History Archives - Page 3 of 17

November 11, 1973: Laver the Underdog

*L to R: Neale Fraser, Rod Laver, John Newcombe, and Ken Rosewall*

When Rod Laver and John Newcombe met to determine the champion of the 1973 Australian Indoors in Sydney, the Davis Cup semi-final was just a few days away. It was a safe bet that the Aussies would beat the visiting Czechoslovakians, but it still wasn’t certain who, exactly, would get the job done.

One reporter called the four-man squad of Laver, Newcombe, Ken Rosewall, and Mal Anderson “the strongest team Australia, and quite likely any country, has fielded in the 73-year history of Dwight Davis’s silver bowl.” Australia had won the Cup 21 times, and after a five-year lull in which the nation’s murderer’s row of contract professionals was ineligible, the lads from Down Under were more than ready to take it back.

Newcombe would lead the charge: Captain Neale Fraser was relying on the big-serving US Open champion. That left Laver or Rosewall for the second singles spot. Laver was two years younger, and when he played his best tennis, he was the superior choice. But he had struggled with injuries throughout the year. Until he came through a weak field in Hong Kong at the end of October, he hadn’t won a title since March. In that same span, Rosewall had picked up five.

Luckily for Fraser, he couldn’t have scripted the Aussie Indoors any better. Both veterans waltzed through the draw, progressing to the semis without the loss of a set. On November 10th, something had to give: They met in the semi-finals with, in all likelihood, a place in the Davis Cup singles lineup on the line.

There were no secrets between these two. Laver and Rosewall had faced off more than 150 times, going back to Laver’s pro debut ten years earlier. Rocket held a narrow advantage, but Rosewall had won the last two decisions, including the championship round of the 1972 WCT Finals, one of the greatest matches of all time and a television broadcast that launched thousands of amateur tennis careers. It was Rosewall’s backhand against Laver’s serve-and-volley, as it had always been.

In the decisive third set, both men battled for every point, breaking serve a total of seven times. Laver won by the narrowest of margins, 8-6. Rosewall, aware of the implications of his loss and always a man of few words, could only say, “I should have pressed harder.”

The victory earned Laver a place in the final against Newk. If Fraser had any lingering doubts about his choice, the left-handed veteran put them to rest. The Aussie Indoors final was best-of-five, and the two men went the distance, Laver grabbing the first set and Newcombe the next two. Rocket was the most dangerous man in the game when playing from behind, and he showed it again on this day.

After pushing the match to a fifth set, Laver lost his serve in the fifth game of the decider. Newcombe held for a 4-2 advantage before Rocket made his final move. Laver broke for 4-all, and two games later, he put an exclamation mark on his triumph with a blistering backhand on match point. After a frustrating season full of stops and starts, there was no longer anything holding him back.

“I reckon I was the underdog,” he said, “and this makes the victory that much more enjoyable.”

Laver the underdog: Even the Czechs didn’t give themselves much of a chance.

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This post is part of my series about the 1973 season, Battles, Boycotts, and Breakouts. Keep up with the project by checking the TennisAbstract.com front page, which shows an up-to-date Table of Contents after I post each installment.

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November 10, 1973: Rising Royalty

*Jimmy Connors and Björn Borg after a 1976 duel*

The Swedish royal family had an affection for tennis, and Björn Borg had a knack for pleasing them. In July 1973, Borg had impressed King Gustaf VI Adolf at the summer resort of Båstad, reaching the semi-finals and pushing Stan Smith to three sets. Gustaf died shortly thereafter, and when Borg returned home for the Stockholm Open, his grandson, newly-minted King Karl XVI Gustaf, was looking on instead.

The 17-year-old Borg wasn’t yet the king of the courts, or even the king of clay, but he was making a quick ascent at the same time that Karl Gustaf did.

On November 10th, the Swedish sensation pushed for a new best on home soil. To reach the semi-finals, Borg had won three straight three-setters, against little-known local Birger Andersson, the suddenly vulnerable Ilie Năstase, and the dangerous left-handed veteran Niki Pilić. His semi-final opponent, Jimmy Connors, had yet to lose a set.

The two youngsters would ultimately play 23 official matches, including four major finals. This was the first of those meetings, and it wasn’t one that the 3,500-strong sellout crowd would soon forget. Borg took the first set, 6-4, then Connors equalized with a 6-3 frame. The American had more experience competing indoors, but he could have used more support from the grandstand. After twelve deadlocked games in the decider, Borg ran away with a tiebreak, allowing Connors just two points.

The victory set up a final that would reverberate far beyond the Swedish border. Advancing through the other half of the draw was the speedy American, Tom Gorman, who upset Smith in the quarters and outlasted Tom Okker in the semis. Gorman stood in eighth place in the Grand Prix standings, hanging on to a place in the field for the year-end Masters event. Just fifteen points behind him in ninth place: Björn Borg.

The Stockholm winner would take home more than the $10,000 first prize: Either Gorman would cement his claim to a place in the Masters draw, or Borg would overtake him. Only one more “A”-level event remained on the Grand Prix calendar, in Johannesburg, and neither man intended to make the trip. At the Swedish capital’s Royal Hall, before a royal audience, two men who had squeaked through to the final would continue their fight for a place among tennis royalty.

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November 9, 1973: I Am an Athlete

*Billie Jean King speaking to a Senate subcommittee*

After her triumph over Bobby Riggs at the Astrodome, everyone wanted a piece of Billie Jean King–even the United States Senate.

The tennis boom extended to the highest ranks of society. Former Vice President Spiro Agnew was an enthusiastic–if erratic–player. New York Representative “Battling Bella” Abzug cleaned up when she bet on Billie Jean against her fellow Riggs-backing Congressmen. Connecticut Senator Lowell Weicker told a group of high students that he would challenge King once he was finished with the Watergate hearings–if he could ever shore up his backhand.

Madame Superstar was invited to Washington to speak to a Senate subcommittee on the subject of the Women’s Educational Equity Act (WEEA), a law proposed to support the broader gender-equality goals of Title IX, which had passed the previous year. The bill had foundered in the House of Representatives, but Senator Walter Mondale revived it for consideration by the Senate.

In both a prepared address and a question-and-answer session on November 9th, King emphasized that stereotyping and discrimination started early. She chose tennis as an 11-year-old, when she was told to pick a “ladylike” sport. As she rose through the local junior ranks, she saw travel funding and other advantages given to boys without half her promise, while she got nothing. It was a vicious cycle: There were few professional role models for athletic young girls, and without early support, few of those girls would do any better.

King was one of the few to break through, and she delighted to see how things were changing. “Little boys come up to me and say, I want to be a great tennis player like you,” she told Senator Richard Schweiker. “They don’t think of me as a woman or man; all they know is I am an athlete.”

There was little talk of specifics; King’s appearance was, in part, a gambit to generate positive press for the WEEA. Besides, who would pass up the chance to meet the sports hero of the hour? “I saw the whole tennis match,” said Schweiker, “and I am one of the tennis buffs who would not think of challenging you.”

Congress–some of it, anyway–was just trying to catch up with the times. As part of a larger package, the WEEA would pass in August 1974, authorizing grants for various type of educational programs. Title IX wasn’t yet primarily linked to sports, and its regulations wouldn’t be finalized until 1975. At every educational level, women’s teams and programs were already sprouting up, many of them with new scholarships attached. Legislation only accelerated a process that–thanks in part to Billie Jean and other role models–was already reshaping American culture.

“Women are starting to have more self-respect, walking tall,” King told the subcommittee. “I think a lot of it is just because of that match against Roberta Riggs the other day.”

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November 3, 1973: Glass Half Empty

The Dewar Cup circuit was not what it used to be. British tennis in general was fighting a rearguard action against richer tournaments around the world, as players chose dollar signs over tradition. The Dewar’s-backed late-season mini-tour had once spanned six weeks and featured Margaret Court and Evonne Goolagong. By 1973, it was down to four weeks, and the fields were considerably less star-studded.

It wasn’t all about the money, but the money didn’t help. The total purse for women at the Dewar Cup of Edinburgh, the second stop on the circuit, was $3,500 (£1,430), including $825 for the singles winner. By comparison, at the Virginia Slims Championships in Florida just a few weeks earlier, first-round losers took home $800. The same performance at a Whiskey circuit stop was worth a measly fifty bucks, or twenty pounds sterling.

Dewar’s, the booze-selling sponsor, tried to emphasize the opportunities that a lower-profile circuit gave to young players. (17-year-old Sue Barker took part, as did Romanian teens Virginia Ruzici and Mariana Simionescu.) Another positive aspect, at least for local fans, is that the events were increasingly dominated by British players. In Aberavon, Wales, the first stop, Mark Cox and Virginia Wade took the titles. In Edinburgh, on November 3rd, 21-year-old Brit John Feaver challenged Wimbledon semi-finalist Roger Taylor for the men’s title, while Wade faced Julie Heldman for the second week in a row.

In Wales, Heldman had tried and failed to outhit Wade, and she went down quickly. What fans didn’t know is that just about everything was going wrong for the 27-year-old American. The press had come down on her–unfairly, she thought–for her win by retirement over Billie Jean King at the US Open, she was going through a bad breakup, and she had a nagging cough, spiraling into a bronchitis that would take her out of action the following week. If that wasn’t enough, she hated her new haircut.

She might have disliked Wade even more. Decades later, she still prickled at the British player’s “arrogance and dismissiveness.” No matter that the odds were against her, Heldman would throw the kitchen sink at her leonine nemesis.

The London Observer‘s Shirley Brasher credited the American with “clever changes of spin and pace,” the sort of game to put Wade off balance. Heldman lost the first set, but when Wade started rushing into errors in the second, the American took advantage and forced a decider.

It became as testy a battle as the two ladies had ever contested. Words were exchanged in the third game of the deciding set; alas, the British press did not record them for posterity. In the end, wrote David Gray, “Miss Heldman concentrated so hard on winning the intellectual battle that she lost accuracy and concentration.” Wade took the final set, 6-1, despite the fact that, according to Lance Tingay, her “evenness of temperament was tried to the full.”

Wade hardly needed to call her accountant about another $825 prize, but there was one consolation. Taylor, the men’s champion, got the same amount. While the Whiskey circuit was on the way down–in a few years it would disappear entirely–the shrinking rewards of the Dewar Cup were distributed equally to men and women.

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November 1, 1973: Cracked Open

*Arthur Ashe on his 1973 South Africa trip*

With the 1973 South African Open just a couple weeks away, the country’s racial policies were back on the sports page. On October 31st, Arthur Ashe learned that he was granted a visa to travel to Johannesburg; the government had said no in 1970 and 1971 because of the player’s “antagonistic attitude” toward the country’s leadership.

The next day, November 1st, an ILTF committee voted to allow South Africa to remain in the Davis Cup competition. Banned in 1971 and 1972, the Springboks returned to action in the 1973 South American zone and sent a second-string squad to Uruguay, where Guillermo Vilas and the Argentinian team ended their bid for the Cup. In 1974–actually, even before the new year–the South Africans would return, this time opening their campaign against Brazil.

The vote was something of a slap in the face to Argentina. The 1973 tie had barely come off: In the run-up to the matches in April, protests at home had driven the government to switch the venue to neighboring Montevideo. Now, Argentina refused to play the apartheid nation anywhere. The committee’s compromise was that it would not penalize nations for defaulting to South Africa. Between the objections of Argentina and Chile, which had said it would not play South Africa in 1973 before the issue was rendered moot, a default seemed likely to occur.

The decision, made at an ILTF meeting in Paris, had repercussions on yet another continent. New Zealand hoped to host the 1974 Federation Cup, the women’s team event. But the Kiwi government wasn’t willing to host a South African team until the pariah nation allowed multiracial competition.

Ashe’s visa was one of many signs that South Africa was willing–if barely–to consider change. The other marquee sporting event on the country’s calendar was a light-heavyweight boxing match between local hero Pierre Fourie and champion Bob Foster, a black American. The bout, scheduled for December 1st in Johannesburg, would have been unthinkable just a few years before. Throughout 1972 and 1973, South African sporting bodies gradually allowed interracial competition and hosted mixed-race teams, such as New Zealand’s All Blacks and a group of British cricketers. A handful of non-white locals were given places in the South African Open draw, as well.

It remained to be seen whether the policy shift represented a new approach, or was merely a sop to international opinion. South Africa had been excluded from the Olympics since 1964, and the country took it hard. Compromise was on the table for international competition if it would get them back in the world’s good graces. But at the local level, sport was still ruled by apartheid. The government supported a massive fund-raising effort to support black athletic development, while simultaneously seeking to broaden the scope of the Group Areas Act–part of the legal basis for racial separation–to make it harder for black teams to compete against white ones.

Ashe assured his hosts that his aims weren’t political. The purpose of his trip, he said, was “solely to play tennis and to do so in a spirit of goodwill and cooperation.” He would discover an enormous amount of goodwill waiting for him in South Africa, but genuine cooperation–especially for the 20 million blacks who would remain in the country long after the tournament was over–was much tougher to find.

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October 27, 1973: The Whiskey Circuit

Eleven years after her first appearance at Wimbledon, Virginia Wade had settled into a role on the women’s tour as an almost-superstar, a stalwart of Great Britain’s Wightman and Federation Cup teams but a perennial disappointment at the season’s showcase event.

Wade was most at home on fast indoor courts, conditions that supported her big serve and attacking game. That made her a perfect fit for the Dewar Cup circuit, a series of tournaments staged in Britain every fall since the beginning of the Open Era in 1968. In the first five years of the so-called “Whiskey Circuit,” Wade had entered every tournament but one, claiming nine singles titles in that span.

Wade’s nemesis on the Dewar’s swing had been Margaret Court, who defeated her four times–four weeks in succession–in 1972. In 1973, Court wasn’t around, and that left the British star as the favorite each week. Taking over the role of chief challenger was the London-based American veteran, Julie Heldman.

On October 27th, Wade and Heldman met for the title on the first leg of the 1973 circuit, in Aberavon, Wales. The two women had faced off 15 times since 1968, and while the Brit held a comfortable 10-5 edge, Heldman had beaten her twice on the Whiskey Circuit. There was little love lost between the pair, and their styles differed just as widely. Wade was acclaimed for her stylish play, the sort of competitor who might prefer “beautiful tennis” to a victory. Heldman, by contrast, was “winning ugly” when Brad Gilbert was still in primary school. This is the woman who, earlier in 1973, snuck in an underarm serve on set point, and at the US Open, out-gamesmanshipped Billie Jean King to grab a win by retirement.

Wade was lucky to be in the final at all. In the quarters against Jackie Fayter, she had squandered match point in the second set, then lost five points in a row to drop the tiebreak. She advanced only after a 6-3, 6-7, 7-6 nailbiter.

On finals day, Ginny showed no such signs of weakness. She was, in the words of former British standout Shirley Brasher, “at her most competent and confident.” Heldman, by contrast, could’ve used more junk. The American played more aggressively than usual, which is exactly how Wade liked it. The result was never in doubt, and it ended with a 6-3, 6-1 victory for the top-seeded Brit.

The story of the 1973 Dewar Cup, though, was just beginning. There were three more events on the circuit, and the same two women would headline the draws at each one. Wade could count on an advantage in firepower, but she knew that the next time they met, Heldman would surely have a fresh tactical plan. Running the table on the four-week Whiskey Circuit was never going to be easy.

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October 26, 1973: Highs and Lows

By the end of October, Ilie Năstase was ready to get back to sea level.

The top-ranked player in the game, typically an unstoppable force on clay, headed to Tehran’s 1973 Aryamehr Cup on a losing streak. His bête noire, Tom Okker, had beaten him in the semi-finals in Madrid.

Madrid lies about 2,100 feet (650 meters) above sea level, the highest capital in Europe and one of the thinner-air stops of the tennis tour. Despite a slow surface, the altitude causes the ball to move faster and–until players get used to it–sail long. Clay-court standouts have rarely found the Spanish metropolis a comfortable place to play, and the Romanian was no exception.

With several high-stakes events still on the calendar, the sensible thing for Năstase would have been to take a week off before the Paris Indoors. That’s what Okker and the other Madrid finalist, Jaime Fillol, did. But the Romanian had already played 120 singles matches on the season, and he wasn’t about to take a break now.

Instead, he hopped a flight to Tehran, joining John Newcombe, Vijay Amritraj, and Raúl Ramírez on the new Asian tour. Appearance money may have been involved: Stakes were high for the Aryamehr Cup to be a success, as Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was personally involved and the tournament was a key cog in the country’s gradual westernization. Rod Laver, another marquee name who might have been susceptible to financial inducements, also played the awkward Madrid-Tehran double.

Unfortunately for Năstase, the Iranian capital stood over 3,400 feet (1,040 meters) above sea level, even higher than Madrid.

Ilie adapted well enough in the early going, dispatching Anand Amritraj and Ross Case with the loss of only seven games. That earned him a place in the quarter-finals against Ramírez, the 20-year-old Mexican.

Much had changed since the two men last met, in February 1972. Though Ramírez was overshadowed by other breakout stars, such as Björn Borg, Jimmy Connors, and Vijay Amritraj, he had established himself as one of the best young players in the game. He threatened the United States in Davis Cup play, upset Connors at Roland Garros, beat Borg en route to a title in Kitzbuhel, and knocked out Arthur Ashe at the Pacific Southwest.

On October 26th, the young Mexican added another scalp to that impressive list. Unlike Năstase, he knew how to handle thin air, having developed his game in mile-high Mexico City. The Romanian “could never quite hold his game together in the altitude,” according to reporter Edward Johnson, and that was enough to keep Ramírez in the match. Năstase didn’t clown it away, either: It was one of the hardest-fought contests of the season. The two men traded tiebreaks in the first two sets, and would have played another if the rules had allowed it. Instead, the third set ran to 16 games, with Ramírez claiming victory by the narrowest of margins, 7-6, 6-7, 9-7.

The quarter-final defeat was Năstase’s earliest exit on clay in more than 16 months. At least he had plenty of good reasons. The Grand Prix points race was wrapped up, so his results didn’t matter much. The conditions, as we’ve seen, didn’t suit him. And Ramírez really could play at altitude. The Mexican won another three-setter the following day against Željko Franulović, then beat Newcombe in four sets for the title.

The Shah handed the trophy to Ramírez, and players were unanimous in their approval of the crowds and the venue at the Imperial Country Club. Tehran had all the makings of a successful tour stop–provided, wrote Johnson, “that political considerations do not intervene.”

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October 23, 1973: A Sort of an End

*Billie Jean King at the Virginia Slims of Hawaii*

Barely two weeks after winning a title in Phoenix and pronouncing her 1973 season over, just a few days after skipping the Virginia Slims Championships in Boca Raton, Billie Jean King was back on a tennis court. The nine-player Virginia Slims of Hawaii–sponsored by the cigarette makers though not part of the main tour–was little more than an exhibition.

Except, as Billie Jean had recently shown, exhibition tennis could be a big deal. More than 1,600 fans came out to a high school gymnasium in Honolulu to watch King take on Pat Bostrom in her opening match on October 23rd.

Skipping the tour championships in favor of a lesser event smacked of a career in transition, and Madame Superstar didn’t deny it. She called the Battle of the Sexes “sort of an end.”

“I’m going to play less tournament tennis,” she told a newsman in Hawaii. “I’m heavily involved in business now, and I think it’s fascinating.” She had recently launched a new magazine, which would begin publication the following year as womenSports, and she intended to give her all to the new Philadelphia franchise of World Team Tennis.

“The weakness in the women’s movement has been too much intellectualizing, too much talk,” King said, repeating a familiar refrain. “I feel we should concentrate on real issues, get down to practical matters … do things.” No one would ever accuse Billie Jean of failing to walk the walk: Few athletes have ever pursued such a broad set of ambitions.

First, though, she had a tennis match to win. Bostrom was no pushover, on the court or off. At the University of Washington, she had sued for the right to try out for the men’s team–and won. In 1972, playing on the women’s squad, she picked up a conference title. She was still new to the tour, but had picked up wins at both the French and Wimbledon.

King shouldn’t have been surprised, then, when she found herself playing from behind. Bostrom won four games in a row to take a 5-3 lead in the first set, then dissected Billie Jean’s serve to reach 0-40: triple set point. That was as close as she would get.

The veteran won five straight points to avert the crisis and barely put a foot wrong the rest of the way. Bostrom not only failed to convert her set points; she didn’t win another game. A local reporter summarized the King attack: “too many strokes, too much power, too much guile.” The top seed took the match, 7-5, 6-0.

“I didn’t come here to lose,” King said. Her goals had shifted, but some things would never change.

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October 21, 1973: Broken Records

The singles final of the Virginia Slims Championships in Boca Raton, pitting home favorite Chris Evert against hard-hitting veteran Nancy Gunter, was scheduled for 3:00 in the afternoon on October 21st. By 12:30, the grandstand was packed.

The excitement wasn’t all thanks to Evert, Florida’s teen sensation. The circuit-ending Slims event had been on shaky ground just a few days before, with Margaret Court falling ill and Billie Jean King a no-show. But on finals day, there were plenty of reasons to turn out for the tennis instead of staying home to watch the Dolphins on TV.

Court had withdrawn from the singles, but after a brief hospital visit for a stomach ailment, she elected to enter the doubles. A suitable partner was available in Rosie Casals, who would have teamed with Billie Jean had she made the trip. It was quite the scratch duo: Margaret was the game’s dominant force in singles, and Casals was–with the possible exception of King–the circuit’s strongest doubles player. Between them, Court and Casals had won 20 doubles titles in 1973 alone.

That’s why the crowd turned out early: The doubles final made for a particularly appetizing opener. The last-minute pair had scuffled in the early going, but they made it through three tight matches. In the final, against the top-seeded team of Françoise Dürr and Betty Stöve, Court and Casals finally synced up and whipped their fellow veterans, 6-2, 6-4.

Court’s share of the winnings came to “only” $2,000. Her full-season tally amounted to $202,000, a new best for a female athlete in any sport.

Evert set a record that day, too. She came into the final seeking to end the “hex” that Gunter held on her, in the form of a 5-0 head-to-head record. (“It never really was a hex,” said Chrissie.) After 85 minutes of slugging from the baseline and a few wind-aided, spirit-sapping drop shots, Evert broke the spell, 6-3, 6-3. She picked up a check for $25,000, pushing her own total to $123,000, the highest-ever sum for a first-year professional.

It was a sign of just how fast the game had grown. Just two years earlier, Billie Jean had become the first woman athlete to earn $100,000 in a season. King almost reached the mark again in 1973 despite her struggles with injury, and she cleared another $100,000 from the Battle of the Sexes. Evert would finish the year with more than $150,000, and both Casals and Evonne Goolagong would break six figures.

The sums on offer were so mind-boggling–at least compared to the prize money of years past–that the leading women could afford to say no. Billie Jean had been ready to boycott both Wimbledon and the US Open for the cause of equal prize money, and she skipped the Slims Championships despite its own record-breaking $110,000 purse.

Now, Madame Superstar wasn’t the only leading lady with the freedom to choose. Evert merely scoffed when Bobby Riggs, in town for the pro-celebrity event before the Slims Championships began, challenged her to a $100,000 match, winner-take-all. “Let Rosie play him,” she said–she had a reputation to protect. For an 18-year-old superstar at the dawn of the Open era, $123,000 was only the beginning.

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October 20, 1973: Pigeon

No one ever accused Ilie Năstase of being boring. In the course of a single match, he could go from total focus and brilliant play to such extreme grandstanding that he could put a victory in doubt. There was no way of knowing which Ilie would turn up on a particular day. The stakes were irrelevant: He might clown his way through a crucial Davis Cup rubber or buckle down and obliterate an early-round foe.

By October 1973, only two things were certain. The first: Năstase was the best clay-court player in the world. Since the beginning of the year, he had won eight tournaments on dirt against only one loss. Combined with occasional success on other surfaces, he sat atop both the ATP ranking list and the Grand Prix points table.

The other apparent certainty was that he couldn’t beat Tom Okker. Since their first encounter in 1968, Okker had won six of eight. The “Flying Dutchman” held second place in the Grand Prix standings, and his combination of intensity and blistering speed was a puzzle that Năstase couldn’t solve. The Romanian had won a Davis Cup tilt in straight sets back in May, but more recently, it had been all Okker. In the semi-finals at both Los Angeles and Chicago, the fastest man on tour had beaten Năstase–twice in three weeks.

Something had to give. On October 20th, the two men met in yet another semi, this time on the high-altitude clay of the Madrid Open. Năstase had been his usual inscrutable self, meandering through early-round three-setters with no-names Jose Guerrero and Julian Ganzabal, then brushing aside the much stronger Mark Cox and Niki Pilić. Okker hadn’t been much steadier, dropping two sets but turning in a confident win over the fast-rising 21-year-old from Argentina, Guillermo Vilas.

In the semi, Okker took the first set, 6-4, and Năstase stormed back to grab the second, 6-1. The Romanian kept streaking, all the way to 5-2, 40-0 in the decider.

There were no computers in the press boxes of 1973, but it didn’t take statistical proof to know that the match was in the bag. At a rough estimate, Năstase’s chances of winning, at triple match point with a two-break advantage, were 99.8%. Mercurial as he was, even Ilie couldn’t throw this one away.

And then he did.

Okker easily saved the first two match points, then took the third with a let-cord winner. Năstase had spent most of the third set distracted, griping about the chilly conditions, a less-than-enthusiastic crowd, and the state of the court. The unlucky dribbler pushed him over the edge. Even in such a mood, the Romanian could beat most players, but Okker wouldn’t be denied: He didn’t allow Nastase another game, and the match went to the underdog, 6-4, 1-6, 7-5.

The loss didn’t threaten Ilie’s status as the leader in the Grand Prix race; his lead was effectively insurmountable. Still, who would consider him the best player in the game while he was Okker’s pigeon?

This being Năstase, it wasn’t quite the end of the story in Madrid. He and Okker paired up for the doubles semi-final, facing the oddball duo of Ion Țiriac–Ilie’s former mentor and doubles partner–and Björn Borg. When Okker called Țiriac a cheat and crossed the net to check a ball mark, Țiriac swung a racket at him. The Romanian veteran was immediately disqualified, and the Năstase/Okker duo cruised to the title.

It wasn’t the championship Ilie had hoped for–or expected–when he arrived in Madrid. He managed much better when Okker was playing elsewhere–or, at least, on the same side of the net.

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