{"id":6662,"date":"2023-08-30T06:59:23","date_gmt":"2023-08-30T06:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=6662"},"modified":"2023-08-30T06:59:23","modified_gmt":"2023-08-30T06:59:23","slug":"august-30-1973-think-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/30\/august-30-1973-think-cool\/","title":{"rendered":"August 30, 1973: Think Cool"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Chris Evert catches her breath on a hot day at Forest Hills<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

For the best players, an early round at a major was supposed to be easy. A light workout, a pigeon across the net, and a victory. No need to break a sweat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On August 30th, the second day of the 1973 US Open, everybody<\/em> broke a sweat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mercury touched 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Combined with humidity typical of the New York City summer, the heat had stars racing to get off court. 30-year-old Frenchwoman Fran\u00e7oise D\u00fcrr was one of those who didn’t make it. Up a set and down 3-4 in the second, she retired with heat prostration against an unknown American named Sally Greer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I was hotter than I have ever been before,” said D\u00fcrr. Quite a statement from someone born in Algeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Australians, no strangers to demanding weather conditions, fared better. Margaret Court<\/a> advanced in 40 minutes. Evonne Goolagong<\/a> dropped just one game. Rod Laver<\/a> lost only six. Ken Rosewall<\/a> and John Newcombe<\/a>–allowed to compete by the ILTF after all<\/a>–progressed as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sweating the most was defending champion Ilie N\u0103stase<\/a>, and not just because of the sun. The unpredictable Romanian shared the top seed with Stan Smith<\/a>, and fans expected a routine second-round victory when he played 24-year-old Andrew Pattison of Rhodesia. Pattison probably didn’t hope for much more, either. His career highlight to date was a run to the final at the 1972 Canadian Open in Toronto. Playing for the championship, N\u0103stase shut him down, 6-4, 6-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Romanian came out cocky, joking around as he won the first two sets. Suddenly, though, the serve-and-volleying Rhodesian began playing like a world-beater. N\u0103stase could no longer do anything with his serve, and Pattison was responding to Nasty’s deliveries with a new confidence. The underdog evened the match and broke for a 3-2 advantage in the fifth. With N\u0103stase to serve at 3-5, tournament referee Mike Blanchard called the match for darkness. They’d pick up again in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resumption took barely ten minutes. The top seed held, and he nearly broke for a tie. Serving for the match, Pattison earned a 30-love lead behind two big serves. He then fell to deuce before finishing the upset with two big serves and a forehand drop volley. It was a huge win for the Rhodesian, and a helpful one for Newcombe, whose draw would have pitted him against N\u0103stase in the fourth round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Romanian was gone, but the heat lingered. Of all the contenders who survived, Goolagong seemed the least bothered by the conditions. Her advice: “Think cool.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

You can also subscribe to the blog to receive each new post by email:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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For the best players, an early round at a major was supposed to be easy. A light workout, a pigeon across the net, and a victory. No need to break a sweat. On August 30th, the second day of the 1973 US Open, everybody broke a sweat. The mercury touched 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Combined with … Continue reading August 30, 1973: Think Cool<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1973-redux","category-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}