The year 1962 witnessed many “firsts” and historic moments in pop culture and society. It marked the first year the iconic band The Rolling Stones started making music. It was the first time the character James Bond first appeared on a movie screen. It marked the last year that movie star Marilyn Monroe graced the Earth and the first year that the New York Mets, the neighbor of the US Open tennis championships, first played as a baseball team.
It also marked an epic year in the world of tennis, climaxed by Australian legend Rod Laver winning his first of two Grand Slam sweeps of all four major singles titles. Bud Collins, the legendary tennis writer and historian, reviews the year 1962 in tennis in his famous book THE BUD COLLINS HISTORY OF TENNIS (available here on amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/The-Collins-History-Tennis-Authoritative/dp/0942257707/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347105221&sr=8-1&keywords=bud+collins+history+of+tennis) in this exclusive book excerpt.
The Australian grip—both hands firmly around the throat of players of any other nationality— was in vogue in 1962, the season of Rod Laver’s first Grand Slam and Margaret Smith’s near-Slam.
Laver duplicated Don Budge’s supreme feat of 1938, sweeping the singles titles of Australia, France, Great Britain (Wimbledon) and the United States. He also won the Italian and German titles, not to mention the less prestigious Norwegian, Irish and Swiss, and led Australia to a 5-0 blitz of upstart Mexico in the Davis Cup Challenge Round. In all, Laver won 19 of 34 tournaments and 134 of 149 singles matches during his long and incomparably successful year.
Smith (to become better known as Margaret Court after marriage to Barry Court) was staggered in the first round of Wimbledon by the pudgy chatterbox who would grow up to be her archrival, Billie Jean Moffitt (later Billie Jean King), but otherwise won just about everything in sight. Smith’s only other loss was to another young American, Carole Caldwell, but “Mighty Maggie” won 13 of 15 tournaments, including the Australian, French and U.S., and 67 of 69 singles matches.
Laver, the “Rockhampton Rocket” from that Queensland town, started his Slam at White City Stadium in Sydney, beating Roy Emerson, 8-6, 0-6, 6-4, 6-4, not that he’d had an easy time making it that far. Laver was particularly harried by Geoff Pares in the third round before prevailing, 10-8, 18-16, 7-9, 7-5. Emerson and Neale Fraser took the doubles, 4-6, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, 11-9, over mates Fred Stolle and Bob Hewitt.
Laver lived precariously at the French in Paris, the only leg of the Slam on slow clay, going the maximum sets down the stretch. He saved a match point in beating countryman Marty Mulligan in the quarterfinals, 6-4, 3-6, 2-6, 10-8, 6-2. He also went five with Fraser in the semifinals, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 7-5, and with Emerson again in the final, 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 9-7, 6-2. Emerson and Fraser racked up another doubles title, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, over Germans Christian Kuhnke and Wilhelm Bungert.
At Wimbledon, Laver lost only one set to Manolo Santana in a 14-16, 9-7, 6-2, 6-2, quarterfinal victory. There were no Americans in the quarters for the first time since 1922, and hardly room for anyone but Australians— six of them—as Yank Frank Froehling fell to Santana, 12-10, 6-3, 8-10, 6-3, in the fourth round. The semis were an all-Aussie show: Laver, Mulligan, Neale Fraser and his brother John Fraser, a physician by profession, who got an uncommonly lucky draw. Laver beat Neale Fraser, 10-8, 6-1, 7-5, and trampled Mulligan in the final, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1. With Emerson sidelined by the painful toe, defaulting to Mulligan in the quarterfinals, Aussies Bob Hewitt and Fred Stolle won the doubles over two new faces, Yugoslavs Boro Jovanovic and Nikki Pilic, 6-2, 5-7, 6-2, 6-4.
At Forest Hills, Laver lost only one set again en route to the U.S. final—to gangly Froehling in a 6-3, 13-11, 4-6, 6-3 quarterfinal victory. The athletic Emerson was back, but Laver repelled him as he had in Sydney, Rome (6-2, 1-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 in the Italian final) and Paris. Laver hit four fearsome backhand returns to break serve in the first game and dominated the first two sets with his varied backhand, either bashed or chipped, a topspin forehand, and ruthless serving and net play. Emerson, always barreling forward and battling, aroused a crowd of 9,000 by winning the third set, but Laver closed out the match and the Slam, 6-2, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, and was greeted by original Slammer Budge afterward. They had the male precinct of the ultra-exclusive club to themselves, sharing with only Maureen Connolly.
Astonishingly, there were again no Aussies in the final of the U.S. Doubles Championships at Longwood, where the “Mexican Thumping Beans,” collegians Rafe Osuna and Tony Palafox, out-hustled temperamental Americans Chuck McKinley and Dennis Ralston, reversing the previous year’s final result, 6-4, 10-12, 1-6, 9-7, 6-3.
Osuna and Palafox had scored a victory of much greater import over Ralston-McKinley earlier in the year, in the pivotal match of Mexico’s 3-2 upset of the U.S. in the Davis Cup. Palafox beat Jack Douglas in the rarefied atmosphere of Mexico City, 6-3, 6-1, 3-6, 7-5 after McKinley had disposed of Osuna, 6-2, 7-5, 6-3, in the opener. The doubles point provided the impetus, 8-6, 10-12, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. The next day Osuna was carried off on the shoulders of jubilant countrymen when he out-nerved Douglas, 9-7, 6-3, 6-8, 3-6, 6-1, for the clinching 3-1 point. This was the first time Mexico had defeated the U.S. in 15 tries and won the American Zone. Osuna and Palafox lugged their adoring nation all the way to the Challenge Round – defeating Yugoslavia, 4-1, Sweden, 3-2 (Osuna taking the tingling fifth match in Mexico City over Jan-Erik Lundquist, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3) and India, 4-1 at Madras.
Osuna had gone 5-1 in singles, Palafox 3-2 and they were 4-0 in doubles, all on clay. However, the left-handers Laver and Fraser on the swift grass of Brisbane were too steep a proposition, 5-0: Laver slamming Osuna, 6-2, 6-1, 7-5, and Fraser taking Palafox, 7-9, 6-3, 6-4, 11-9. Queensland mates Emerson and Laver settled it over the game Mexicans, 7-5, 6-2, 6-4.
For the third straight year, Margaret Smith, 19, drubbed Jan Lehane, 20, in the final of the Australian, 6-0, 6-2, where Jan, with her then-rare double-handed backhand, removed second-seeded Darlene Hard 7-5, 6-4 in the quarterfinals.
But Margaret had a much closer French final against another countrywoman, Lesley Turner. In a meeting of two future Hall of Famers, Smith had shown she could play on clay too, winning the Italian title, defeating Maria Bueno 8-6, 5-7, 6-4 in the final. In Paris, Smith prevailed over Turner 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, rescuing a match point at 3-5 in the third.
By that time, she must have been entertaining thoughts of duplicating the Grand Slam, joining Connolly, who had emulated Budge in 1953. But 18-year-old Billie Jean Moffitt, who had a premonition weeks earlier that she would draw Smith in her opening match at Wimbledon, rudely wrecked the dream, 1-6, 6-3, 7-5. It was the first time that the top-seeded female failed to survive one round. (Steffi Graf would lose to Lori McNeil in 1994, Martina Hingis to Jelena Dokic in 1999, and to Virginia Ruano Pascal in 2001.) Her victory established “Little Miss Moffitt” as a force to be reckoned with on the Centre Court that already was her favorite stage.
It was eighth-seeded Karen Hantze Susman taking the singles at age 19 without losing a set, and never in trouble. An outstanding volleyer, Susman was nudged a little in the semifinal by Ann Jones, 8-6, 6-1, and captured the title with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over unseeded Vera Sukova of Czechoslovakia. A sturdy 31-year-old baseliner, Vera, who would later give birth to two world class players, Helena Sukova and Cyril Suk, had run rampant through a patch of seeds: sixth-seeded, defending champ Angela Mortimer, 1-6, 6-4, 6-3; second-seeded Hard, 6-3, 6-3; third-seeded Maria Bueno, 6-4, 6-3. Billie Jean’s singles raves came to a halt in the quarters, 6-3, 6-1, to Jones, but repeated in the doubles with Susman, getting ahead in a 5-7, 6-3, 7-5, scrap with South Africans Sandra Reynolds Price and Renee Schuurman.
Smith was back in form at Forest Hills. With her enormous reach, athleticism, weight of shot and solid arsenal from the backcourt and net alike, she beat Hard in a nerve-wracking match, 9-7, 6-4 to become the first Australian woman to win the U.S. singles. She saved a set point in the 10th game of the first, and benefited from 16 double faults by Hard, who was perplexed by numerous close line calls and burst into prolonged tears in the sixth game of the second set. Smith had beaten third -seeded Bueno in a dandy semi, 6-8, 6-3, 6-4. But where were those teen-age darlings of Wimbledon – Moffitt and Susman? Both were early victims of one of the original grunters, 17-year-old Victoria Palmer of Phoenix. Palmer beat Billie Jean, who was injured, in the first round, 6-8, 5-0, default, and eliminated second-seeded Karen in the third round, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3. She lost a semifinal to Hard, 6-2, 6-3.
Hard beat Christine Truman, 6-2, 6-2, and Haydon, 6-3, 6-8, 6-4, as the U.S. edged Britain, 4-3 in the Wightman Cup at Wimbledon. Captain Margaret Osborne duPont, 44, teamed up with Margaret Varner to show that she could still win at doubles, 6-3, 2-6, 6-2, over Liz Starkie and Deidre Catt. Susman chipped in a 6-4, 7-5, win over Truman.
While the interest generated by Laver and Smith signaled a banner year for amateur tennis, the pros struggled. Pancho Gonzalez had retired for the time being, leaving Butch Buchholz to win the U.S. Pro title over Pancho Segura, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4, in Cleveland. Ken Rosewall won at Wembley defeating Lew Hoad 6-4, 5-7,15-13,7-5.
Jack Kramer had also given up the ghost as promoter. “We had all the best players, but the public didn’t want to see them,” he recalled. “There was no acceptance for our players. The conservative and powerful amateur officials were secure. Among other things, they had succeeded in making me the issue. If you were for pro tennis, you were in favor of handing over all of tennis to Jack Kramer. That was their argument.” That is vastly oversimplified, of course. Kramer in many ways had only himself to blame for antagonism. But name-calling aside, the pro game was in sorry shape.
Rosewall was the top dog, but he had little flair for promotion, and the top amateurs no longer were tempted to turn pro and face an uncertain, anonymous future. Under-the-table payments afforded a comfortable if not lavish lifestyle for the top “amateurs.” For the second time in the post-war era, there was no pro tour in the United States. Rosewall and Hoad were contemplating retirement. Their only chance at reviving interest, they thought, was to induce Laver to join them, and they pooled resources and personally guaranteed him $125,000 to come aboard for 1963. In the end, he decided he couldn’t reject such a generous offer.
Collins and Laver collaborated in a book called “The Education of a Tennis Player” about Laver’s second Grand Slam in 1969 and his life in general. It can be purchased here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Education-Tennis-Player-Laver/dp/0942257626/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347106817&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Education+of+a+Tennis+player