless nights. Should the visitors ride Hřebec’s form in the doubles and leave Zedník on the bench? Should Fraser bring in Rosewall in place of a fatigued Laver or an unsteady Newk? The semi-final was supposed to be an Aussie rout, but after the first day of play, it was clear that for either captain, one bad decision could be the end of his nation’s Davis Cup hopes.

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