If it weren’t for the likes of John McEnroe or Jimmy Connors, Eliot Teltscher may have had a long run as the top player in the United States and may have even won a major singles title or two. Instead, the Palos Verdes, California native can claim a French Open mixed doubles win and being member of a winning U.S. Davis Cup team as his major accomplishments. To boot, tennis journalist and author Sandy Harwitt named Teltscher as one of “The Greatest Jewish Tennis Players Of All-Time” in the book by the same name, available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/193755936X/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_GXUWybC1V7516 The following is Harwitt’s chapter on Teltscher called “Finding A Place in The Top 10.”
When one took a look at Eliot Teltscher on a tennis court, he certainly didn’t come across as particularly threatening.
At 5 feet, 10 inches tall and a spindly 150 pounds, it seemed as if one strong breeze would knock him over like a feather. Of course, Teltscher wasn’t the only guy out there in his generation that didn’t quite have the most athletic build. John McEnroe was an inch taller and probably a few pounds heavier, but they appeared of the same mold.
Looks, however, can be deceiving and that was certainly the case when it came to Teltscher — and McEnroe. The California-born and bred Teltscher ended up being one of the best of his time, journeying to a career-high ranking of No. 6 in the spring of 1982. While you wouldn’t exactly say that Eliot was the most fabulous of athletes, he had some very important assets in tennis. When it came to his game, his premium weapon was a delicious one-handed backhand, which he handled with a simple fluidity.
But it was his head that delivered him to the top of the game. Teltscher was an intelligent thinker on the court, a headstrong and determined competitor. Eliot understood his strengths and even looking back years later he had little doubt about why he met with success on the court.
“I was just a baseline player,” said Teltscher, reminiscing in a Los Angeles Times article from September 26, 1991. “I didn’t have all that much of a game, but I just tried real hard. A lot of the guys played better than me, but I just tried harder.”
The obstinate personality Eliot showed in the pros was developed at a very young age. He was the child of a Sabra mother, born in pre-state Israel Palestine, and a father who immigrated to Israel as a Holocaust survivor and joined the British military. By the time Teltscher was born, the family had relocated to Southern California. Living in upscale Palos Verdes, Teltscher and his older sister, Judy, would join their parents at the Jack Kramer Tennis Club when they were children. By the time he was 9, Teltscher had taken up the sport. He’d often play against Judy and, in the lore of sibling rivalry as the younger brother, he was desperate to be better than his older sister. It was at the Jack Kramer Tennis Club that Teltscher began working with the coaching maestro, Robert Lansdorp, a Dutchman with a great track record of superstar players he had a part in developing including Tracy Austin, Brian Teacher and eventually Pete Sampras, Maria Sharapova, Lindsay Davenport, and Anastasia Myskina, to name a few.
Almost immediately, Lansdorp saw that what Eliot brought to the table was a refusal to lose. Teltscher was stubborn and demanded winning results of himself.
“Since he was 10, 11 years old he was always so tenacious,” said Lansdorp, in that same Los Angeles Times article from September 1991. “He’s a fighter. He would run down everything. Every time you played the guy, you had a battle on your hands.” Teltscher would close out his life as a top 10-ranked junior with journeys to the Wimbledon and U.S. Open junior finals in 1977. At that Wimbledon, he shared a room with John McEnroe, who surprisingly qualified and journeyed all the way to the men’s semifinals that year. As the story is told, the room they shared only had one bed so the two took turns having the bed or the floor for the night.
By 1978, Teltscher was off to UCLA to play tennis. He received All-American honors and was considered the second-best collegiate player in the country, right behind his Wimbledon roommate from the year before. At the NCAA Championships, it was believed that McEnroe, the best college player out of Stanford, and Teltscher would vie for the prestigious NCAA singles title. But the anticipated final match never happened. Teltscher didn’t live up to his end of the bargain, losing to North Carolina State’s John Sadri in the quarterfinals. It was Sadri who found himself in Eliot’s supposed final spot against McEnroe, but he didn’t have the goods to bypass the future world No. 1.
Teltscher didn’t hang around at UCLA long enough to give the NCAA Championships a second try. Like McEnroe, he spent one year at college and then directed his effort to the pro tour. But his one-year stay was long enough for UCLA coach Glen Bassett to size up Eliot as a player with a personality akin to that of “The Little Engine That Could.”
Bassett said of Teltscher at the time: “Eliot believes in himself. He’s very tough out there on the court.”
It didn’t take Teltscher very long to make his own noise once he joined the pros. His first year on the tour delivered a singles title in Hong Kong, the first of 10 career titles. He played on a number of U.S. Davis Cup teams, and posted career victories over McEnroe, Jose-Luis Clerc and Jose Higueras. His best singles Grand Slam result was reaching the 1983 Australian Open quarterfinals, but along with fellow American Terry Moor, he attained a doubles final berth at the 1981 French Open, losing to Heinz Gunthardt and Balazs Taroczy 6-2, 7-6, 6-3. Two years later, however, the French Open would put Teltscher in the special class designated for Grand Slam champions. He teamed with fellow American Barbara Jordan to win the mixed doubles trophy 6-2, 6-3 over Americans Leslie Allen and Charles Strode. It’s worth noting that, for a time, Teltscher dated Barbara’s younger sister, Kathy, who was also a notable player.
Eventually, nerve problems in his right arm affected his ability to play at an optimum level and Eliot would call it quits following the 1988 season. He would go on to have a number of coaching positions. He worked as a personal coach with the likes of Pete Sampras, Justin Gimelstob, Jeff Tarango, and Taylor Dent. In the early 1990s, he coached the Pepperdine University men’s team. And for a time he was one of the United States Tennis Association’s national coaches. In 2009, Teltscher was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
