The Height and Weight of Pre-Open Era Greats

[NonP]

After coming across the umpteenth thread about Laver's height (not singling out anyone, BTW) I did a search to see if there's an old thread about this rather shopworn topic. Well, it returned fewer than seven full pages of results with "height" in the thread title (for real), and though there was indeed one thread devoted to Rocket's stature it was about as predictable as you'd expect.

Hence this new one. FYI though I'm pulling this info from Vines' profiles of whom he considered the 10 best players in his book Tennis: Myth and Method (cowritten with Gene Vier) I chose a more generic thread title so others can chime in with their own sources. There they are, with their listed height and weight (I'm keeping the same order in case anyone's interested in Elly's ranking):

Budge - 6' 2", 178 lb
Kramer - 6' 1", 170 lb
Gonzales - 6' 3", 190 lb
Laver - 5' 9", 154 lb
Segura - 5' 7", 147 lb
Riggs - 5' 8¼, 155 lb
Rosewall - 5' 7", 145 lb
Hoad - 5' 10½", 176 lb
Sedgman - 5' 11", 168 lb
Trabert - 6' 1", 190 lb

(For you metric-system fetishists: I didn't convert these #s as the results can vary by a couple cm/kg. Also I'm sure you can do your own conversions.)

And @pc1, who I believe knows/knew the Gonzales family personally, has confirmed that Gorgo in his heyday was indeed 6' 3". Suffice it to say these numbers are more reliable than Wikipedia's which likely reflect these studs' late/current height.

Also from Kramer himself (more accurately his autobiography):

And here is Ellsworth Vines, 6'2½" tall, 155 pounds, dressed like Fred Astaire and hitting shots like Babe Ruth.

In his intro to Vines' book Jack did describe his great predecessor as "a 6'2" whipcord who hit a flat forehand that had to be seen to be believed" - "without question the hardest forehand in the history of the game," he added - but I've seen several other sources put the FH-meister a little higher so Elly does seem to have been second only to Big Pancho in height among pre-OE titans.

Anyway next time you see a cocky youngster droning on about 5' 8" Laver, you know where to refer him. You're welcome.

 

[AgassiSuperSlam11]

Anyway next time you see a cocky youngster droning on about 5' 8" Laver, you know where to refer him. You're welcome.

There are no cocky youngsters in this forum, and this must be a facetious remark. Wow, calling a TTW poster "Cocky" how one dare say such monstrosity in this most cordial and amicable environment. This is among the most civilized forums one can fine. This is free of the toxic tribalism we see on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. In fact, this is the first time and hopefully the last time we see such characterization of anyone.

 

[BGod]

Budge and Gonzalez' success makes that much more sense. Budge certainly doesn't look 6"2 from his footage. Rosewall meanwhile at 5"7? Yikes.

 

[hoodjem]

Tilden - 6' 1.5" 185 lbs.
Vines - 6' 2.5" 165 lbs.

 

[King_olaf_the_hairy]

Anyway next time you see a cocky youngster droning on about 5' 8" Laver, you know where to refer him. You're welcome.

NO!

I shall instead refer him to MY post right here.

Wilding was 187cm (6'1½"), Tilden was 187 (6'1½"), Borotra was 186 (6'1"), Vines was 189 (6'2½"), Crawford was 185 (6'1"), Perry was 183 (6'0") Budge was 185 (6'1"), Gonzales was 188 (6'2)", Kramer was 188 (6'2"), Falkenburg was 191 (6'3"), Savitt was 191 (6'3"), Seixas was 185 (6'1"), Sedgman was 180 (5'11"), Trabert was 185 (6'1"), Hoad was 179 (5'10½"), Fraser was 185 (6'1"), Emerson was 183 (6'0").

	@King_olaf_the_hairy	@NonP
Date posted	February 2022	July 2022
Original research	Trawled through individual Wikipedia bios himself in a colossal labour of love	Admits to merely cribbing from Vines & Vier
Comprehensiveness of dataset	An encyclopedic seventeen champions	A piffling ten champions
Range of history covered	1910s-1960s	1930s-1950s

 

[NonP]

Budge and Gonzalez' success makes that much more sense. Budge certainly doesn't look 6"2 from his footage. Rosewall meanwhile at 5"7? Yikes.

You mean Don was actually shorter? From what I've seen he sure looks a solid 6'2" to me. Check out this pic from the '77 Parade of Champions (hat tip to olaf):

Wimbledon Parade of Champions

So nice to see all the old players. Just surprised at how many didn't turn up. I realise Navratilova has covid and Becker is in prison, but what about everyone else? Where was Sampras, Agassi, Steffi, Serena etc?

tt.tennis-warehouse.com

Petra was reportedly 6'5" and Budge looks 3 inches shorter at most, exactly his listed height. No doubt he had shrunk a bit by then, but that applies to Yvon, too.

Wilding was 187cm (6'1½"), Tilden was 187 (6'1½"), Borotra was 186 (6'1"), Vines was 189 (6'2½"), Crawford was 185 (6'1"), Perry was 183 (6'0") Budge was 185 (6'1"), Gonzales was 188 (6'2)", Kramer was 188 (6'2"), Falkenburg was 191 (6'3"), Drobny was 180 (5'11"), Savitt was 191 (6'3"), Seixas was 185 (6'1"), Sedgman was 180 (5'11"), Trabert was 185 (6'1"), Hoad was 179 (5'10½"), Fraser was 185 (6'1"), Emerson was 183 (6'0").

To be honest, I think the shortness of Rosewall and Laver has kind of distorted our view of the past. Both those Aussies were unusually diminutive compared to their contemporaries (although Cochet in the 1920s was even shorter), but by and large I think the height distribution was similar to more modern eras.

In all seriousness I'd like to see these numbers verified with more contemporary/authoritative sources than Wiki. I mean its Laver article simply cites his ATP page, which we know is notoriously unreliable.

Also in the pic you posted Jack does look slightly shorter than Don. 6'1" for Kramer sounds about right, though he could've been closer to 6'1½" in his heyday.