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Men
Roy Emerson (AUS)
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Plays: |
Right-handed |
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Birthdate: |
11/3/36 |
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Born: |
Blackbutt, QLDS, Australia |
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Turned Pro: |
N/A |
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Residence: |
N/A |
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Height: |
6'0''
(182 cm) |
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Weight: |
175 lbs
(79 kg) |
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Energy. Boundless energy. As a former opponent, that's what I remember most about Roy Emerson. A tireless jack-in-the-box of a man, he would leap about the court on rubber legs, chasing down every ball and making the impossible get see routine.
No man was ever fitter than this son of a dairy farmer from Black Butt, deep in the Australian outback. Emerson bulit strong wrists milking cows, and he learned to play tennis on his family's antbed court. But it was through his punishing training routine that he became a champion. "He could do more than 200 continuous double-knee jumps," recalls fellow Aussi Don Candy. "You could hear the thud as the knees hit his chest."
A lithe 6-footer, Emmo was a hustler who would rush you into errors as he charged relentlessly toward the net. His speed of reflex and ability to lunge for voleys and leap for overheads made his extremely tough to beat on grass. But he was sound from the backcourt, too, and well-suited to the rigorous demands of clay, hence his two titles at Roland Garros.
He was equally energetic off court, the life of any party, ready with a song when called upon - and often when not - as long as the beer was flowing freely. And it usually was.
A Davis Cup stalwart for Harry Hopman, Emerson helped Australia win eight Cups in nine years. But it's his 12 Grand Slams singles titles - a record he alone held for 32 years until Pete Sampras tied it last summer - that stand out. Some have suggested that Emmo's record is devalued because 10 of those majors came after Rod Laver turned pro. Yet Emmo beat Laver in two Grand Slam finals in 1961, and it's hard to fault his decision to stay amateur until 1968.
"I figured I'd win a few more Grand Slams to improve my value," he says.
The strategy worked, in more ways than one: Not only did Emerson get a huge guarantee ($85000) when he turned pro, but he was also guaranteed of going down as one of the game's all-tme greats.
-John Barret
Bjorn Borg (Sweden)
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Plays: |
Right-handed |
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Birthdate: |
6/6/56 |
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Born: |
Sodertalje, Sweden |
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Turned Pro: |
N/A |
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Residence: |
N/A |
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Height: |
5'11''
(180 cm) |
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Weight: |
160 lbs
(72 kg) |
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Bjorn Borg is proof that anatomy is destiny. It was the wonderful union of a superb heart-lung unit within a speedy, broad-shouldered-yet-wiry muscle package, coupled with a brain that exuded determination, that accounted for his five straight Wimbledon crowns and six French Open titles.
We learn from his memoir, Bjorn Borg: My Life and Game, that he was exceedingly finicky about his weight, watching every morsel of food to keep it at precisely 160 pounds (he stands 5-foot-11). Both he and Lennart Bergelin, his coach, were concerned that the slightest gain or loss would alter the biomechanics, throw off the short and long levers, and cause his shorts to catch the net, sail long, or go wide. Indeed, Bergelin was more one-man pit crew than instructor. He'd lose pounds of sweat in vigorous massage sessions that restored his ward's suspension, turned the engine, tweaked the chassis into delicate balance, just so the Borg machine could be rolled out for the next match.
Strangely, neither man was much concerned with the mechanics of Borg's strokes, which had changed little since his early teens. Rarely did they plot strategy or scout other players. Winning was chiefly a matter of outlasting the other guy, arriving before the ball did, and getting it back one more time. It was an aproach that proved succesful on every surface against every style of play. Ion Tiriac once said that what made Borg so good was, paradoxically, his "lack of diversity."
Borg will be remembered as the Sewdish iceman, as if his poker face on court was what made him a champion. But to me, his most formidable asset was envident in that swaying, springly, slightly bowlegged march from the chair to the baseline. It was there in the taped, curled fingers he blew on as he waited to recieve serve. It was there in his breathing, as measured and controlled in the fifth set as it was in the first. His greatest weapon was his body.
-Abraham Verghese
Women
Martina Navratilova (Czech Republic)
)
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Plays: |
Left-handed |
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Birthdate: |
October 18, 1956 |
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Born: |
Prague, Czech Republic
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Turned Pro: |
1975 |
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Residence: |
Aspen, Colorado, USA |
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Height: |
5'8''
(173 cm) |
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Weight: |
N/A
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In sports, you never say never. But still you wonder: Will anyone ever approximate Martina Navratilova at her best? Her uniqueness? Her gallant, unyielding, revolutionary example?
More than a tennis player, Navratilova has been an historical figure. In 1975, she felt shackled by Communist officials in her native Czechoslovakia, she defected to the United States though just 18 and all alone. Six years later, upon learning that a journalist intended to reveal she was a lesbian, Navratilova outed herself and soon became a beacon for gays - forthright, unapologetic, unbowed.
But then, she has always said what she believes, even as she dominated the game and endorsements never came; even as bigots wisecracked about her rigorous training regimen helped remake women's athletics.
During her 21-year odyssey, Navratilova won 167 singles titles, including 18 Grand Slams. And from 1982 to ’84, when her lefty serve-and-volley game was at its peak, her record was 254-6. That’s not a typo!
She was cast as the villain opposite Chris Evert, America’s girl next door, with whom she clashed 80 times. But over the years, their mutual affection and respect helped crowds warm to Navratilova. Following her loss to Steffi Graf in the 1989 U.S. Open final, she was moved to tears by a rousing ovation from the New York fans.
Opponents, too, recognized her greatness. When Navratilova fell in the 1993 Wimbledon semi-finals, Graf was so disappointed about no facing her in the final, she sent word through an intermediary: Why don’t we sneak onto the hallowed grass courts after hours and play one more championship match, just the two of us?
Two weeks before Navratilova’s retirement, Czech-born Marketa Kochta, whose family fled to the U.S. when she was 7, played her at an Oakland tournament. After losing in three sets, Kochta shook Navratilova’s hand and told her, bashfully, “You are my hero.”
Asked what Navratilova had meant to women’s tennis, Kochta’s eyes opened wide: “She made it. She is history. She made things possible.”
-Johnnette Howard
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