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From: The Racketeer 43, October 2001

Lethal Spin [7]

by Frank Raistrick

Heroes again
I very much enjoyed Duncan's article, and agreed with him in most things. You remember Pancho Gonzales and Wimbledon 1972, Duncan? You must be older than you look!

I disagreed on Borg - I thought he was a robot, however brilliant and never really identified with him, but Evonne Goolagong! What a charmer? I remember when she snapped her Achilles tendon when playing Navratilova - extremely painful - and she cried out with the pain before collapsing. The sympathetic Martina asked the umpire if she was allowed to scream like that on court, and turned her back. Never did like her after that.

The worst person ever on a court for me, despite his genius in racquet control was McEnroe, who, amazingly popular with the younger generation for his battles with authority was the pits for me.

Querying calls is one thing, but his snarling rudeness to officials, often with his impassive father watching, spawned bad behaviour amongst juniors that is there to this day.

Reading Lew Hoad's autobiography, he recalled a match when he was about ten, with his own father watching. There were a number of calls which went against Lew, and he began to query them with the umpire. He saw his father making his way on to the court and thought that his dad would sort the official out, but instead he took Lew by the scruff of the neck and frog-marched him off, telling the umpire that he was scratching his son. Oh that Mr McEnroe senior had done the same at an early age!

I think that Duncan is rather harsh on Tim Henman. He is the only Briton capable of holding his own with the top players, and is probably our best since Fred Ferry. And his back-hand volley makes me drool - it takes a lot of courage to play the serve-volley game against all the dreary baseliners.

I bet Duncan will be surprised if I say that my favourite female player - after Cynthia of course! - was Billie-Jean King. Not the most popular player, she was a gritty fighter who never gave up, and out-thought stronger and bigger opponents.

Green, green grass
I had intended to reminisce at length about my days at Mapperley Park, but just a couple of stories - one which will no doubt be suppressed by the editor. One of the first matches as Pat Darlaston's partner was against old rivals, Mansfield, who let us know in no uncertain terms their opinion of our grass courts. Their own were even worse, and they'd had to stop using them. The lingering death of grass as the main surface was under way, although it's still called the Notts Lawn Tennis Association.

Pat and I had won the first set and ahead in the second, both having services suited to the bumpy surface. At four-three and forty-thirty, Pat served an absolute killer, which shot along the ground. Our opponent returned it over the net, but we ignored it, Pat offering profuse, if hypocritical apologies.

The Mansfield player, an abrasive character, who is still playing twenty-five years later, claimed that it was up, and thinking he was joking I said it was - on the fourteenth bounce! He stuck to his guns and Pat stared at him, asking if he was really claiming the point. He said he was, so Pat said that if he insisted, he was conceding the set, shook hands and left the court. I was aghast - we were almost certainly going to win, which would have been the best revenge, hut this played into the cheat's hands. Luckily it didn't affect the result.

Almost suppressed
A smashing girl who lived near the club had joined, named Anita Murray, and was soon pushing for a place in the teams. She was chosen for a Sunday morning match in the second Mixed with a tall, gangling young lad called Andy as her partner, and when I turned up for club play after lunch I saw that they had won four sets against useful opposition. I asked her if she had enjoyed it, and she said she had except for one thing - her partner hadn't spoken a word to her during the whole match!

Mixed teams
The Mixed First has had a frustrating summer due to the unavailability of players of the calibre of Duncan, John and Jes - only two appearances between them - resulting in inevitable relegation to Division Three. The second team recovered well from their traumatic defeat against Magdala, but promotion was out of the question.

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