{"id":4995,"date":"2022-04-12T08:43:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T08:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=4995"},"modified":"2022-04-12T08:43:22","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T08:43:22","slug":"the-tennis-128-no-99-tom-okker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/12\/the-tennis-128-no-99-tom-okker\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tennis 128: No. 99, Tom Okker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A Dutchman, flying<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, I\u2019m counting down the 128 best players<\/a> of the last century. With luck, we\u2019ll get to #1 in December. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\nTom Okker [NED]<\/b>\n
Born: 22 Februrary 1944\n
Career: 1962-81\n
Plays: Right-handed (one-handed backhand)\n
Peak rank: 3 (1974)\n
Peak Elo rating: 2,190 (1st place, 1974)\n
Major singles titles: 0\n
Total singles titles: 40\n
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* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a man who never won a major singles title, Tom Okker was amply rewarded for his tennis career. When the world’s major tennis federations agreed to try “open” tennis in 1968 and allow competition between amateurs and professionals, Okker became the world’s first “registered player,” a hybrid category that allowed him to earn prize money but still–unlike professionals–compete for his country’s Davis Cup team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was lucky that the Dutch federation was so swift to give him the new designation. At the US Open in 1968, he beat pros Richard “Pancho” Gonz\u00e1lez and Ken Rosewall to reach his sole major final. His opponent in the final was the still-amateur Arthur Ashe, so even though Okker lost the match, the $14,000 winner’s check was his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of the following year, promoter Lamar Hunt convinced Okker to join his burgeoning World Championship Tennis (WCT) circuit. Experts rated him no higher than third-best in the world, and some listed him as low as fifth. But Hunt was confident enough in his value to the tour that he offered more than $200,000 over four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

$50,000 per year was a big payday for a recently converted amateur. But it seemed was chump change just a few years later. When the newly-formed World Team Tennis (WTT) organization drafted squads at the end of 1973, Okker was the first choice of the Toronto\/Buffalo Royals, who wanted the veteran to do double duty as a player-coach. He said, “If they offer me enough money, I\u2019ll play.” They did, and he did, on a five-year contract for a reported $136,000 per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barely a half-decade into the Open Era, a select few players were already getting rich. Debates more familiar to fans of team sports took over the tennis headlines–were these men and women worth all the money? A rival WTT owner, Boston’s Ray Ciccolo, griped:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[F]rom what I\u2019ve seen of the owners\u2019 mistakes, I see why 80% of them are in trouble. Most made their first mistakes at the draft, before the first set of tennis. They came unprepared or didn\u2019t have enough money to do it right. But Okker\u2019s signing was the worst thing Toronto\/Buffalo could\u2019ve done to the league.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

One reading of Ciccolo’s complaint is that elite-level money was getting handed out to players that didn’t deserve it. Okker didn’t seem like a top-tier talent next to names like Billie Jean King, Jimmy Connors, and John Newcombe. The Dutchman ranked as low as tenth on one journalist’s year-end list for 1973, and he didn’t have any unusual level of celebrity to make up for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Royals owner John Bassett may have misjudged Toronto’s interest in team tennis–his club folded after just one last-place finish. But he was more right than wrong in picking–and paying–Tom Okker. In addition to Okker’s doubles prowess, which was particularly valuable in the WTT format, he was a better player than either the public or the rankings gave him credit for. He was at his peak in 1973 and 1974, a frequent runner-up in a field full of all-time greats. Okker was one of the first tennis players to earn $1 million on court, and he deserved every penny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No sketch of Tom Okker is complete without a reference to his nickname, “The Flying Dutchman.” Forgive my ignorance: I always assumed people called him that just because it was the only term they knew with “Dutch” in it, and he wasn’t noticeably slow. In fact, the man from Amsterdam was as fast as it gets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He needed to be. A generous measurement put him at five-foot-ten-inches tall, and after his retirement, Okker said he “should have been just a bit bigger and stronger and had a dominant service.\u201d Had those wishes been granted, no one could have stopped him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Okker (left) with Marty Reissen in 1968 <\/em>
Credit: Eric Koch<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

At Queen’s Club in 1968, Okker was the first amateur to beat Rod Laver since Laver turned pro six years before. The New York Times<\/em> wrote that the “lean, wiry, and fantastically fast” underdog “outmaneuvered and outran the little Australian redhead.” When the Times<\/em> previewed the Forest Hills final later that year, it reported, “His contemporaries insist that he is the quickest man in the history of tennis.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn’t to say that Okker relied only on speedy retrieving. He was one of the first players to hit a heavy topspin forehand, and in an era when so much spin was still a novelty, it took some getting used to. The 1968 Times<\/em> preview warned:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than once today, Arthur [Ashe] will be tempted into letting Tom’s wicked top-spin drive go by, convinced the ball will land well beyond the base line. It will take a sharp eye, indeed, to discern balls from those sharply dipping inbounds. And when at net Ashe’s best defense may well be to reach for every ball originating from Okker’s forehand side.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Dutchman’s combination of weapons was almost enough to win the first-ever professional major played at Forest Hills. He pushed Arthur Ashe to five sets, including a 26-game first set. The American needed one of the best serving performances of his career to come through. At 5-5 in the first set, Okker was already exasperated by his inability to get into points. After Ashe hit two more aces, Okker faced the wrong way to return Arthur’s next delivery, earning a laugh from the crowd as he signaled his surrender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okker quickly resumed the fight. Ashe’s game plan involved wearing out his opponent, a strategy that proved to be built on wishful thinking. The Dutchman didn’t noticeably tire, but Arthur’s serve was just enough to make the difference. The final score was 14-12, 5-7, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, a near-miss in Okker’s one shot at a major title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we’ve seen, Okker had plenty of reason to be pleased with his performance in 1968. He earned over $20,000 in prize money in his campaign as a “registered player,” and his results garnered the big contract with Lamar Hunt in 1969.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What wasn’t clear at the time was just how close the Flying Dutchman came to the top of the rankings. Before 1973, rankings were unofficial, generally published by veteran sportswriters only once per year. The phenomenon of a slam-less number one is very modern, because it wasn’t possible without computer rankings. The men who used to make the lists believed that Wimbledon and Forest Hills were the only two tournaments that mattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a>