Heavy Topspin – Page 14 – The Tennis Abstract blog

July 20, 1973: Replacement Players

Italy and Spain began their 1973 Davis Cup campaigns with a shot at going deep. The two Mediterranean strongholds could line up with quality pairs of singles players, even if neither one boasted a world-beating star like Romania’s Ilie Năstase or the USA’s Stan Smith.

Back in May, the Italian duo of Adriano Panatta and Paolo Bertolucci steamrolled Bulgaria, dropping just one set in five matches. The same weekend, Spanish stalwarts Manuel Orantes and Andrés Gimeno overcame Sweden. While the result looked close on paper–the Swedes won two of five rubbers–Orantes set the tone with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-1 drubbing of Björn Borg in the first match.

Those two victories set up Italy and Spain for a semi-final clash. But when the sides met in Turin, beginning on July 20th, Panatta and Bertolucci were missing. Orantes and Gimeno were out of action, as well.

The roster shuffles could be traced back to another Davis Cup tie that took place during that weekend in May. Niki Pilić didn’t make himself available for Yugoslavia, and six weeks of maneuvering later, scores of top men boycotted Wimbledon. Some national federations threatened to retaliate, but most settled on inaction. The newly-united players could make or break tournaments, so there was no use poking the bear any further.

The federations in Spain and Italy, however, insisted on one last flex. During the first week of Wimbledon, the Italians announced that Panatta and Bertolucci–who took part in the ATP boycott–would be suspended for three months. That took them out of the Davis Cup tie and effectively handed the semi-final to Spain.

Except Spain responded with a footgun of their own. The Spaniards suspended Orantes, Gimeno, and Antonio Muñoz for “disobedience of the norms dictated by this federation.” Everybody knew what that meant.

Less clear was who, exactly, would contest that European Zone semi-final. The answers would have been comical had the stakes not been so high.

Suiting up for Spain was 36-year-old Manolo Santana, a former Wimbledon champion who had barely competed in three years. He faced Italy’s second-stringer, 20-year-old Corrado Barazzutti. Barazzutti had a promising career ahead of him, but he had yet to demonstrate much of that potential. He came into the tie on a four-match losing streak and still sought his first quarter-final at a top-level event. Santana, though, was a shadow of his former self. The youngster came out on top in four sets.

The second tie was even more anonymous. Antonio Zugarelli, a 23-year-old Italian best known for upsetting Tom Gorman a month earlier in Rome, took on the 20-year-old Spaniard Jose Higueras. Higueras, even more than Barazzutti, was a prospect to watch. But he had far less experience, especially outside of his native country. Zugarelli took advantage of the novice to give Italy a straight-set victory and a 2-0 lead.

There was no way back for Spain’s ragtag squad. Higueras teamed with Juan Gisbert to grab the doubles rubber, but he lost another straight-setter to Barazzutti on the final day of the series. Italy’s replacement players handily outplayed their Spanish counterparts.

The irony of Italy’s victory is that they would be so much weaker in the next round, the European Zone final. The Spanish federation had suspended its ATP members for a month–just enough for the one Davis Cup tie. The Italian federation had punished Panatta and Bertolucci by keeping them out for three–so long that they wouldn’t be eligible for the final, either.

Barazzutti and Zugarelli, the unlikely heroes of Turin, would have their work cut out for them.

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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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July 19, 1973: Equal Prize Money

The Women’s Tennis Association was barely four weeks old, and it had already delivered a blow to the prevailing men-first attitude around the sport.

On July 19th, US Open tournament chairman Bill Talbert announced that the 1973 event would be the first-ever major to offer equal prize money to men and women. In 1972, women’s champ Billie Jean King received $10,000 to men’s titlist Ilie Năstase’s $25,000. This year, both winners would get $25,000.

The total prize pot was a record $227,200, and it would be split equally between the genders. Making the difference was a new sponsor, Ban deodorant, which kicked in $55,000. “We feel that the women’s game is equally as exciting and entertaining as the men’s,” said a representative of Bristol-Myers, Ban’s parent company. “We hope that our direct involvement with the 1973 US Open clearly indicates our positive position on behalf of women in sports.”

Talbert agreed. He suggested that the women’s game offered higher-quality rallies, while too many men copied superstar serve-and-volleyers without learning proper groundstrokes to support their attacking game.

If anyone complained about the new reward structure, Talbert said, “I’ll just tell the men to go out and sell their product better.”

First and foremost, the announcement marked an enormous step for King and her WTA brethren. “Thank goodness for Billie Jean King,” said Chris Evert.

Along a different dimension, the Ban “sports grant” signaled how far pro tennis had come in just five years. Gladys Heldman and the initial group of women’s contract pros had recognized from the beginning that female fans and recreational players were an untapped market, and they sold that vision to corporate sponsors like Philip Morris. Talbert was probably right about the quality of the the women’s game, but in another way, it didn’t matter. Ban, and now the US Open itself, understood that prize money was much more than an enticement for top players. Bristol-Myers wasn’t just a purveyor of quality antiperspirants. The company sought to represent a vision of the future.

Jack Kramer, the longtime promoter and now co-founder of the ATP, was slow to learn that lesson. He later wrote that he found another sponsor for the men, as well. To use Talbert’s phrase, the men did sell their product better, thanks to Kramer. But the Open declined the additional money. The tournament decided it was better to offer equal prizes–and align itself with a certain set of values–than to extend the already record sums on offer to half the field.

On this historic occasion, reporters couldn’t help but reach out to Bobby Riggs. The 55-year-old vanquisher of Margaret Court wired back, “I am leaving immediately for Denmark for an operation.” He was talking about a sex change, his chauvinistic way of acknowledging what he had long since figured out: There was an awful lot of money in women’s tennis.

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July 16, 1973: The Ninth Maccabiah

*An Israeli stamp commemorating the 1973 Maccabiah Games*

In 1973, tennis was still not an Olympic sport. It hadn’t featured as a full medal discipline since 1924, and its appearance as a demonstration sport in 1968 had yet to bear fruit. The original break in the 1920s was due to differing definitions of professionalism. By the early 1970s, the sport and the Games were further apart than ever. Stars could rake in sums of money that watered the eyes of promoters and offended the amateur sensibilities of the Olympic movement.

Tennis, however, had long been a staple at the Maccabiah Games, the quadrennial “Jewish Olympics.” Dick Savitt, the 1951 Wimbledon champion from New Jersey, won medals at the event. Tom Okker of the Netherlands starred at the Maccabiah in 1965, three years before reaching the final of the first US Open. And in 1969, Julie Heldman made the trip to Israel and ran the table, winning the singles, doubles, and mixed.

The Open era didn’t do Maccabiah tennis any favors. There was no money involved, and a medal carried little prestige within the tennis world. The schedule was awkward, too. It wasn’t a typical Monday-to-Sunday tournament, so participation would effectively lop two weeks off of a player’s schedule. Tel Aviv wasn’t exactly geographically convenient to the circuit, either.

As a result, the Maccabiah went the way of many long-standing amateur events. It became, more and more, a de facto junior competition. Okker had been 21 when he waltzed through the field, and Heldman did so well because she had more experience than the rest of the women combined. The stars of the 1973 Games would be the youngest yet.

No one at the Ninth Maccabiah, regardless of age, could ignore the fact that this one was different. The opening ceremonies honored the eleven Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Olympics just ten months earlier. Security at Ramat Gan Stadium was tight.

Tensions ran high, too. Two Dutch athletes had withdrawn from the Munich Games out of respect for the Israeli victims; they were invited to participate in Tel Aviv, despite not being Jewish. They would have full status as competitors, except that they couldn’t win medals. At the event, however, they–along with a few other non-Jewish athletes–were sidelined due to last-minute disputes. An American coach protested just five minutes before one race was set to begin. His complaint: It would be ridiculous if a guest won the race and a second-place finisher were awarded the gold medal.

Or as he put it in the heat of the moment: “If somebody doesn’t get that Norwegian off the track, I’m going to punch someone.”

Another American, a doctor traveling with the United States delegation, actually did punch someone. He roundhoused an official over a decision in the boxing event.

The tennis competitions progressed unaffected. The standouts came from South Africa: 17-year-old Ilana Kloss in the women’s tournaments and 18-year-old David Schneider in the men’s. Neither had much international experience, and both were several years away from their peaks. Still, on July 16th, Kloss won the singles gold medal, beating Janet Haas of Florida, 6-1, 6-3.* It was her second triumph in two days. She had picked up the doubles title the day before, and she would leave Tel Aviv with three gold medals, including the mixed doubles prize with Schneider.

* Haas was no slouch, and she deserves more than this footnote. She captained the University of Miami tennis team in 1972 and 1973. The first woman tennis player awarded an athletic scholarship by the school, she now has a place in Miami’s Sports Hall of Fame.

For the time being, the Maccabiah was the closest a tennis player could get to the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee remained behind the times, failing to grapple with the questions of professionalism that continued to roil tennis. The Jewish Olympics offered an occasional reminder that the whole debate was dumb. Somehow, the few hundred dollars in prize money amassed by Kloss and Schneider in their young careers did not irreparably soil the Games.

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July 14, 1973: The Swedish Surge

*Stan Smith and Björn Borg with King Gustaf of Sweden*

Given the excitement over 17-year-old Björn Borg at Wimbledon, you can imagine the splash he made back home in Sweden. The Scandinavian nation had always clung to a position on the edge of the tennis firmament. Now the Swedes had a superstar they could call their own.

The week after Wimbledon, many of the game’s top men headed to the coastal resort of Båstad for the Swedish International, a stop on the 1973 Grand Prix tour. The quick surface change from British turf to European clay wasn’t as harsh as usual, since many of the participants had skipped Wimbledon as part of the ATP boycott. Stan Smith was here, and his doubles partner was none other than Niki Pilić, the Yugoslavian cause célèbre whose desire to make his own schedule had started the controversial ball rolling.

Aside from a tight second-rounder against Jan Kukal, Borg cruised to the semi-finals as the homegrown hero. Surprisingly, he wasn’t the only Swede to go deep. Leif Johansson, a 21-year-old rarely spotted outside of his home country, won six straight sets–including two against the as-yet-unheralded Guillermo Vilas–for a spot in the final four.

Semi-finals day was July 14th, when five thousand patriotic fans packed the grandstand. Among them was Sweden’s 90-year-old King Gustaf VI. The king’s father, Gustaf V, had been a keen player and rabid fan until his death in 1950. Since the 1930s, the royal family had sponsored the King’s Cup competition, coaxing superstars to Scandinavia since before World War II. When tennis stars like Jean Borotra found themselves caught up in that conflagration, the elder Gustav worked behind the scenes to keep them alive.

All the Swedish pride in the world couldn’t save Johansson. He won just three games against Spanish clay-court maestro Manuel Orantes. Borg did better, breaking for an early lead over Smith. The American was one of the best players on earth, but he had never won a clay-court title of note. The venue and the surface suited Björn perfectly.

On the other hand, a hostile crowd in Båstad was nothing compared to what Smith had withstood in Bucharest, where he led the American side to the 1972 Davis Cup title. His serve was impervious to conditions, and it quickly gave him the ascendancy. He recovered the early break, took another for the lead, and never looked back. Big Stan advanced to the final, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.

Still, Smith was impressed. “All the members of the pro circuit will definitely have another player to fear,” he said of his opponent. Soon, Davis Cup campaigners would come to the same realization about the rising power from Sweden.

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July 13, 1973: An Irish Refuge

*Virginia Wade (left) and Margaret Court*

Few players took a post-Wimbledon break. As soon as the Championships were over, the world’s elites dispersed to points all over Europe: Båstad in Sweden, Dublin in Ireland, Gstaad in Switzerland, and Newport in Wales. Four top-level men’s tournaments jammed the slate this week; all were joint events. There was a women’s competition in Düsseldorf, too.

The strongest group of men–Stan Smith, Björn Borg, and Manuel Orantes–headed for the resort on the Swedish coast. Two superstar women–Margaret Court and Virginia Wade–opted for the Irish Championships, a once-prestigious tour stop that had settled into second-tier status.

The relative calm of Dublin was exactly what Court and Wade needed. The British standout faced immense pressure during the Wimbledon fortnight, and she had never handled it particularly well. Even in Ireland, she “alternated brilliance with mediocrity in bewildering proportions,” according to one man on the scene. But after fighting through an up-and-down quarter-final against Wendy Turnbull, she recovered on July 13th, winning the first seven games of her semi-final with another Australian, Pat Coleman. She advanced to the title match, 6-0, 6-4.

Court was far steadier. At the business end of majors–or in exhibitions against aging hustlers–Margaret seemed to invite speculation about her nerves. When the world wasn’t watching, though, she might have been the greatest of all time. In Dublin, she cast aside Wimbledon junior champ Ann Kiyomura, 6-3, 6-2, then double-bageled Irish hope Geraldine Barniville. In the semis, she allowed her countrywoman Helen Gourlay just three games.

The Irish Championships were a refuge for a pair of men, as well. The British Lawn Tennis Association, the national federation most embarrassed by the ATP’s Wimbledon boycott, felt they had to respond to the union’s power grab. The symbolic gesture they settled on was a temporary ban: British players who participated wouldn’t be allowed to compete on home soil. Mark Cox, a leading voice within the players’ union and the second-best Brit behind Roger Taylor, was the prime target.

Instead of the traditional trek to the Welsh Championships in Newport, then, Cox and fellow ATPer Graham Stilwell crossed the Irish Sea. Both men reached the semis, where little-known South African John Yuill knocked out Stilwell. Cox was challenged by another Springbok, dropping a tight first set to Bernard Mitton before running away with the last two sets, 5-7, 6-1, 6-0.

These were just a few of the storylines filling out the post-Wimbledon landscape.

Spare a thought for the tennis enthusiast, fifty years ago today, trying to keep up with the action. Roy Emerson and Ilie Năstase advanced in Gstaad, while Borg, Smith, and Marjorie Gengler recorded wins in Båstad. Evonne Goolagong moved toward a title in Düsseldorf. At Newport, Julie Heldman picked up a trophy with a wild 1-6, 6-1, 11-9 decision over the young Dianne Fromholtz, who had beaten her four weeks earlier in Beckenham and threatened Wade at Wimbledon. In men’s action at the Welsh, Taylor overcame both tennis elbow and uneven umpiring to advance to the final over countryman John Paish.

No one could blame an aficionado who opted to sit back and wait for next month’s issue of World Tennis. In the meantime, experts and casual fans alike could mull a bet on the upcoming spectacle between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. In Las Vegas, Jimmy the Greek had Riggs as an 8-5 favorite.

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July 11, 1973: Libber Versus Lobber

*Bobby Riggs hopping the net a little more gingerly than he once did*

Bobby Riggs wanted another day in the spotlight, a sequel to his Mother’s Day dismantling of Margaret Court. Billie Jean King just wanted him to shut up.

There was only one way to settle this.

On July 11th, just three days after Billie Jean secured the mixed doubles leg of her Wimbledon triple, the reigning champion and the 55-year-old hustler made it official. They would duke it out on court, after the US Open and–of course–on national television.

Two weeks earlier Riggs had proposed a $100,000, winner-take-all prize pot. He got that, plus an additional guarantee of another $100,000 for each competitor. Jerry Perenchio, the producer handling the event, aimed even higher. He suggested that the match could earn $400,000 by filling an arena. His opening salvo to television networks was $750,000, the price of a John Wayne special.

Perenchio wasn’t just blowing smoke. In 1971, he had helmed the richest sporting event in history, the Ali-Frazier “Fight of the Century.” “I’m more excited about this,” he said, “than I was about the fight.”

Billie Jean proved at this initial press conference that she was better equipped than Court to beat the hustler king at his own game. She knew how Riggs had defeated Margaret, and there was no question of the stakes. Court still pretended her loss was just another exhibition. King understood that the pride of womankind was on the line. No pressure.

Well, pressure is a privilege, as a famous woman once said.

Nobody talked a better game than Bobby, but somehow Billie Jean scored the last word. Riggs teased her about hitting three straight double faults at Wimbledon–something the control artist claimed he had never done. (He may have been right: Legend had it that he once went six months without double-faulting. On the other hand, the main source of Riggs stories was the ever-running mouth of the man himself.)

“How many did I serve against Chris?” King retorted, referring to her comprehensive victory over Chris Evert in the Wimbledon final.

“None,” said Riggs. “You played a helluva game.”

“I’ll let you hustle off the court,” said Billie Jean. “I’ll hustle on the court.”

The most famous women’s libber in sports would finally take a crack at the first 55-year-old man to become a celebrity by lobbing female tennis players. The sport would never be the same.

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July 7, 1973: The Triple

*Billie Jean King with her newest hardware*

After twelve days of sunshine, the rain finally arrived. The women’s singles final, scheduled for its traditional Saturday, was pushed to Sunday, alongside the men’s championship match. It wasn’t exactly the equal treatment that Billie Jean King had in mind when she hinted at a boycott before the event began, but it invited its share of direct comparisons.

The women’s showdown, on July 7th, would feature greats of the present and future, King and the teenage Chris Evert. The men’s title came down to two Eastern Europeans, Jan Kodeš and Alex Metreveli. Both were excellent players; Kodeš had won the French Open twice in the last four years. But they were clearly beneficiaries of the 80-player ATP boycott. At this “Women’s Wimbledon,” the American ladies could claim responsibility for yet another packed house.

Billie Jean had no problem getting herself psyched up for the match. In early 1972, Evert destroyed the Old Lady on a clay court in Fort Lauderdale, allowing King just one game. While they had played three times since then, the memory was still enough to motivate the veteran.

For a little while, King was on track to return the favor. She took the first set 6-0. Evert looked lost. “It was the loveliest, meanest set of tennis I’d ever seen,” wrote Grace Lichtenstein. “From the first point, she carved up Chris’s game like a Benihana chef slicing up meat on a hibachi table.”

The 18-year-old found her way back into the match, winning ten straight points as part of a push from 0-2 to 5-4 in the second set. But King wasn’t going to let this one slip away. “When I thought I was getting into it in the second set,” said Chrissie, “well, Billie Jean just served and volleyed even better. She didn’t make a mistake all afternoon.”

The final score was 6-0, 7-5 to King, in a little more than an hour. It was her fifth Wimbledon title, and she already had her eye on Suzanne Lenglen’s mark of six.

Before she could look too far ahead, though, she had two other campaigns to see out. With Rosie Casals, King polished off another title, winning the semi-finals and finals in the women’s doubles. She also teamed with Owen Davidson to take a mixed doubles quarter-final. (Their victims: Kodeš and the girls’ runner-up, Martina Navratilova.)

No one could blame Billie Jean when she skipped the traditional Wimbledon ball. She had spent five hours on court, with at least one more match to play the following day. The rest was somehow sufficient: She and Davidson came back to secure two more victories on Monday. The Old Lady had won everything there was to win, the “triple,” a feat she had also accomplished at Wimbledon in 1967.

The champion had once said, “We’ve got to get women’s tennis off the women’s pages and into the sports pages.” Mission accomplished, at least this fortnight. Newspaper editors around the world could lead with either King or Kodeš. Nearly all of them broke with tradition to focus on Billie Jean.

Madame Superstar, as couturier Teddy Tinling called her, was finally ready for a rest. She had played six matches and 139 games on Centre Court in two days. “I’m gonna sleep twenty hours a day for six days,” she told Lichtenstein. “Zonkereno!”

She already knew what her next challenge would be. It wasn’t official yet, but it had to be done. She was ready.

“Bring on Bobby Riggs.”

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July 4, 1973: An American Day

The Wimbledon crowd had no trouble picking sides in the 1973 women’s semi-finals. Australian veteran Margaret Court was a three-time champion, including her dramatic 14-12, 11-9 defeat of Billie Jean King for the title three years earlier. She got the nod, both analytically and sentimentally, over 18-year-old American Chris Evert in the first match.

The second semi was an even easier call. If the Brits couldn’t have a local product in the final, they’d happily settle for Evonne Goolagong. The young Australian was a crowd favorite everywhere she went, and she had taken Wimbledon by surprise with her title in 1971. The London public wasn’t so positive about Billie Jean, the defending champion. Americans were widely thought to be responsible for the ATP boycott of the event, and King’s role with the new Women’s Tennis Association made her seem even guilty as well, if only by the flimsiest logic.

“I am tired of being portrayed as a villain,” Billie Jean told the press earlier that week. “We just wanted to form an association, and we have.” Still, emotions ran high, and the American wouldn’t get much love from the gallery.

On July 4th, both Evert and King silenced the crowd. Chrissie finished the job that she left undone at Roland Garros. No one gave her much of a chance against Court on grass: The last time the two women met on turf, Evert won just three games. But she seized an early lead, taking the first set, 6-1, with a dazzling array of lobs over her six-foot-tall opponent.

Margaret chose her spots more carefully in the second and evened the score with a 6-1 frame of her own. But on this day, she couldn’t overcome her reputation as a choker. By the third game of the decider, wrote Fred Tupper in the New York Times, “you could almost hear Margaret’s nerves twanging.” The former champion piled up nine double faults. There was none of the drama of the Paris final: Evert took the final set, 6-1.

In the second semi-final, King didn’t execute much better than Court had. “Her volleying was off-key,” Bud Collins wrote of Billie Jean, “her serving mediocre.” Not a good combination for a serve-and-volleyer.

Her mental game proved considerably stronger. The Old Lady could still befuddle an opponent. “Billie Jean has you in a tizzy,” said Goolagong. “I worried so much about where she was I took my mind off what I was doing.” The Aussie was right to worry: King was usually at the net, coming in behind every serve and many of her returns as well.

With an erratic King and the always unpredictable Goolagong, the match was topsy-turvy. Billie Jean won the first set, closing out the final five games with the loss of just six points. She reached match point at 5-4 in the second, but Evonne passed the attacking American for a winner. Goolagong rode her momentum to a break of serve and two more games, and the two ladies headed to a decider.

Finally, King earned another match point at 3-5 on the Australian’s serve. Goolagong chose this moment to play her most glittering tennis of the day, keeping herself alive with a nifty half-volley, an untouchable drop, and a series of shots that kicked up the sideline chalk. Billie Jean needed seven match points before Goolagong finally missed a backhand volley.

It wasn’t the outcome that the viewing public would have chosen, but it set up one heck of a final. Evert had proved she could compete with the elites on grass; no longer was she the novice who had won just five games against King at Forest Hills in 1971. Billie Jean had an injury-marred season to salvage, and she’d take aim at her fifth Wimbledon title.

This was a women’s Wimbledon, something that had been clear from the moment that the ATP boycott devastated the men’s field. So far, the ladies had exceeded expectations.

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July 3, 1973: Justice Done

*Roger Taylor in the 1973 Wimbledon quarter-finals*

With matchups like these, who needed the ATP? The 1973 Wimbledon quarter-finals pitted 31-year-old Yorkshireman Roger Taylor against the tournament’s 17-year-old sensation, Björn Borg of Sweden.

It was a study in contrasts. Taylor, a left-hander, was a veteran with an attacking serve-and-volley game. Borg was more comfortable at the baseline, where he astonished spectators with both his topspin and his go-for-broke approach whenever the opportunity for a groundstroke winner arose. Taylor had the backing of a nation; Borg the support of legions of screaming teens.

On July 3rd, the match proved as scintillating as promised. Taylor crashed his way to a 6-1 first set before the young Swede found his bearings. Borg, however, had already played two five-setters (not to mention a 20-18 tiebreak) and wouldn’t go quietly. He swung away against the Brit’s second serves, forcing Taylor to take more chances. The left-hander ultimately tallied 20 double faults.

Borg rode his high-risk backcourt tactics to a two-sets-to-one advantage. But his energy ebbed, and Taylor grabbed the fourth set with a break to love in the sixth game. The Swede swung so hard at one ball that he shattered his racket.

For a few minutes, it appeared that the contest would end in a whimper. The Brit raced out to a 5-1 lead in the fifth and earned two match points at 15-40 on Borg’s serve. Björn saved them both–with a smash winner and an ace–and suddenly it was Taylor who looked tired. Borg held serve and took control, tying the score at 5-all. Only then did the Yorkshireman find another gear, and he broke for 6-5.

Taylor reached match point again at 40-15 on his own serve. He squandered the first with a double fault. His next serve was an apparent ace, an untouchable wide delivery that failed to draw a call from either line judge or chair umpire. But Borg protested, and Taylor agreed: One point away from a Wimbledon semi-final, and the third seed called a fault against himself.

“I did not want to win on a ball which was three inches out,” Taylor said after the match.

“This was too good a match,” wrote David Gray in the Guardian, “to be ended by an umpire’s mistake.”

Borg responded with a backhand winner to tie the game at deuce. Taylor struck a service winner for a fifth match point, and sealed the victory when the Swede missed a backhand. The final score was 6-1, 6-8, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5.

More than one British journalist reached the same conclusion: Justice was done. Yes, Taylor had done the right thing when he refused to accept the match-winning ace. But it was more than that. The veteran had defied the boycott and given home fans their greatest chance of a native champion since World War II. Whatever his ATP colleagues would say about it, Taylor’s participation in the tournament was, to so many of his countrymen, nothing less than an act of bravery.

Borg, for his part, could find consolation in the teenyboppers who streamed on court after the final point was played. Unlike Taylor, he would have many more chances to win Wimbledon. “Yesterday he was good; very very good,” wrote David Talbot of the sensational Swede. “One day he will be great.”

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Is It Ever Better To Be Unseeded?

As draw-probability takes go, this one is pretty spicy:

it’s better to be unseeded than 25-32.

25-32 guarantees 1-8 opponent in the third round.
— Ricky Dimon (@Dimonator) June 20, 2023

Satisfyingly counterintuitive if true. Is it?

A few reasons for skepticism: As an unseeded player, you could get a top-eight seeded opponent in the first round. Or the second. Or, after upsetting a lower seed–you are almost guaranteed to get one in the first or second round–you could still end up with a top-eight seed in the third round. Going into the draw unseeded is hardly protection against a top-eight opponent.

I could theorize further, but why not just delve into the numbers?

The men’s draw

Let’s look at a few examples from the draw. The 25th seed is Nicolas Jarry, who was drawn to face Carlos Alcaraz in the third round (ouch!). His grass-court Elo (gElo)–the number I use to generate forecasts–is 1698.5. The closest unseeded player to him on the gElo list is Adrian Mannarino, who has a rating of 1700.8. In Elo terms, a difference of 2.3 points is basically just a rounding error.

If Ricky’s theory is correct, on the morning of the draw, it was better to be Mannarino than Jarry. Except–oops!–Mannarino was drawn to face third-seed Daniil Medvedev in the second round.

How does all that good and bad luck shake out in the forecast? Jarry has a 7.5% chance of reaching the round of 16, 2.6% for the quarters, and 1.0% for the semis. Mannarino has 6.3% for R16, 3.2% for the quarters, and 1.1% for the semis. Those are awfully close, just like the near-identical gElo ratings would imply. The luck mostly washed out.

(If you look at my forecast after the tournament begins, the numbers will no longer be the same. That’s partly because every result has an effect on many other probabilities, and partly because the gElo ratings will slightly change when I add this week’s results from Eastbourne and Mallorca, which are not yet in the system.)

What about 26th seed Denis Shapovalov? Shapo has a gElo of 1675.1, roughly equal to unseeded Ugo Humbert’s 1676.1. Would it be better to be Ugo?

Shapovalov got lucky: His top-eight counterpart in the draw is Casper Ruud, a not-grass specialist who is barely rated higher than the Canadian. Shapo’s odds of going further than Ruud into the round of 16 are 25.3%. He has a 10.5% chance of making the quarters and a 3.4% shot at the semis.

Humbert was not so lucky. Like Jarry, he’s in Alcaraz’s section. He has a mere 3.5% shot at the fourth round, 1.1% for the quarters, and 0.4% for the finals. The way the cookie crumbled on draw day, it was much better to be Shapo than Ugo.

One more. Dan Evans is the 27th seed, with a gElo of 1693.1. The closest unseeded player in the draw is Sebastian Ofner, gElo-rated 1688.5. Evans lines up for a third-rounder with 8th-seed Jannik Sinner, who is much better than Ruud despite the number next to his name. Despite a tricky first-rounder with Quentin Halys and Sinner looming in the third, Evans’s chances of making the fourth round are 14.5%, along with 6.8% for the quarters and 3.2% for the semis.

By unseeded standards, Ofner got lucky. He drew almost-seeded Jiri Lehecka to open, but the seeds in his section are #18 Francisco Cerundolo and #16 Tommy Paul. With the benefit of that good fortune, his chances of lasting to the second week are 16.0%, with a 4.1% shot at the quarters and a 1.3% chance of a semi-final berth. By the numbers, I’d take Evans’s position over Ofner’s, though it’s pretty close.

So: three anecdotal comparisons, one saying it is definitely better to be the seed, one saying it’s marginally better, one saying it’s about even.

There’s one obvious counter-example. Tomas Martin Etcheverry, seeded 29th, landed in Novak Djokovic’s section. He has a mere 0.8% chance at the fourth round, 0.2% for the quarters, and everything else rounds down to zero. His own rating is part of the problem: He has little experience on grass.

The closest unseeded player in the draw to Etcheverry’s 1585.5 gElo is Daniel Altmaier at 1587.8. Altmaier ended up in the Sinner/Evans section, with an unseeded first-round opponent. His chances of reaching the fourth round are 4.8%, with a 1.5 chance of the quarter-finals.

So we can say one thing for sure: If you know you’ll be drawn to face Djokovic early, you might want to not do that.

The general solution

These are all anecdotes, and the forecasts are entirely dependent on this year’s actual Wimbledon draw. That doesn’t answer the question in any comprehensive way.

We can get closer to a general solution by running two simulations. First, forecast the 2023 Wimbledon field, with the actual seeds, without considering how the draw actually played out. So Etcheverry might have landed in Ruud’s section, or Mannarino might have drawn Djokovic in the first round.

Next, forecast the 2023 Wimbledon field, but instead of keeping the actual seeds, assign the 25th to 32nd seeds to the next eight players in the rankings. Instead of the 25th seed belonging to Jarry, we give it to Lehecka, and Jarry is unseeded, and so on.

By keeping the players constant and varying the seeds, we can see the effect of the seedings on 16 players: the actual seeds 25-32, and the “next eight” who just missed.

Here are the chances of those 16 men reaching the fourth round in the two scenarios, seeded and unseeded:

Player                       R16 Seed  R16 Un  
Nicolas Jarry                   15.3%   13.1%  
Denis Shapovalov                12.8%   11.0%  
Daniel Evans                    15.0%   12.8%  
Tallon Griekspoor               30.5%   28.1%  
Tomas Martin Etcheverry          6.1%    4.9%  
Nick Kyrgios                    20.6%   18.3%  
Alejandro Davidovich Fokina     12.8%   11.0%  
Ben Shelton                      4.4%    3.5%  
Jiri Lehecka                     9.7%    8.0%  
Matteo Berrettini               33.5%   30.9%  
Ugo Humbert                     13.2%   11.4%  
Andy Murray                     31.9%   29.4%  
Lorenzo Sonego                  19.8%   17.5%  
Miomir Kecmanovic                8.1%    6.5%  
Botic van de Zandschulp         14.0%   11.9%  
Adrian Mannarino                15.7%   13.6%

On average, these players have a 16.5% chance of lasting to the second week if they have a seed, 14.5% otherwise.

The same thing holds if we care more about other achievements, like reaching the third round, the quarter-finals, or the semis:

            R32    R16    QF    SF  
Seeded    40.5%  16.5%  8.4%  3.8%  
Unseeded  28.7%  14.5%  6.9%  3.1%

It’s better to be seeded.

Going wide

This isn’t a truly general solution, because it is based solely on the 2023 Wimbledon men’s field. You might think of this group of players as top-heavy, which would make it more valuable to avoid the top seeds. But while Djokovic and Alcaraz are well ahead of the pack, the top eight as a whole is not overwhelming dominant–just think of Ruud on grass.

We could construct a variety of other draws with different mixes of ability levels. You could imagine a field in which the top eight players were all outstanding and the rest were not. An extreme example like that might change the results. We’ll save that for another day. In the meantime, players: Keep chasing those seeds.

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