Rodney George Laver AC, MBE (born 9 August 1938) is an Australian former
tennis player widely regarded as one of the greatest in the history of the sport.
[b] He was the
No. 1 ranked professional from 1964 to 1970, spanning four years before and three years after the start of the
Open Era in 1968. He also was the No. 1 ranked amateur in 1961–62.
[3]
Laver's 200 singles titles are the most in tennis history. This
included his all-time men's record of 10 or more titles per year for
seven consecutive years (1964–70). He excelled on all of the court
surfaces of his time: grass, clay, hard, carpet, and wood/parquet.
Laver won 11
Grand Slam
singles titles, though he was banned from playing those tournaments for
the five years prior to the Open Era. Laver is the only player to twice
achieve the calendar-year Grand Slam, in 1962 and 1969, and the latter
remains the only time a man has done so in the Open Era. He also won
eight
Pro Slam titles, including the "pro Grand Slam"
[13][14] in 1967, and he contributed to five
Davis Cup titles for Australia during an age when Davis Cup was deemed as significant as the Grand Slams.
Career
Amateur (1956–62)
Laver was a young boy when he left school to pursue a tennis career that lasted 24 years. He was coached in
Queensland by Charlie Hollis and later by the Australian
Davis Cup team captain
Harry Hopman, who gave Laver the nickname "Rocket".
Laver was both Australian and US Junior champion in 1957. He had his
breakthrough on the world stage in 1959, when he reached all three
finals at
Wimbledon, winning the mixed doubles title with
Darlene Hard. As an unseeded player, he lost the singles final to Peruvian
Alex Olmedo after surviving an 87-game semifinal against American
Barry MacKay. His first major singles title was the
Australian Championships in 1960, where he defeated fellow Australian
Neale Fraser
in a five-set final after coming back from two sets down and saving a
Fraser championship point in the fourth set. Laver captured his first
Wimbledon singles crown in 1961.
In 1962, Laver became the first male player since
Don Budge in 1938 to win all four
Grand Slam singles titles in the same year and won an additional 18 titles (22)
[23] in all. Among those titles were the
Italian Championships and the
German Championships, giving Laver the "clay court triple" of Paris, Rome, and Hamburg that had been achieved previously only by
Lew Hoad in 1956. The biggest hurdle to Laver's winning the Grand Slam was the
French Championships on slow clay, where Laver won three consecutive five-setters beginning with the quarterfinals. In his quarterfinal with
Martin Mulligan,
Laver saved a matchpoint in the fourth set with a backhand volley after
coming to the net behind a second serve. In the final, Laver lost the
first two sets and was down 0–3 in the fourth set before coming back to
defeat
Roy Emerson. At Wimbledon, his progress was much easier. Laver lost only one set the whole tournament, to
Manuel Santana in a quarterfinal, who held a set point for a two set lead. At the
US Championships, Laver lost only two sets during the tournament and defeated Emerson again in the final.
In February 1963, he appeared on the panel game show
To Tell the Truth, where all four panelists identified him based on his knowledge of the history of tennis.
[24]
Professional
Before the Open Era (1963–68)
In December 1962 Laver turned professional after winning the
Davis Cup with the
Australian team. After an initial period of adjustment he quickly established himself among the leading professional players such as
Ken Rosewall,
Lew Hoad and
Andrés Gimeno, and also
Pancho Gonzales when Gonzales returned to a full-time schedule in 1964. During the next seven years, Laver won the
U.S. Pro Tennis Championships five times, including four in a row beginning in 1966.
In the beginning of 1963, Laver was beaten consistently by both
Rosewall and Hoad on an Australasian tour. Hoad won the first eight
matches against Laver, and Rosewall won 11 out of 13. By the end of the year, however, with six tournament titles, Laver had become the No. 2 professional player behind Rosewall.
[26]
In 1964, Laver and Rosewall both won seven important titles (in minor
tournaments Laver won four and Rosewall won three), but Laver won 15 of
19 matches against Rosewall and captured the two most prestigious
titles, the US Pro Championships over Gonzales and the
Wembley Championships
over Rosewall. In tennis week, Raymond Lee has described the Wembley
match, where Laver came from 5–3 down in the fifth set to win 8–6, as
possibly their best ever and one that changed tennis history. Lee
regards this win as the one that began and established Laver's long
reign as world number one. The other prestige title, the French pro, was
won by Rosewall.
In 1965, Laver was clearly the No. 1 professional player,
[27] winning 17 titles
[28] and 13 of 18 matches against Rosewall. In ten finals, Laver won eight against the still dangerous Gonzales.
In 1966, Laver won 16 events,
[28] including the US Pro Championships, the Wembley Pro Championship, and eight other important tournaments.
In 1967, Laver won 19 titles,
[28] including the
Wimbledon Pro, the US Pro Championships, the Wembley Pro Championship, and the
French Pro Championship, which gave him a clean sweep of the most important professional titles, a professional Grand Slam. The tournament in 1967 on
Wimbledon's Centre Court
was the only professional event ever staged on that court before the
Open Era began. Laver beat Rosewall in the final 6–2, 6–2, 12–10.
During the Open Era (1968–76)
With the dawn of the
Open Era in 1968, professional players were once again allowed to compete in
Grand Slam events. Laver became
Wimbledon's first Open Era champion in 1968, beating the best amateur, American
Arthur Ashe, in a semifinal and fellow-Australian
Tony Roche in the final, both in straight sets.
[29][30] Laver was also the runner-up to
Ken Rosewall
in the first French Open. In this first "open" year, there were only
eight open events besides Wimbledon and the French Open, where
professionals, registered players, and amateurs could compete against
each other. The professionals mainly played their own circuit, with two
groups – National Tennis League (NTL) and World Championships Tennis
(WCT) – operating. Laver was ranked No. 1 universally, winning the
US Professional Championships on grass and the French Pro Championship on clay (both over
John Newcombe).
[31] Laver also won the last big open event of the year, the
Pacific Southwest in Los Angeles on hard courts.
[32] Ashe regarded Laver's 4–6, 6–0, 6–0 final win over Ken Rosewall as one of his finest performances.
[33] Laver's post-match comment was, "This is the kind of match you always dream about. The kind you play at night in your sleep."
In 1969, Laver won all four Grand Slam tournaments in the same
calendar year for the second time, sealing the achievement with a
four-set win over Roche in the
US Open final. He won 18 of the 32 singles tournaments he entered (still the
Open Era titles record) and compiled a 106–16 win-loss record. In beating Newcombe in four sets in the Wimbledon final, he captured the title at the
All England Club
for the fourth consecutive time that he had entered the tournament (and
reached the final for the sixth consecutive time as he had been
runner-up in 1959 and 1960). He set a record of 31 consecutive match
victories at Wimbledon between 1961 and 1970, which lasted until 1980
when it was eclipsed by
Björn Borg.
Unlike his first Grand Slam year in 1962, Laver in 1969 played in
events open to all the best professional and amateur players of the
world. In the year's Grand Slam tournaments, Laver had five
five-set-matches, twice coming back from two sets down in early rounds.
In the four finals, however, he lost a total of only two sets. His
hardest match was a marathon 90-game semifinal against Roche at the
Australian Open under tropical hot conditions. Other opponents at the
Australian Open included
Roy Emerson,
Fred Stolle, and
Andrés Gimeno. At the French Open, Laver beat Gimeno,
Tom Okker, and Rosewall. At Wimbledon, Laver overcame strong challenges from
Stan Smith,
Cliff Drysdale, Ashe, and Newcombe. At the US Open on slippery grass courts, he defeated
Dennis Ralston,
Emerson, Ashe, and Roche. Laver proved his versatility by winning the
Grand Slam tournaments on grass and clay, plus the two most important
hard court titles (South African Open at Ellis Park, Johannesburg and
the US Professional Championships at Boston) and the leading indoor
tournaments (Philadelphia US Pro Indoor and Wembley British Indoor).
With US$124,000 in prize money, he was also the first player to break
the US$100,000 barrier in a year.
In the early 1970s, Laver lost his grip on the major tournaments. He
played only five Grand Slam tournaments from 1970 through 1972. This was
partly because of his contracts with NTL and WCT. But on the WCT tours,
he remained the leading player and by far the leading prize money
winner.
In 1970, Laver won 15 titles
[28]
and US$201,453 in prize money, including the rich "Tennis Champions
Classic" and five other big events (Sydney Dunlop Open, Philadelphia,
Wembley, Los Angeles, South African Open). Those were the equivalent of
the modern day
ATP Masters Series.
With only two majors played by all the best players (Wimbledon and the
US Open), there was no clear-cut World No. 1 in 1970. Wimbledon champion
Newcombe, US champion Rosewall, and Laver (who won the most titles and
had a 3–0 win-loss record against Newcombe and a 5–0 record against
Rosewall) were ranked the highest by different journalists and expert
panels. Although Newcombe was top ranked by Lance Tingay, Newcombe wrote
later in his autobiography "Newk-Life on and off the Court" (2002) that
the top honour in 1970 belonged to Laver.
In 1971 he won seven titles,
[28] including the Italian Open in Rome on clay over
Jan Kodeš,
the reigning French Open champion. Laver successfully defended his
title at the "Tennis Champions Classic", winning 13 consecutive
winner-take-all matches against top opponents and US$160,000. For the
year, Laver won a then-record US$292,717 in tournament prize money and
became the first tennis player to surpass US$1 million in career prize
money. In 1971 and 1972, Laver finished as the points leader of the WCT
tournament series but lost the playoff finals at Dallas to Rosewall. The
last match is rated as one of the best of all time and drew a TV
audience of over 20 million.
In 1972, Laver cut back his tournament schedule, partly because of
back and knee injuries and his tennis camp businesses, but he still won
five titles
[28] that year. In 1973, Laver won seven titles
[28] and successfully participated in the semifinals and final of the
Davis Cup, where he won all six of his rubbers for Australia. In 1974 Laver won six titles
[28]
from 13 tournaments and ended the year as World No. 4 on the computer.
At 36, he was the oldest player during the Open Era to have been
included in the year-ending top five.
In 1975, Laver set a record for WCT tournaments by winning four
titles and 23 consecutive matches but in 1976, he semi-retired from the
main tour, playing only a few selected events. He also signed with
World Team Tennis, where he became "Rookie of the Year" at the age of 38 but won five titles
[34] overall that season.
Overall, despite turning 30 just months after the Open Era began,
Laver had tremendous success, winning 74 singles titles, which remains
sixth most of the era. Plus, like most players of his day, he regularly played doubles, winning 37 titles.
