The summer that changed tennis forever
50 years ago, Wimbledon welcomed professionals for the first time... and the modern game was born
BFor making the doubles semi-final at the 1966 Wimbledon, for example, he received a £10 voucher to be spent at a London sports goods store of his choosing.
Having played on the Sixties circuit with only his expenses covered, that was quite a treat. He went out and used it to acquire several pairs of the newfangled Terylene shorts, which, if washed at night, could be hung up and dry by the morning.
The breadline status of many players all began to change on April 22, 1968. It was the time of mass protests and rebellions around the world, and it coincided with a revolution in tennis, which was to change the course of the sport’s history.
It began in the unlikely setting of the West Hants Club, Bournemouth — at the British Hard Court Championships. It became the first tournament to abolish the barriers between so-called amateurs and the professionals who had been excluded from the biggest tournaments up until then, including Wimbledon.
Cox, now 74, carved out his own piece of this history by becoming the first amateur to beat a professional when he defeated the fiery American veteran Pancho Gonzales. At the time, it caused a huge splash, putting him on the front page alongside the student riots flaring up in France.
He went on to beat the great Australian Roy Emerson before losing to the peerless Rod Laver in the semi-finals. The eventual winner, Ken Rosewall, took away £1,000 while Cox, yet to make the switch into the professional game, had to be satisfied with some meagre daily expenses plus a daily lunch and tea ticket.
The draw sheet is something of a collectors’ item. The names in it, aside from some of the great Australians, include Stanley Matthews Jnr and a 19-yearold JPR Williams, who came close to pursuing a professional tennis career prior to becoming a Welsh rugby legend.
Cox played by far the more significant role that week, at an event where there were still clear divides between amateurs and pros.
‘We stayed in the row of B&Bs that were near to the courts and cost about ten and six per night,’ he recalls. ‘I think the pros were in hotels in the centre of Bournemouth. I didn’t really know them at that point, although I don’t remember there being any particular atmosphere between us. ‘If there was a tension then it was probably on their part as they felt they were on a hiding to nothing when they came up against us.’ Until then, the professionals had been excluded from the biggest events in the game, the Grand Slams and the Davis Cup. It is why, for instance, Laver won all four majors in 1962 and then did not appear at Wimbledon again until 1968. It is also why so many tennis achievements are often branded as being ‘in the open era’.
Contrary to their rather stodgy reputations, the All England Club and the Lawn Tennis Association led the way in breaking down barriers.
After the 1967 Championships, Wimbledon held a separate event for professionals. It was a big success and, significantly, very popular on TV. It was made clear by Wimbledon and the LTA that the 1968 fortnight at SW19 would welcome both amateurs and those transparently earning a living on professional circuits.
‘There is no doubt that a certain amount of hypocrisy had been going on,’ said Cox. ‘For instance, we all knew that the Americans and Italians were paying their players to play in the Davis Cup, which was considered then as important as the Grand Slams.
‘I was one of the players making hardly a living and you used to have to write to tournament directors requesting help with expenses. I got a letter back from Hungary once saying: “Dear Miss Cox, we are sorry we cannot help you”.
‘The players’ tea room at Wimbledon was always full of tournament promoters, trying to entice players to their events.’
The era of the shamateurs was nonetheless a serene one at many of the tournaments. The teas at Budleigh Salterton were legendary, as was the cocktail party at Frinton. Players always socialised with each other.
Cox was to become a top professional in his own right, and played when Britain reached the Davis Cup final in 1978. He attributes his Bournemouth win largely to the conditions.
‘The surface was shale there and I don’t think Pancho had played on it much before, while I was quite used to it,’ he says. ‘The publicity was quite extraordinary and something I had never known. Against Emerson, I just had one of those purple days when everything went right.’
He then met the great Laver and was beaten comfortably. What was so good about a player often mentioned in the same bracket as Roger Federer?
‘The single biggest thing that made him different was that, as a left-hander, he had a topspin backhand which he could use as a weapon, which was very unusual back then. He was brilliant at the net and a fantastic athlete, a bit like Novak Djokovic at his best,’ says Cox.
‘And while he was a humble man, he was a very strong competitor. Actually, most of those Australians were very impressive people.’
Virginia Wade won the women’s event and the £300 first prize which she could not accept as an amateur. The women’s game evolved at a different pace, en route to achieving financial parity in the Grand Slams. Perhaps the biggest developments of the modern game were the fall of communism and the acceptance of the sport into the olympics, huge factors in it becoming a truly global game. The events in the leafy environs of Bournemouth 50 years ago rank right up there with them in terms of significance. y the time the open era of tennis dawned 50 years ago, it was fair to say that the performances of leading British player Mark Cox had not hugely enriched him.