By Leigh Sanders
As a Welshman, it is very rare that we get to celebrate one of our own getting mentioned in the same sentence as the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Primarily a rugby (and every 50 years or so a footballing) nation the list of Welsh tennis greats could probably be counted on two, if not one, hand.
So to have Swansea-born Mike Davies balloted for admission into the annals of such a prestigious sport is a great honor. But I’m not too sure how many people actually know who he is. Wales is typical as a small nation where we talk fondly of our own who earn great success almost to the point of hyperbole. If an alien were to visit the country not knowing anything of our planet they would think Sir Anthony Hopkins was Shakespeare himself and that Tom Jones had powers comparable to Superman and Batman combined.
But the country isn’t exactly a hotspot of tennis fever. So, to those of my countrymen who may be reading this, and anybody else around the world that has entered this page, I give you Michael Davies.
Born in January 1936, I doubt Mike Davies remembers Fred Perry winning the hearts of the nation for the final time unless he has one of the greatest memories ever gifted to a human being.
Born in the Welsh “second city” of Swansea, Davies was probably pushed to take up rugby, seen by many as the national sport of Wales. In many parts of the country, if you don’t like rugby you’re considered not worth knowing. Up until 2004 when Bulgaria et al were included in to the European Union, South Wales was in fact the poorest region so you can imagine the looks of disdain at the thought of young Mike playing tennis.
But play tennis he did, and very well. As a junior he was the Welsh Champion at the 16-and-under and 18-and-under level for four consecutive years. When he made the transition to adulthood, he was the British No. 1 on three occasions in 1957, 58 and 60. In that year he was also the last British man to play in either a men’s singles or doubles final at Wimbledon as he and Bobby Wilson were losing finalists to Rafael Osuna and Dennis Ralston in the men’s doubles final at SW19. This helped him earn the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
Following on from that performance, Jack Kramer was quick to sign him up to his Professional Tennis Tour with whom Davies travelled the world bringing tennis to cities who had never witnessed it first-hand before, helping to shape the tour into the multi-national spectacle it has become.
But it is when he put his racquet down and picked up his pen that Davies began to truly achieve in the tennis world.
Following his retirement in 1967, between 1968 and 1981 Davies served as the Executive Director of World Championship Tennis (WCT) for whom he negotiated tournament setups and television deals bringing tennis to a truly global audience and increasing popularity in the sport tenfold as television viewing figures bolstered an already sufficient fan base. He also helped destroy the debilitating perception that tennis was an elitist sport.
It was working with the WCT promotions company that Davies devised the first “Million Dollar Tour,” culminating in the WCT Finals in Dallas. It was this vital promotions work that today has his fellow tennis businessmen referring to him as the administrator with the largest knowledge of tennis and television around.
In 1981, Davies moved on to the ATP where he served as Marketing Director and then Executive Director. He was the fourth man to hold this position and followed Kramer, Bob Birner and Earl “Butch” Buchholz.
After trying to establish a players’ union while he played during the 1960s, which subsequently failed, it was during his time with the ATP that Davies was able to put in to practice his ideas about how the players should be involved in the running of tournaments so that they could be made as comfortable an environment as possible.
“It is in the players’ best interests to have healthy tournaments,” Davies says in his bio on the ATP World Tour website. “If the game is strong, then present and future ATP members will have a healthy environment in which to play.”
His work with the ATP back in the day was as fundamental to the sport as it is today. He introduced the colored tennis ball as well as colored apparel for the players. If it wasn’t for Davies, tennis fashion would not be where it is today with Rafa Nadal brightly kitted out on the courts and Venus Williams sporting her interesting dresses. Whether all of you think that is a good thing, I don’t know. But Davies certainly thinks so.
“The game has come a long way since I started playing back in the 1950’s,” he says. “All the contributing factors have helped, but none has helped more than the players themselves through the influence of the ATP.”
It was Davies’ initial pushing for a player’s council which has slowly led to today’s model currently chaired by Roger Federer and vice-chaired by Nadal. With players getting a say in how the tournaments they enter are staged there will be few mistakes made and players are less likely to suffer burnout with the tour as expansive as it is now.
During the 1980s, Davies also worked closely with the ITF and is largely credited for revitalizing the Davis Cup which was floundering at the time. Using his marketing expertise, the tournament became a large success and has once again grown in to the vastly competitive international competition it is today. The Fed Cup soon followed suit. This is perhaps the jewel in his elegant crown of achievements.
At the age of 74, Davies is still active in the sport. As CEO of the Pilot Pen tennis championships in New Haven, Connecticut, he continues to draw the biggest names to the final warm-up tournament before the US Open begins.
It is a glittering career that has done more behind the scenes for tennis than I, or many others, ever knew about. A lot of the modern sport is down to the parts orchestrated by Davies quietly behind the scenes and for this we should be grateful.
Even though he is a Swansea lad (a big thing to us Cardiffians), he is a boy done good and a shining light to this tiny nation he calls home. While he has invariably gone Stateside like most of our stars, he should still be fondly remembered here. If there is a Fred Perry in waiting among the mining towns of the Rhondda Cynon Taf. it is Davies they should be inspiring to emulate as one of our own.
A true Welsh hero.