Dennis Ralston, member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame and one of the most prominent players and personalities in American tennis history, died Sunday, December 6 at the age of 78. Besides his competitive career and as a coach of not only the U.S. Davis Cup team, the Southern Methodist University men’s team and of all-time great Chris Evert, Ralston was known as one of the greatest collegiate players of all time while at the University of Southern California.
The following is the excerpt on Ralston from the book “Trojan Tennis: A History of the Storied Men’s Tennis Program at the University of Southern California” (for sale and download here: https://www.amazon.com/Trojan-Tennis-University-Southern-California/dp/1937559823/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Trojan+Tennis&qid=1607300823&sr=8-1) by Mark Young can be found below.
Dennis Ralston – The Prodigy
Dennis Ralston, Osuna’s USC doubles partner in 1962, was a tennis prodigy. According to the Ralston family, Dennis took to tennis when he was an infant. His father gave him a cut down racket, and when other kids were playing in a sandbox, he was out hitting balls against the wall. At nine, his parents put him on a bus by himself so that he could make the trek from Bakersfield to the LATC where he met Perry Jones. Jones recounted the story to Jack Olsen of Sports Illustrated, “His eyes barely came up to the counter, and right next to him was the biggest valise you ever saw. He looked up at me and said, ‘I’m Dennis.’ I had no idea who he was but the Ralston’s were awfully smart with Dennis because they didn’t baby him.”
One day, Aussie great Ken Rosewall came through Los Angeles on the way to Wimbledon to visit Jones. Rosewall told Jones that he only had a few hours in LA and wanted to hit with someone. Jones told Rosewall that the only person available was a 16-year-old boy who wouldn’t give him much of a game. Rosewall agreed to hit with him. Jones recalled, “I took Dennis out to court No. 2 and he beat the heck out of Rosewall. Beat him, beat him, beat his ears back! Rosewall wasn’t concentrating and just trying to loosen up, but he never expected a 16-year-old with that collection of strokes and so much finesse.”
In 1960, Rafael Osuna was a freshman at USC and Ralston was a senior at Bakersfield High School. The two met at the Ojai tennis tournament and clicked immediately. Three weeks later, Ralston signed with USC and George Toley asked him if he wanted to play doubles at Wimbledon with Osuna. Even though Ralston was still in high school, he had already distinguished himself and was ranked in the top ten in the United States. Friends from his hometown financed Ralston’s trip. Said Ralston, “Rafe and I became friends very quickly. Even though we were kind of thrown together, we respected each other and played very well together.” When the pair arrived in England, they discovered that they had not secured a berth in the tournament as they were led to believe, but instead had to play several other tournaments such as Manchester before they could be considered for the main draw. As Ralston said, “There were no real ‘qualifiers’ per se but we did have to make a good showing before tournament officials allowed us into the main draw. Luckily Rafe and I did that.” Thus, it could be argued that they were the first men’s team to ever win that tournament as “qualifiers.”It wasn’t until 2005 that South African Wesley Moodie and Australian Stephen Huss won the doubles title at Wimbledon beating Bob and Mike Bryan in the final as the first duo to win at the All England Club as modern-day qualifiers, having to win matches in a qualifying tournament to gain entry into the main draw.
Fortunately, the duo played very well with Ralston bombing serves and Osuna crushing volleys at the net. Entering the tournament unseeded, they ended up beating Mike Davies and Bobby Wilson of Great Britain in the Wimbledon final 7-5, 6-3, 10-8. On their way to victory, they also beat second seeds Rod Laver and Bob Mark, one of the best teams in the world, in the semifinal in five sets. At the end of the match, the crowd gave the two Trojans a standing ovation.
Said Ralston, “After finally qualifying for the main draw we were told to report to Locker Room B. Now Locker Room B is for all of the newcomers to the tournament. The big stars were in all in Locker Room A. After we won a few rounds, the tournament officials came to us and asked if we wanted to move to Locker Room A. We said, ‘No thanks, we are happy here.’ We played Laver and Bob Mark and won 11-9 in the fifth. We had to play Davies and Wilson in the final and played very well. We won in straight sets. I think we were one of the few teams to ever win Wimbledon out of Locker Room B! We sent George a telegram that said, ‘We Won!’”
Growing up playing at the Bakersfield Racquet Club, Ralston worked his way up the club ladders. He had very strong groundstrokes and a particularly good forehand. His serve was extremely accurate and he volleyed very well. But Dennis always thought he would follow in the footsteps of other Bakersfield kids and go to UCLA. What changed his decision was his recruiting trip to the Bruin campus. At the time of his visit, UCLA had top tennis players Allen Fox and Larry Nagler on the team. During his recruiting trip, he watched while Coach J. D. Morgan barked orders at his players and decided on the spot that he didn’t have a future as a Bruin. So he enrolled at USC. “George Toley had such a relaxed style of recruiting,” Ralston said. “He was soft-spoken and low-key. When I finally arrived at USC, I asked George why he didn’t put any pressure on me to come, and he smiled and said, ‘I always knew you would join us.’
“Toley had that sense about him,” Ralston continued. “It was the best decision I ever made. When I enrolled in January 1961, I was very happy to become part of the USC family that included players like Alex Olmedo, Rafe, Dick Leach and Bobby Delgado.”
The 1963 USC team has been called the greatest college tennis team of all time. The team had a perfect 12-0 season. “Back then, we were kids, we were doing our best to play well,” Ralston said. “We knew we were pretty good. Chuck Rombeau was the captain. We had so many great players on that team – Tom Edlefsen, Bill Bond, Rafael Osuna, Ramsey Earnhart, Leon Meyberg and Timothy Carr. Edlefsen, Bond, Ralston, Osuna and Earnhart were all inducted into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Men’s Collegiate Hall of Fame. We played as a team and no one thought they were better than anyone else.”
Ralston won the 1963 NCAA singles title beating Marty Riessen of Northwestern in a four-set final at Princeton. He and Osuna joined forces to beat their teammates Bill Bond and Ramsey Earnhart in a very close five-set final 9-7, 4-6, 7-9, 6-3, 6-1. USC won its sixth NCAA title, once again beating UCLA 27-19 in points.
“While the ’63 team was great, the ‘64 team was just as good in my mind,” Ralston said. “Bond, Rombeau, Meyberg and I all came back and David Blankenship, Jerry Cromwell, Dave Ranney and Horst Ritter joined us. George made sure we all got along. I felt that we were playing for the team and for USC. The team wanted to smash UCLA all the time. We beat them 9-0 when they had Arthur Ashe and Charlie Pasarell!”
In 1964, Tom Edlefsen made headlines by scoring a major upset over reigning French and Australian champion Roy Emerson at the U.S. National Indoors in Salisbury, Maryland. Allison Danzig, reporting for the New York Times wrote, “Tom Edlefsen, a long-legged undergraduate from the University of Southern California who ranks ninth nationally, put on an astonishingly fine exhibition to defeat Emerson. Hitting with murderous fury with both forehands and backhands that stopped Emerson in his tracks time and again on flat and overspin drives, the blond California won 6-4, 6-8, 6-3.” Edlefsen went on to beat Arthur Ashe before succumbing to his USC teammate Ralston in straight sets in the semifinal. Unfortunately, Ralston lost in a marathon five-set match to Chuck McKinley of Trinity.
When asked about his most memorable singles and doubles collegiate matches, Ralston said, “In 1964, we were one point behind UCLA in the NCAA team tournament in East Lansing, Michigan, and I had to win my singles match against Arthur Ashe. I beat Ashe in straight sets, and then won against Northwestern’s Marty Reissen—also in straight sets—to win my second straight NCAA title. Bill Bond and I then had to play Ashe and Charlie Pasarell in the doubles final and won 6-2, 6-3, 6-4. This also gave us the team victory 26-25 over UCLA. It was our third national team title in a row.
“Even though we won the team title, we couldn’t enjoy it. We finished the tournament on Saturday and then had to fly directly to Wimbledon as we were scheduled to play on Monday. At Wimbledon, they don’t care what you were doing before the tournament; you just have to be on the court at your scheduled time. My wife, Linda, was frantic, as she knew that we had to run back to our hotel room, pack our bags and go to the airport. But unbeknownst to us, Coach Toley and Linda had loaded up the station wagon while we were playing. As things were extremely hectic, I didn’t question what had happened but just jumped into the car and sped to Detroit to catch the plane to London. It was only 25 years later at George’s tribute party that he admitted that he hadn’t seen a single point in our doubles match with Arthur and Charlie, but was busy packing up our stuff in the hotel! When I asked him why he did this, he said, ‘You guys had to make it to the airport and I knew you were going to win!’ George had confidence in his players. He didn’t say too much to us when we were playing. He was always calm.”
Ralston continued, “Rafe and I remained good friends. We roomed together at USC and then got a house close to the LA Tennis Club. I even played against him in Davis Cup. Neither of us liked flying and shied away from it. It was heartbreaking when his plane went down. We were all stunned and completely distraught.
“In 2009, I came out to The Ojai tournament and Peter Smith asked me to say something to the team. I greatly admire Peter for a number of reasons but [particularly because] I think that he knows how important it is to keep his players and teams linked to the past. We have such a strong tennis tradition at USC and I am so proud to have been inducted into the USC Athletic Hall of Fame. Stan Smith was first and I was second.”
Ralston won five major doubles titles and was instrumental in beating Australia in the 1963 Davis Cup Championship with teammate Chuck McKinley. He also captained the Davis Cup squad in 1972 vanquishing Romania for the title. He was a member of the “Handsome Eight,” who were a major part of the beginnings of men’s professional tennis. The Handsome Eight (or as some wags referred to it: “The Handsome Seven plus Tony Roche”) were a group of eight top amateur tennis players who turned pro and changed the nature of men’s professional tennis. In late 1967, as the “Open Tennis” era began—in which amateur and professional players could compete in the same tournaments—the Eight signed with the World Championship Tennis (WCT) Organization under businessman and promoter David Dixon (also responsible for the Louisiana Superdome and the New Orleans Saints) and backed by Texas oilman Lamar Hunt. The group consisted of Nikola “Niki” Pilić, Earl “Butch” Buchholz, Dennis Ralston, Pierre Bathes, Cliff Drysdale, Roger Taylor, John Newcombe and Tony Roche. A rival group, known as the National Tennis League, consisted of Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Pancho Gonzales, Andres Gimeno, Fred Stolle and Roy Emerson. The WCT and the NTL were constantly at odds over who would play particular tournaments. Ultimately, the NTL was absorbed by the WCT, but conflicts still persisted with the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF). In 1972, players decided to form the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). The WCT ended in 1989, and in 1990, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) assumed the running of the men’s professional tennis tour, being renamed the ATP World Tour.
All of the years of playing had done great damage to Ralston’s knee and leg. In 2010, after close to 30 knee surgeries and other injuries that ultimately affected his left foot, he went under the knife and had the leg amputated from the knee down. As a result of all of the surgeries, Ralston also developed an addiction to painkillers that lasted ten years, but finally, at the urging of his family, he finally checked himself into the Betty Ford Clinic to get clean. Ralston still coaches tennis and is drug free. His amputation has made his understanding of the game that much sharper. “I now coach a wheelchair player and it is one of the most gratifying things I have done in my life.”
