By Brian Sidney Parrott
If you like a real-life “Forest Gump” first person, amazing recollections by a wonderful tennis storyteller, .you should buy and read “The Wimbledon Final That Never Was….and Other Tennis Tales from a Bygone Era” by Sidney B. Wood, Jr., with insights from his son David Wood. (New Chapter Press, $15.95.
Sidney B. Wood, Jr. was a Vincent Van Patten look-a-like who was one of America’s best tennis players in the golden age of Big Bill Tilden and Don Budge. He played Davis Cup for the USA in the days when a boat (ocean liner) was the way to Europe to play the French, Wimbledon and Davis Cup matches against the best in the world.
He is George Plimpton-esque in his marvelous prose which gives one a ‘Great Gatsby’ feel to recollections of the champions he competed (very successfully) against and then observed through the modern era of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. In his 97 years, until his passing in 2009, he knew and watched them all as few have ever put pen to paper so well.
As an Eastern-born, western-raised, he was a ‘bi-coastal’ person, a Hollywood fixture and tells of encounters with Grace Kelly, Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, Charlie Chaplin….and the Shah of Iran (who was a tennis nut!).
I so commend Sidney Woods’ son David for sharing these wonderful recollections with the tennis world and beyond….and makes me think all sons, and daughter’s, should encourage Dad’s and Mom’s to write for children to know what it was like.
On a personal note, I wrote tennis columns for our college paper “The Spectator” at Seattle University (playing with the great Tom Gorman) and ironically I used Sidney Wood as my pseudonym so as not to have Brian Parrott writing about how great (or terrible) Brian Parrott did! I wish I would have tracked this man down to meet him to say thanks for the use of his name and thanks for his contributions to tennis through the years. He would have been a great TV commentator.
The Wimbledon Final That Never Was is a great and pleasant read.
Brian Sidney Parrott of Portland, Oregon, is a long-time tennis executive and promoter. His son Travis Parrott won the 2009 US Open mixed doubles title and now plays World Team Tennis for the New York Sportimes.