Tennis tales
Taki
I was telling the man who owns large chunks of Vitas Gerulaitis about the first ever match I saw at Wimbledon. It pitted England's up-and-coming Bobby Wilson — who looked a cross between Auberon Waugh and Art Garfunkel — against probably the best looking man ever to play at Wimbledon, certainly the most elegant to win it, the American Budge Patty.
Patty was tall, thin, smooth, with a pencil moustache and wore Saville Row suits. He had the manners of a diplomat although he came from a very modest Californian background. His patrician looks and old-world mannerisms had fascinated the poor little rich girl of those days, Barbara Hutton. She tried to marry him, offered to buy him, but he begged off. Patty in his prime was making about two hundred pounds per week, and considered himself a very rich and lucky man. By 1957 he was on the downturn. Seated in the competitors section I watched old ladies cry, younger ones sigh, as the elegant Adonis played at their heartstrings with the raise of an eyebrow at a missed volley, or a sardonic smile at a net cord.
The Patty-Wilson match was not only a classic on a technical level — both players possessing a strong serve but also great touch — it was somehow representative of the pre-fab culture. The American expatriate, the quintessential Fitzgerald type, versus the absentminded Englishman, the almost effete mother's boy with a resolve of steel, on that given day anyhow. The kind who would be made fun of in the army and end up winning a VC.
Patty lost to Wilson that day and after a couple of years quit tennis. He is the only player of his time, however, who despite missing out on the tennis bonanza of today spends his days in great comfort and is very well off. Like an athletic Dick Diver, he married a Greek heiress and lived happily ever after in Switzerland.
Tennis did not become an economic phenomenon until the Seventies. The romantic idea of amateur sport, however sham, was discarded in 1970 and with it went what used to be called style. In its place came greasy hair, worn long like footballers and constantly brushed out of the eyes, synthetic, polychromatic garments to make up for the loss or rather lack of personality. And hexagonal rackets, plastic fibre or metal ones, even one with a giant head that guarantees to stop mishits.
Given all the changes that tennis has endured, it would be abnormal, even for Wimbledon, not to be affected. And the willingness of Wimbledon enthusiasts to accept almost anything helped the trans
ition. Where once there were high teas and strawberries there are now hamburgers and hot dogs, strawberries in disposable cartons and pizzas in plastic boxes. Pretty soon some enterprising Cypriot will open a souvlaki stand near court fourteen.
The social level of the spectators has gone down too. Formerly they were neatly dressed and school girls wore bloaters and uniforms. Now its jeans, jeans and more jeans. And fainting at the sight of John Lloyd's legs (whose agent, by the way, has shrewdly exploited the press's fascination with them. Not since Betty Grable has so much been written about a pair of legs. Nastase's agent told me, in a fit of jealousy, that he hopes Lloyd gets varicose veins).
Agents are a profilerating species in Wimbledon during the championships. Just before playing Chris Evert on Tuesday, Billie Jean King announced that she was setting up the International Management Group. The announcement spread around the locker rooms like wildfire. Agents and PR men cajoled, threatened or begged players for a commitment. Where once Emerson sang a high falsetto in the showers, and' Pietrangeli bragged about girls, you now hear things like 'I am out of commodities as of today,' or 'Yen, buy yen and short the mark.'
Still, if you are between the traumatic age of thirty-five and forty-five, Wimbledon's first week was just what the doctor ordered. The oldest player in the singles draw, a thirty-eight-year-old, almost totally bald, salt-and-pepper-bearded Australian now playing for South Africa, Bob Hewitt, won a gruelling match against an American young enough to be his son but not tough enough when the chips were down in the deciding fifth set.
It was Tom Okker, a knock-kneed Dutchman, a man who could advertise clothes for non-athletes, who sprung the greatest surprise. He first beat the musclebound Vitas, then in the quarters the mercurial Nastase. This was the best match of the championships so far. Both are touch players and they dinked, dropped-shotted, lobbed, lob-volleyed, sliced and topspinned each other in the most entertaining as well as technically skilful contest in years. Okker won it because he was 'on' and because Nasty hates players who play like him.
1 played against Okker in the Davis Cup and once in Monte Carlo. I gave him no trouble but he always had a kind word to say about my game. The bad-boy of my time was Hewitt. Once I played him in an Australian v Greece exhibition. After beating me cleanly and without trouble he took me aside and spent two whole hours on my backhand. I had never seen him before that day in 1960. He simply liked to help weaker players. I somehow cannot imagine today's millionaires taking the time for such a futile effort. Even if they wished to their agents would not allow it. And market research findings discourage it too.
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