NEW YORK — Can it be 40 years since Rod Laver borrowed a dime from me? Afraid so. It wasn’t a “Brother, can you spare a dime?” plea, however. After all, Laver had moments before won a tennis tournament called the US Open, and was handed a check for $ 16,000. (The same event that will shortly endow a man and a woman with $ 1,600,000 a piece. Yes, you can get rich playing … [Read more...] about ROCKET ROUNDS THE GRAND SLAM TWICE, A SINGULAR ACHIEVEMENT SIX YEARS APART
Rod Laver
GRAND SLAM: THE CORRECT TERMINOLOGY
Call me Bud C. That’s Bud the Curmudgeon. You can also call me grouchy, grumpy and cantankerous, too. That’s OK because it’s the way I feel when running up against the confusing, careless corruption of tennis language. What I have in mind is the game’s most precious and rarest accomplishment: the Grand Slam. It’s the quintessential quadrilateral, a gem so luminous and … [Read more...] about GRAND SLAM: THE CORRECT TERMINOLOGY
IT’S THE 40th ANNIVERSARY OF THE ROCKET’S SECOND GRAND SLAM — AND NO MAN HAS SLAMMED SINCE THEN
“Laver’s lost the first two sets!” The cry ran through the Wimbledon press room like wildfire. But it was chilling to me. Wimbledon ’69 had barely begun, and the defending champion, “Rocket” Laver, was under siege, losing badly to an anonymous Indian in the second round on Court 4, a patch of grass hardly fit for the emperor. To the other reporters, it was the … [Read more...] about IT’S THE 40th ANNIVERSARY OF THE ROCKET’S SECOND GRAND SLAM — AND NO MAN HAS SLAMMED SINCE THEN