Heavy Topspin – Page 19 – The Tennis Abstract blog

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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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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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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April 13, 1973: Vilas Stops South Africa

South Africa was a problem. Many world leaders were quick to condemn the racist policies of the apartheid government. Less clear was what exactly to do about it. As always, international sporting events fell in the crosshairs.

Eastern Bloc nations were willing to sacrifice the most. In 1968 Davis Cup play, South Africa advanced to the final of the European Zone when Romania gave them a walkover. (There was no separate Africa zone, and “zoneless” nations were free to choose another region in which to compete.) In 1969, both Poland and Czechoslovakia refused to play them. In 1970, South Africa was banned from the competition altogether.

There was never a consensus to exclude the country, and South Africa returned to competition in 1973. It chose to enter the South American zone, where the political ramifications were likely to be the least. Conveniently enough, the competition wasn’t particularly strong, either. In March, South Africa brushed aside Uruguay while Argentina defeated Brazil, setting up a zonal semi-final between the two, set to be hosted in Argentina.

The Argentines found themselves in a sticky situation. The federation had anticipated no problems; golf and rugby teams from South Africa had visited in the previous two years. But Davis Cup was one of the biggest events on the global sporting calendar, and the public outcry couldn’t be ignored. If the tie were played in Argentina, there would be protests, possibly substantial ones. On the other hand, it was unthinkable to forfeit the round, as the Eastern Europeans had done. Thanks in large part to charismatic 20-year-old star Guillermo Vilas, the tennis boom had reached Argentina. If they could get past the South Africans, Argentina would face regional rival Chile in the zonal final and push the sport’s popularity to even higher peaks.

It’s difficult to overstate just how much the South African issue roiled international sports. Arguably, it was an even more prominent, divisive issue than the fate of Russian and Belarussian athletes in 2023. The same week that Argentina’s tennis federation made its final preparations, New Zealand Prime Minister Norman Kirk settled a long-standing dispute by barring a visit from the South African rugby team. “Arguments over the tour,” wrote the New York Times, “have continued more than two years, spilling over party and racial boundaries and far eclipsing such international issues as the Vietnam War.”

Back in Argentina, the federation, pressured by the country’s Foreign Ministry, settled on a compromise. The tie would be held in Montevideo, just across the border in Uruguay. And to keep publicity down even further, the dates would be moved up by a month, from mid-May to mid-April. Once again, politics served as a cover for a bit of gamesmanship. Fiddling with the dates would keep South African standouts Cliff Drysdale, Bob Hewitt, and Frew McMillan on the sidelines. All three were committed to the World Championship Tennis circuit and couldn’t accommodate the revised schedule.

*The 1972 Davis Cup draw, with South Africa nowhere to be seen*

On April 13th, at the Carrasco Lawn Tennis Club, the sides could finally get down to business. With the WCT stars out of commission, the inexperienced Argentinian squad faced an even greener South African squad. In the first rubber, Argentina’s Julián Ganzábal held off doubles specialist Pat Cramer 6-2, 6-0, 3-6, 6-0. In the second, Vilas shut down 18-year-old Bernard Mitton in straight sets.

Vilas was far from the superstar he would later become, but the left-hander’s potential was becoming clear. He had reached finals in Cincinnati and Buenos Aires the previous year, and the Mitton match was his fifth straight victory of Argentina’s 1973 Davis Cup campaign. On the slow clay of the Carrasco Club, he may well have beaten Drysdale or McMillan, too.

But he didn’t have to. After the South Africans won the doubles on day two–the country was second only to Australia in its ability to churn out top-tier doubles players–Vilas made quick work of another teenager, Deon Joubert. Argentina’s top player lost just five games in three sets.

The international tennis community breathed a collective sigh of relief. Fractures were everywhere: The same day that the South Africans were eliminated, a spokesman for the International Lawn Tennis Federation threatened to suspend the women of the Virginia Slims tour if they continued to defy their national federations. Had Argentina lost, the Marxist government in Chile may well have forced its side to forfeit the zonal final. South Africa would have advanced to a bigger stage and the controversy would have multiplied.

Vilas hardly solved the South Africa problem, but he did punt it one year down the road. In the political and bureaucratic mess that was tennis in 1973, that counted as a major victory.

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April 12, 1973: Riggs Loses to an Old Man

*Ilie Năstase* *at the Palm Beach Masters doubles tournament*

In April 1973, Bobby Riggs was 55 years old. That put him in just the right demographic to enter the Palm Beach Masters. The $25,000 event was billed as the richest doubles tournament ever. It featured a mix of past and present greats, including Ilie Năstase, Jimmy Connors, and several of Riggs’s contemporaries: Don Budge, Richard González, and Pancho Segura.

The talk of the tournament, of course, was Bobby’s upcoming match with Margaret Court, barely a month away. Most of the men playing in Palm Beach were ready to bet on Riggs. The 55-year-old hustler told anyone who would listen that he was in impeccable shape, practicing every day, jogging, and watching his diet.

The tournament kicked off on April 12th. Budge complained that the organizers didn’t pair up players fairly. Riggs–probably the fittest of the older men–was teamed with 27-year-old Australian Tony Roche, who already had ten doubles majors to his name. Their first-round opponents were Sidney Wood and Hugh Curry: a limping 61-year-old businessman and a local club pro, respectively.

What should have been a rout turned into a farce. Wood, who won the 1931 Wimbledon title on a walkover, always seemed to be in the right place. The grandfather of three volleyed brilliantly and fought through leg cramps that slowed him down for much of the match. He hadn’t played a set in eight months, but on the fifth match point, he and Curry beat Riggs and Roche, 1-6, 6-3, 6-4.

“I’m just glad the sun started to go down,” said Wood, “or I wouldn’t have made it.”

On national television a few days later, Năstase and Vic Seixas beat González and Clark Graebner for the title. It clearly wasn’t how the tournament was supposed to end. Organizers scrambled to put Riggs on the final-day schedule. Bobby was to team with Frank Parker in a “Century Championship” between doubles teams with a combined age of at least 100 years, and he would play singles against Curry in a so-called “Bobby Riggs Hustle Match.”

Riggs’s fame, not to mention his reputation, preceded the Battle of the Sexes.

As for Sidney Wood, his stay in Palm Beach was a short one. He lost in the second round and went back to New York City, where he ran a business that built tennis courts. The 1970s tennis boom treated him well: His firm installed 500 new courts in 1973 alone. Wood also invented the synthetic Supreme Court surface, which the World Championship Tennis circuit used for indoor events that year.

Despite the upset in Florida, Wood continued to back his fellow veteran. “Riggs has been losing to a lot of fellows lately, which surprises me,” he told a reporter in the run-up to the Court match. “I don’t know how his legs are, but if he’s fit, I favor him.”

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April 11, 1973: Return of the King

No one could begrudge Billie Jean King a rest. She played 127 matches in 1971 and 103 more in 1972, winning 27 singles titles in that two-year span. She entered the doubles every week, and she was the face of the budding Virginia Slims tour, besides.

King wasn’t the sort to take a personal day, or even sit out an event on a doctor’s recommendation. But in March 1973, after a three-set final against Margaret Court in Chicago, a stomach injury knocked her out of competition. She could barely serve for a month and the Slims circuit was forced to proceed without her. Court was both beneficiary and victim. The Australian continued to dominate in Billie Jean’s absence. But as the biggest star in the draw, she was also called upon to take over King’s media duties, a full-time job for a lesser woman.

Tournament promoters coast to coast breathed a sigh of relief on April 11th, when Billie Jean returned to action at the Boston Marina Harbor, brushing aside American veteran Farel Footman. King felt like she was “starting on the circuit all over again,” but after dropping the first two games to Footman, she lost only two more for a 6-3, 6-1 victory. Her serve was surprisingly steady for a stroke she had resumed practicing only a few days earlier.

For the famously energetic serve-and-volleyer, one month on the sidelines was enough. “The first week, while difficult to coordinate,” she told Boston Globe columnist Peter Gammons, “is also easier because one is so enthusiastic.” (Gammons is better known as a baseball writer. True to form, he made sure to ask Billie Jean about her younger brother, San Francisco Giants pitcher Randy Moffitt.)

Still, the 29-year-old King recognized that another 100-match season could do more harm than good. “In a way, being off the tour for awhile may have been beneficial,” she said after her first-round victory. “I’m usually pooped by October, and the rest could help.”

Billie Jean would struggle to stay healthy throughout the season, playing barely 70 singles matches. But when she was able to take the court, she remained one of the most fearsome women on the circuit. And when the world tuned in to watch her in late September, she would prove to have plenty left in the tank.

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April 8, 1973: 78-2

*Margaret Court (right), with Max-Pax Coffee Classic runner-up Kerry Harris*

The Philadelphia Daily News called Margaret Court “the siege-gun of women’s tennis.” It was a useful way to visualize the the Australian’s attack, but most siege victims lasted far longer than Court’s opponents ever did.

On April 8, 1973, Court secured the title at Philadelphia’s Max-Pax Coffee Tennis Classic, the first professional women’s tennis tournament ever held in Philly. The feel-good story of the week was Kerry Harris, a 23-year-old Aussie who came through qualifying to reach the final. No woman had ever done that on the Virginia Slims tour, and Margaret ensured that she went no further.

The final lasted all of 38 minutes. Harris won the fourth game, and that was it. The tournament experimented with no-ad scoring, which might have shaved a couple of minutes off of the championship match, but let’s be honest: Kerry didn’t make it to deuce very often.

Yes, it was brutal. “At your average execution,” wrote Tom Cushman of the Daily News, “they at least blindfold the victim.” At the same time, it was typical. Court won her first-round match in 41 minutes; her second-rounder against Val Ziegenfuss took just 32. After that match, Ziegenfuss spotted Margaret’s husband Barry and teased that he wasn’t doing his job. Court had too much energy.

The Philly champ was unusual in that her family traveled with her; even more so that the entourage included her infant son, Danny. She had stepped away from the tour after discovering she was pregnant in the summer of 1971. She returned a year later and won a title as a mother on her first try, beating Evonne Goolagong in Cincinnati. She finished 1972 with an Australian Open crown and a 29-match winning streak.

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The Court family in March 1973

The rest of the 1973 Virginia Slims circuit didn’t stand a chance. The Max-Pax was Margaret’s tenth event on the tour. She won eight of them. The dismantling of Harris was her 78th victory in 80 matches. She was as strong as ever–Rosie Casals dubbed her “The Arm,” for the oversized limb that did so much damage–and she somehow came back from childbirth lighter and faster than before. Out of ideas, her opponents were reduced to joking about kidnapping Danny to distract her.

The danger of Court’s dominance was that it could verge on the boring. Billie Jean King was injured, so Margaret had little competition among the Slims group. Women pros were split into two factions; Goolagong and Chris Evert headlined the rival USLTA circuit, and functionaries threatened to keep the “semi-outlaw” Slims players out of the grand slams, too. Political maneuvering made for better stories than Margaret’s perfunctory victories.

Another subplot loomed over the Australian’s season, too. She had accepted a challenge from Bobby Riggs to play an exhibition match in Ramona, California, on Mother’s Day, now barely a month away. Neil Amdur of the New York Times reminded his readers of that date on the Philadelphia champ’s calendar. Court was more than just a slugger, Amdur wrote. She “also is a thinker, which some people seem to be forgetting as they forecast doom for her in the much-publicized May 13 match.”

Margaret’s mental strength has always been a subject of debate, and many contemporary pundits were not as kind as Amdur. Would Riggs, the puff-balling veteran, expose her tendency to choke? At the very least, the Mother’s Day clash promised something that the Slims tournaments rarely delivered: a Court match without the certainty of a lopsided victory.

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Elsewhere this week:

Stan Smith won his third consecutive tournament as his half of the World Championship Tennis troupe moved to Europe. In Munich, he straight-setted Cliff Richey in the final. The victory moved him ahead of Rod Laver in the WCT point standings.
The other WCT event of the week, in Houston, gave 38-year-old Ken Rosewall his first title of the year. He avenged his Vancouver loss to Jan Kodeš in the semi-finals, then defeated Fred Stolle for the championship.
The European clay circuit also got underway in Barcelona. Ilie Năstase collected the trophy with a final-round win over Adriano Panatta, who knocked out 16-year-old Björn Borg in the third round.
Chris Evert cruised to another title on the USLTA circuit, picking up a $5,000 check in Sarasota by brushing aside Evonne Goolagong. She lost just five games. Martina Navratilova made her first appearance in a stateside title match, partnering countrywoman Marie Neumannová to a runner-up finish in the doubles.

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April 6, 1973: The Designated Hitter

Many major sports have no compunctions about changing the rules on a nearly constant basis. Too much scoring? Give the defense more freedom. Too little scoring? Unleash the offense. Games too long, or too boring? Stick a clock on the court and force teams to maintain a quicker pace of play.

The two exceptions are baseball and tennis. Both games have been notoriously, persistently reluctant to change in their 150-or-so years as spectator sports. Occasionally, though, circumstances converge to make change possible.

In the early 1970s, a lot of circumstances converged. New leagues sprouted, competition flourished like never before, and–most of all–television forced each sport’s leadership to consider exactly what its product was, and what it should look like.

Baseball’s American League responded to a spate of low scoring seasons and weak attendance by introducing the designated hitter rule. The National League had more history and more stars, but beginning in 1973, the American League–thanks to its willingness to experiment–added more offense. By the end of the decade, it had closed much of the attendance gap.

New York Yankee Ron Blomberg became baseball’s first designated hitter on April 6, 1973. The bat he used for his first time at the plate was sent to the Hall of Fame, even though it barely left his shoulder. In that first appearance of a designated hitter, Blomberg came up with the bases loaded and walked.

Matty Alou, the Yankees veteran who scored on the play, cracked: “See, it’s added offense to the game already.”

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What strikes me about the designated hitter rule is how closely it parallels the adoption of the tiebreak. I’ve already written a few times about the tiebreak in this series about 1973. The now-familiar method of ending sets was still new, and it was still weird.

“Those tie-breakers are such bullshit,” said Raymond Moore after a win in Vancouver in March. “None of the players know how to play them yet.”

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John Newcombe (left) and Stan Smith were considered in 1973 to be among the best tiebreak players in the game. The secret, clearly, was in the mustache.

Some players didn’t like it, but the sport needed to evolve. Jimmy Van Alen had pushed for tie-breaks as part of his “Simplified Scoring System” since the 1950s. We tend to think of long sets as epic, memorable moments. Not so in those days: The typical 12-10 set consisted of two guys who couldn’t return serve for 75 minutes. It wasn’t much fun to watch, and it would never fit into a two-hour slot on network television.

So, nearly a century after competitive tennis began, the sport finally embraced a new idea. The US Open adopted Van Alen’s nine-point “sudden death” tiebreak in 1970, and Wimbledon began playing breakers at 8-all in 1971. World Team Tennis would experiment even further beginning in 1974. While tennis–like designated-hitter baseball–remained easily recognizable, the new rule was a belated acknowledgement that even the most hidebound sports need to change with the times.

For nearly a half-century, purists in both baseball and tennis were left with something to cling to. Pitchers batted for themselves in National League games until 2021, and a first-round match at that year’s French Open ran to 10-8 in the fifth. But the traditionalists could hold out no longer. The designated hitter is now universal in American baseball. Both the grand slams and the Davis Cup have adopted rules to decide every deadlocked set with a tiebreak. The rule changes that represented such a shift 50 years ago finally won the day.

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April 4, 1973: Arthur Ashe, Acing Alone

The knock on Arthur Ashe was always that he was erratic. At his best, he made flashy shots that no one else would even attempt. At his worst, those same shots would go wild, one after another. Early in his career, he lost a lot of matches when his focus betrayed him and he couldn’t recover in time.

Even at his most uneven, though, Ashe could usually hang in there. He owned a big serve, perhaps the most potent first strike on tour. When other shots betrayed him, he could reel off one ace after another and keep things close. Arthur won the 1968 US Open final on the back of a 14-12 first set. In a Davis Cup match a few weeks before that against Manolo Santana, two sets reached 11-all.

Arthur Ashe was not responsible for the introduction of the tiebreak, but he certainly played some sets that made fans wish for a quicker way of wrapping things up.

On April 4, 1973, Ashe met 21-year-old Roscoe Tanner in the second round of the World Championship Tennis event in Houston. Tanner was another cannonballer, the sort of opponent who would have guaranteed a marathon set or two against Ashe under traditional rules. But the WCT tour was all-in on the tiebreak.

In their best-of-three match, Ashe and Tanner didn’t play one tiebreak… they didn’t play two tiebreaks… they played three tiebreaks. Arthur earned a 5-2 lead in the first-set breaker, but Tanner charged back and took over, 10-8. The second set didn’t feature the same self-assured serving, and both men broke three times. But the end result was nearly the same. They reached a tiebreak, which Ashe won 7-2. The American pair deadlocked another 12 games before Ashe clinched his place in the quarter-finals with another 7-2 decision.

As far as I know, nobody counted aces. Safe to say there were a lot.

The oddest thing about the match, however, wasn’t the slim margin of victory. It was the crowd. Every single face in the gallery was a member at the River Oaks Country Club, the tournament venue.

*Barry MacKay at the River Oaks event in 1959*

River Oaks had staged an event since 1931, when Ellsworth Vines won the inaugural title. It consistently attracted top American talent: Between 1931 and the end of the amateur era, eleven of the men in my Tennis 128 hoisted the trophy. Bobby Riggs won it in 1940. Rod Laver beat Roy Emerson for the title in both 1961 and 1962, and Laver came back as a pro to hold off Ken Rosewall in the 1972 final. The arrival of world-class tennis players was a highlight of the Houston social calendar, an annual tradition that survived into the Open era.

But in 1973, a change in the tax code prevented the non-profit River Oaks club from charging the public for admission. The club failed to find a workaround, funded the event itself, and held the matches behind closed doors.

The players, understandably, didn’t like it. The tournament had long boasted the exclusive sobriquet of the River Oaks Invitational, but times had changed. This was the era of Open tennis, and that applied to fans as well. Ashe, who served as a kind of elder statesman among the pros through his role in the burgeoning players’ union, was the most outspoken of the group. “I don’t think the W.C.T. will play here [again],” he told reporters. “They’d be nuts if they did. They aren’t in the business of promoting closed tournaments.”

Ashe didn’t mention another offense, though many newspapers did. River Oaks was exclusionary on a full-time basis: The club had no Black or Jewish members. Arthur, however, picked his spots. He was more focused off the court than he was on it. In 1973, he fought harder for his fellow players than he did for racial justice. That would change over time, a shift accelerated by his November trip to apartheid South Africa.

Back in Houston, the closed doors of 1973 proved to be nothing more than a blip. River Oaks sorted out their tax issues and the public was welcome when the WCT troupe came through in 1974. In fact, they couldn’t have opened their doors any wider. When Laver returned and defeated Björn Borg in the final, he did so on national television.

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April 1, 1973: Kerry Melville, Finally

*Kerry Melville at the 1973 Virginia Slims Conquistadores of Tucson*

There wasn’t much room at the top of the Virginia Slims circuit. Kerry Melville could have told you all about that.

One knock on women’s tennis was a supposed lack of depth. There were undeniable stars–Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Evonne Goolagong–and a few more credible contenders, like Virginia Wade, Rosie Casals, and now Chris Evert. That coterie hogged the limelight; everyone else merely crossed their fingers when each week’s draw came out and hoped they’d find a path to the quarters. Lance Tingay ranked Melville fifth at the end of the 1972 campaign, but no one figured she was going to crack the inner circle.

The Australian earned her 1972 ranking by playing some of the best tennis of her career, picking up tournament victories on two continents with wins over Wade and Casals. She reached the final of the US Open, where she beat Evert before falling to King. Her runner-up status became a full-blown jinx in early 1973. She lost four finals in a seven-week span, every one of them to Court. Then she missed two weeks with a torn calf muscle.

Things finally began to go Melville’s way in Tucson, the last week of March. The winter circuit was mostly played indoors, but despite unusually chilly, damp weather, the event in Arizona was held in the open air. Other players, including Casals, griped about the inconsistent conditions, but Melville (known as Kerry Reid after her 1975 marriage) preferred her tennis without a roof.

The second round brought the shock of the tournament. Court, who had lost just one match in nine 1973 tournaments, fell to an unheralded South African named Laura Rossouw. The wind and cold that affected Court’s concentration didn’t appear to trouble the second-seeded Melville: Kerry breezed through three rounds with the loss of only 13 games. Her semi was just as easy: Casals delivered “one service fault after another” and the Australian beat her, 6-1, 6-2.

The Tucson final, on April 1st, was no laughing matter. Nancy Gunter (formerly Nancy Richey) was one of the hardest hitters on tour. Both women aimed for the baseline and stripped any advantage from the server: No one held until the fifth game of the match. Gunter’s weaponry kept misfiring, and what could have been a lengthy war of attrition ended as a brisk, 6-3, 6-4 victory for the Australian.

Skeptics had reason to discount Melville’s title: King was out with a stomach injury, and Court lost early. But with a $6,000 winner’s check in her pocket, Kerry had an answer ready: “I suppose there will be people like that, but it still goes up on the board, doesn’t it?”

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Elsewhere this week:

In St. Louis, Stan Smith beat Rod Laver for the second straight week. This time it took three sets, but he finished the job with a break to love for a 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 victory.
At the Lady Gotham Classic in New York, Chris Evert cruised to a 47-minute victory over Katja Ebbinghaus of West Germany. Looking on was Vice President Spiro Agnew, one of 2,401 spectators at Madison Square Garden’s Felt Forum. The $8,000 first prize increased Chrissie’s haul to $26,350 after just one month as a pro.
Pakistan clinched its Davis Cup tie after squeaking through a five-set doubles rubber against South Vietnam. The victory earned them in a place in the Eastern Zone semi-finals against India, with the winner advancing to a likely clash with Australia.
Bobby Riggs told a reporter that women players shouldn’t get as much money as men, “because they’re not as good.” He also said that a no top woman had had a chance against a top man since Maureen Connolly in the 1950s.

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