Winner takes all. Classic series 1970-1971

[hoodjem]

Originally Posted by SgtJohn

Interesting article (St.Pet. Times, 19/12/1971)

"The astinishing string of wins over Newcombe, Rosewall, Ashe, Taylor, Ralston and Okker has been regarded as one of the most remarkable feats in tennis history, but Laver had a rather surprising reaction.
"The money of course was astonishing", he said, " but actually the classic wrecked me. The mental strain of getting up for each succeeding match, up to a fever pitch 13 times with no left-up, affected my play later in the year. By the time we finished at Wimbledon, my nerves, my mental condition was bad. That's why I walked away from the Toronto tournament after I lost in the first round in August, and why I went home, and why I decided then and there that I would pass up Forest Hills.""

This might help to explain Laver's poor comparatively poor 1970 and 1971.

[kiki]

Originally Posted by pc1

One of my fantasy match ups is Federer against Gonzalez, Wimbledon final, both are 27. It would be interesting to see how Federer would try to handle the great Gonzalez serve on grass.

What grass? former or current? there is a lot of difference, IMO...can you see the difference?

[robow7]

I do hope this was on the up and up because many of those so called winner take all tourneys in the late 70's and early 80's often had under the table prize money sharing going on, otherwise many of the top stars wouldn't participate.