{"id":6812,"date":"2023-10-26T10:21:34","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T10:21:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=6812"},"modified":"2023-10-26T10:21:34","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T10:21:34","slug":"october-26-1973-highs-and-lows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/26\/october-26-1973-highs-and-lows\/","title":{"rendered":"October 26, 1973: Highs and Lows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By the end of October, Ilie N\u0103stase<\/a> was ready to get back to sea level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 b\u00eate noire, Tom Okker<\/a>, had beaten<\/a> him in the semi-finals in Madrid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With several high-stakes events still on the calendar, the sensible thing for N\u0103stase 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, he hopped a flight to Tehran, joining John Newcombe<\/a>, Vijay Amritraj, and Ra\u00fal Ram\u00edrez 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<\/a>, another marquee name who might have been susceptible to financial inducements, also played the awkward Madrid-Tehran double.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately for N\u0103stase, the Iranian capital stood over 3,400 feet (1,040 meters) above sea level, even higher than Madrid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 Ram\u00edrez, the 20-year-old Mexican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much had changed since the two men last met, in February 1972. Though Ram\u00edrez was overshadowed by other breakout stars, such as Bj\u00f6rn Borg<\/a>, Jimmy Connors<\/a>, 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<\/a> at the Pacific Southwest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On October 26th, the young Mexican added another scalp to that impressive list. Unlike N\u0103stase, 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 Ram\u00edrez in the match. N\u0103stase 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 Ram\u00edrez claiming victory by the narrowest of margins, 7-6, 6-7, 9-7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The quarter-final defeat was N\u0103stase’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 Ram\u00edrez really could play at altitude. The Mexican won another three-setter the following day against \u017deljko Franulovi\u0107, then beat Newcombe in four sets for the title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Shah handed the trophy to Ram\u00edrez, 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.”<\/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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By the end of October, Ilie N\u0103stase 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 b\u00eate noire, Tom Okker, had beaten him in the semi-finals in Madrid. Madrid lies about 2,100 feet … Continue reading October 26, 1973: Highs and Lows<\/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-6812","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\/6812","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=6812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}