Ten tantalizing bits of tennis trivia
Columnist By Kersi Meher-Homji, 16 Jun 2009 Kersi Meher-Homji is a Roar Expert
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- Pete Sampras, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Tennis, wimbleton
With Wimbledon starting on Friday, I’ve selected ten items of interesting tennis trivia for discussion. The first? Roger Federer won the Wimbledon Singles title five times between 2003 and 2007 and is going for his sixth next week.
The record is jointly held by William Renshaw of Great Britain from 1881 – 86 and 1889, and Pete Sampras, from 1993 – 95 and 1997-2000, with seven times each.
2. If Federer wins, it will be his fifteenth grand slam singles victory, going past Sampras’s record of 14. Note, Federer holds the record of most tear drops shed!
Although Fred Perry (GB), Don Budge and Andre Agassi (USA), Australia’s Roy Emerson and Rod Laver, and Federer have won all four Grand Slams (Australian, French, Wimbledon and US), Budge in 1938 and Laver in 1962 and 1969 are the only ones to win all four slams in one season.
4. The longest Wimbledon match lasted 5 hours and 12 minutes and included 112 games. This was in 1969 when ‘Pancho’ Gonzales (USA) beat countryman Charles Pasarell 22-24, 1-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9. This record can only be broken if Wimbledon abolishes the tie-break.
5. Going away from Wimbledon, one of the most cliff-hanging marathons was played in Los Angeles in May 1949 when Ted Schroeder and Richard Falkenberg defeated the colourful ‘Pancho’ Gonzales and H Stewart 36-34, 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 19-17 in the South California Championships final. The see-saw tussle between the Americans lasted 4 hours and 45 minutes as 135 games were hotly contested. A world record? Not quite.
6. Richard Leach and Richard Dell overcame fellow Americans Tom Mozur and Lenny Schloss 3-6, 49-47, 22-20 at Newport, Rhode Island on 18-19 August, 1967. That means 147 games, not exactly a landslide victory! The 96 game second set is the longest on record in senior tennis, according to Lance Tingay in The Guinness Book of Facts and Feats.
7. Another marathon to remember (or forget?) was a singles match between Roger Taylor (GB) and Wieslaw Gasiorek (Poland). In a King’s Cup tie at Warsaw, Poland, on 5 November 1966, Taylor won 27-29, 31-29, 6-4 after 4 and half hours and 126 games, according to Inside Sport.
8. A marathon was witnessed at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium. Britain’s FG Lowe took six hours to out-maneuver AJ Zerlendi of Greece in the second round. Rain caused many interruptions before Lowe triumphed 14-12, 8-10, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.
9. Perhaps the longest ever match took 6 hours and 23 minutes for completion. This was in the US Indoor Championships at Salisbury, Maryland on 16 February 1968, when Mark Cox and Bobby Wilson (GB) defeated Charles Pasarell and Bob Holmberg (USA) 26-24, 17-19, 30-28. A mere 144 games!
10. What have tennis champions Rafael Nadal, Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters in common? Asteroids have been named after them! To the best of my knowledge, Federer misses out, as do other tennis legends Renshaw, Budge, Frank Sedgman, Perry, Lewis Hoad, Ken Rosewall, Laver, John Newcombe, John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg, Boris Becker and Sampras. Why? It’s all in the stars, I presume.
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June 17th 2009 @ 1:12pm
Greg Russell said | June 17th 2009 @ 1:12pm | Report comment
Kersi, and here was I thinking that you are a one-mistress man (cricket)! What else don’t we know about you? Rugby? (heaven forbid!).
June 17th 2009 @ 1:37pm
Rory said | June 17th 2009 @ 1:37pm | Report comment
Kersi,
My apologies and I’m jabbing my chin profusely as I write. A big oversight on one of the most famous of Tennis tidbits – that Rosewall never won Wimbledon despite making 4 finals.
Maybe he should be offered a kind of honorary Wimbledon title, something like an honorary doctorate, in recognition of hos efforts in the field.
June 17th 2009 @ 1:40pm
Kersi Meher-Homji said | June 17th 2009 @ 1:40pm | Report comment
Not rugby but certainly table tennis, Greg.
My forehand is not bad but my backhand is terrible. My forehand wins many points for me not because it is terrific but my ferocious face at the time of execution makes opponents laugh their heads off!
And I dabble in humour. Have published a few Hecklers in SMH.
And I am a research scientist (Virologist) by profession. Now retired.
Not bad, having five mistresses!
June 17th 2009 @ 1:47pm
Kersi Meher-Homji said | June 17th 2009 @ 1:47pm | Report comment
Rory,
Apart from Ken Rosewall, Pancho G and Ivan Lendl should also be recognised in a similar way.
Rosewall lives in a suburb next to mine and I have run into him three times in the St Ives shopping centre. So modest that hardly anyone recognises him and perhaps he likes it that way. When I show my admiration for him, he appears surprised. A man in a billion is Ken. Recently he was quoted in North Shore Time that he does not like grunting in modern tennis.
June 17th 2009 @ 2:07pm
Rory said | June 17th 2009 @ 2:07pm | Report comment
Grunting is definitely a curse on the game.
Interesting to hear that you run into him around St Ives. He was originally from Penshurst and was looked up to at the local tennis club where i grew up playing as the best of many good players to come out of the St George area. He was always a great sportsman and a credit but I was lucky enough to see him play on occasion at the end of his career when I was a kid and I found two things notable, apart from his incredibly graceful backhand. Up close, he actually swore quietly to himself quite a lot (no disrespect to him intended) and secondly, even in a tough match in the middle of summer he didn’t seem to sweat. His hair never moved an inch.
June 17th 2009 @ 4:38pm
Greg Russell said | June 17th 2009 @ 4:38pm | Report comment
Kersi,
Why did I have it in my mind that you are an engineer by profession? When did your articles first appear in the Sydney Morning Herald? It could be that as a very young child I somehow confused you and Farokh Engineer, who made a big impression on me when he toured with the Rest of the World in 1971/2.
Look me up if you are ever in Christchurch I can introduce you to Lance Jennings, our ex-neighbour and a world famous virologist.
June 17th 2009 @ 7:19pm
vinay verma said | June 17th 2009 @ 7:19pm | Report comment
Hey Kersi
Federer hasn’t got a star named after him but he was presented with a cow resplete with the biggest bell this side of the New York Stock Exchange.
Talking of Wimbledon did you notice Chris Guccione was eliminated from the Qualifiers? I think our Sports Minister is on the right track . Let the athletes pay back the money invisted in them. HECS for Tennis Players or is it a Hex on Tennis Players?
India has only ever had a semi finalist at Wimbledon. Remember the artistry of Ramanathan Krishnan? Alongwith manuel Santana and Maria Bueno,Krish was one of my favourite tennis players.
Just notice the top players from the past and now…they all go for the lines and are not scared to hit over the highest part of the net. The mediocre players just get it back over the low part of the net and hope for the best. The down the line shot is the one that wins or sets up the point.
You wont be getting any backhanded compliments from me.
June 18th 2009 @ 9:04am
Kersi Meher-Homji said | June 18th 2009 @ 9:04am | Report comment
Vinay,
I had seen both Ramanathan Krishnan and his son Ramesh play, the father in India and the son in Australia during a Davis Cup match in Sydney in late 1980s.
Rory,
Thanks for telling me more about Ken Rosewall. He should be nicknamed “No sweat” apart from his well-known sobriquet of “Muscles”!
Greg,
I know why you thought I was an engineer by profession. When Roar reviewed my book Cricket’s Great All-rounders, I was mentioned as an engineer by profession.