Bud Collins and "the Grand Slam"

[Carlo Giovanni Colussi]

Originally Posted by AndrewTas

A recent article on the ABC (Australia) web site by Bud Collins.

Hello Andrew,

if you look at his encyclopedias, Collins already stated that winning the Slam was winning those 4 tourneys in a same year and not winning only one of those events.

However this definition is not carved in marble. To win a Slam should be to win the greatest events of a year and as we had demonstrated in many posts in that forum, the Slam tournaments weren't automatically the true great events if we consider the whole tennis competition history.

Therefore I don't completely agree Collins's claim but I recognize that a Slam tournament is very much easier to win than the modern Slam so Collins is right to recall what the Slam is. However I do not agree that it should be engraved in Melbourne Park because nothing proves that one day or another, the Australian Open (or another of the Slam tournaments or even all) one (or even all) won't lose his status. Nothing is rigid. For instance perhaps the future Madrid tournament will take Garros' place as a Slam tournament and the same can be considered about Wimbledon, Flushing or Melbourne.
And if we look at he past one can see that the Slam notion is relatively recent. As late as 1953, Budge wasn't considered as the Slam winner but as the winner of the 4 great championships. Slam possibly became a true label in tennis when Hoad nearly made it in 1956.

I just recall some facts about the Slam :
Journalist John Kieran seemed to have borrowed the expression "Grand Slam" from the bridge which he applied to tennis, when Jack Crawford, reached the US amateur final in 1933, after having won the Australian, French, Bristish amateur champs.
Then Allison Danzig, of the New York Times (I think Kieran wrote in the same newspaper) used this expression (that he borrowed from golf but the golf had done the same from the bridge) after Kieran, only after Crawford lost to Perry.
Then this notion was forgotten until 1938 when John Donald Budge accepted to stay amateur another year in order to defend the Davis Cup for his country. Because at the time, there was the system of the Challenge Round in the Davis Cup, Budge had to play at most 2 singles matches and one doubles match through the entire year 1938. Though the Davis Cup was the main goal of the amateur circuit then, to play just three days in a year was very short so Budge, to fill his year, decided to enter the championships of the countries which had won the Davis Cup in the previous years (USA, British Isles, Austral(as)ia and France). At the time because of money and transport reasons, Budge would never have thought to go to Australia but in September 1937 Norman Brookes came to California and watched the players at the Pacific Coast Champs (and possibly at the PSW a few days before), and, as President of the ALTA, Brookes decided to invite Budge and Eugene Constance Mako, in Australia to play there the down under summer circuit. Then Budge told only his doubles partner Mako that he would try to win the 4 events. But as many of you know pretty well, those tourneys weren't the greatest events : the Davis Cup was much more important and besides the best pros, Vines, Perry, Nüsslein, couldn't play them.
Budge himself said in his autobiography that his performance was just greeted by a few lines in a paper where the expression "Grand Slam" wasn't even written anywhere. As I have said earlier this expression became truly known in 1956 that is 80 years after the first known tournament. And in reality those 4 tournaments were considered as the true foundations of the Slam only circa 1983-1988 when the Australian became a true major (in years before McEnroe, Borg, Connors, Nastase and others neglected that tourney).
In conclusion "Grand Slam" is truly the Graal since 2 decades or a little more.
Among the 3 Slams won by the men only the last one, in 1969, really deserves that label and at that time even Laver didn't consider the Australian Open as part of the Slam : he considered that the Italian or the South African or the German Opens had more credentials.
So one day probably the greatest events won't be anymore those of today.

[Carlo Giovanni Colussi]

Originally Posted by urban

On the knowledge of tennis history. I think, its not the fault of players, to know so few things about pre 1968 tennis. In the early 90s, there was no internet, no Collins encyclopedias, only a few, quite expensive books (Clerici or Tingay i recall), mainly in English, which were not easy to find access to. As a German i could find only some tennis related books, when i visited London or Paris. And often these Tennis books centred around Wimbledon and didn't represent the pro tennis era at all. And there was not much TV coverage of tennis before the era of Becker and Graf, and the emerging of new Sports Channels all over the world.
Boris Becker knew nothing about the era before Borg, whom he had seen at Wimbledon on German TV. Sampras had some access due to Fischer.
But in those days, no one of the younger generation had people like Laver ever seen play, with the exception of a few clips.Now, on you tube and with the help of the internet, more people have access to tennis information, pictures and films. And going by the reaction of viewers on you tube (up to 32000), many are suprised, that people like Laver could really play tennis, and could play in a astonishing modern way with all spins and angles.

It's not players' fault nevertheless they weren't or are really curious. Why one day I became interested in tennis history ? Because I've seen Rosewall's name in the 1953-1956 era and again his name in the 1968-1972 era.
I found it strange that a great champion won almost each year supposed great events then had a huge gap of 11 years and then won again almost each year for 5 years. I wonder if he had been injured or had given up tennis for a decade. I couldn't understand. Even Laver's record seemed strange to me at the time with his 6-year gap.
This is why I began to make researches.
Of course players have no time to do that but once their career is over they could be interested a little more but generally this isn't the case.
About old players as you stated we can now found some videos. A few days ago I went to the Roland Garros Tenniseum (contraction for "Tennis" and "Museum") and I watched only 45 seconds of a match between Vines and Tilden at the Madison (possibly the 1934 one) and I rather enjoyed the very short video because I've seen for the first time those ancient players who played rather well. Of course we can't really judge them on such a brief extract but I was really pleased.

[Carlo Giovanni Colussi]

Originally Posted by Tennis old man

I'm forgeting great comments by Carlo G Colussi too...

Thanks for your greetings. I've posted two comments on page 3.

[urban]

Carlo, the amateur Grand Slam was seen as the highest point in an amateur tennis career by Gordon Forbes in his memoir from 1962. And in articles around 1950 on Budge (i think one is in 'Total Tennis'), Budge was hailed as the Grand Slam winner. I don't know, whether You have seen it: On the thread 'check out old greats on vid' above this section are some old movietone clips from the pro tour 1930 to 1960 by the poster Marcos.

[Carlo Giovanni Colussi]

Hello Urban,
first thank for the videos (I haven't yet watched them because I haven't much time).
About Budge I've seen it in the French reports of the Wembley and Paris Pro tournaments in 1953.
Budge in his own autobiography said that in 38 his Slam wasn't labelled as that in the American papers.
In 39 no amateur had this goal in mind : for instance the USLTA had no intention to send Riggs to Australia (or the ALTA to invite him) and the war prevented many players to enter all the 4 events. For instance the best French players (Pétra and Pierre Pellizza) were enlisted in the French Army when the French Champs were held (though in May the war wasn't yet declared) and so couldn't play their own Championship. Brookes, as ALTA president, didn't want to send his national team in Europe (Roland and Wimby) because he wanted his guys to win the Davis Cup (held by the USA), and so on ...
And just after WWII, the Slam wasn't a goal. In December 1946 Kramer and Schroeder had clearly beaten the Aussies in the Davis Cup but didn't want to stay a few weeks more to play the Australian Champs in January 1947 which they could probably have won easily. The best Americans (and Europeans) were very rarely invited to play the Australian circuit in the late 40's and early 50's (Talbert and Mulloy in 46-47 or Drobny, Sturgess in 49-50 or Savitt, Larsen in 50-51). It is clear that only a top Australian could likely be the first one to eventually won the first Slam after WWII because players at that time couldn't easily cross the oceans. Budge could have won the amateur Slam in 1937 had he been invited in Australia in late 1936 but it wasn't the case.
So Sedgman, Rosewall and Hoad as Australians, living in Australia (later many Australian players lived in the USA) were the first ones who truly had an opportunity to win the Slam while Kramer, Schroeder, Gonzales, Patty, Drobny hadn't.

[timnz]

I think there should be a new terminology. They should talk about how many 'majors' a player has one, not how many grandslams. Grandslam tournaments as we know are the Australian, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open. These certainly are the current 'Major' tournaments. I think there should be a wider definition of what a Major is. I think that Pro GrandSlam events (Wembly, US Pro, French Pro) should be included in the list of 'Majors'. Hence, it would then be permissable to say that Ken Rosewall has won 23 Majors, Laver has won 19 Majors, Sampras 14 Majors, Federer 13 Majors etc.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_...ers_statistics

The reason for this is what it is realistic statement of actual winning performances (particularly from the 50's and 60's).

Also, upon Reflection Federer isn't chasing Sampras' total of 14, he actually should be chasing Rosewall's total of 23. (Kind of puts into perspective how good Rosewall was).

[Carlo Giovanni Colussi]

Hello timnz,

originally I created the Wikipedia article on December 12, 12:59, 2006 because I thought then that the pre-open pro players were completely underrated. Because one is supposed to be neutral in Wikipedia I decided to select both the Slam amateur tournaments and the "supposed" major pro tournaments to give those players the credit they deserve. In fact such selections have been made by Peter Rowley in his book about Rosewall entitled "Ken Rosewall Twenty Years at the Top" then Robert Geist did the same in his book "DER GRÖSSTE MEISTER Die denkwürdige Karriere des australischen Tennisspielers Kenneth Robert Rosewall". So I used this system to create the aforementioned article but however I wasn't (I still am not) satisfied at all with it because it doesn't take into account the true greatest events. This is why I've written in that article the following remark :
Fundamental remark
As any statistics, those of this article should be prudently considered because
a) they are mixing performances of the amateur circuit (until 1967), the professional circuit (until 1967) and the open circuit (since 1968 )
and b) they don't always take into account the greatest events of a given year (see the 1959 example above).
For instance Rosewall's amateur successes between 1953 and 1956 aren't worth much because the very best players were professionals and then couldn't play the same events as Rosewall.

Then below in that article I've detailed which events in my mind should be considered as truly majors won by Rosewall (at the time I've counted 21 events but I'm not completely sure that Wembley 1957 and WCT 71 have to be counted). I've also detailed Rosewall's career in the English Wikipedia site and in the French one (I'm French) : see http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Rosewall or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Rosewall. In Wikipedia you are supposed to give factual informations and to be neutral. About Rosewall I've been "non-neutral" both in the English and French articles by writing a paragraph called "Classements annuels (professionnels et amateurs ensemble)" or "Rosewall’s combined amateur-professional annual rankings (rough estimations due to the absence of official rankings before 1973)" in the English version. The French administrators being less "severe" than the English one you could look at the French version this paragraph not yet erased, to have an indication of Rosewall's annual rankings. These rankings aren't truly my own rankings because when it was possible I chose rankings edited in previous publications (to respect the "neutral" clause). You can also see the old English version (January 17 15:08, 2007) with those rankings at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...before_1973.29.

I give you an example explaining why I don't think the amateur Slam tournaments are majors.
In January 1953 Rosewall won the Australian amateur champ but in this tournament, Trabert, Drobny, Patty, Larsen, Nielsen, Sven Davidson and other great amateurs didn't enter that championship and above all the pros were forbidden to compete there. It means that Segura, Kramer, Sedgman, Gonzales, McGregor, Budge, Kovacs, Pails, Riggs and others were also absent. So in my opinion, Australia 1953 is not a Rosewall's major victory.

If we select the true majors, players as H.L. Doherty, Tilden, Gonzales, Rosewall and Laver deserve about 20 wins or more.

Have a good reading.

PS : in Wikipedia I’m registered as “Carlo Colussi”. When I entered the tt-tennis forum later I realized that a “Carlo Colussi” was already registered so I had no choice but to use my full name in that forum “Carlo Giovanni Colussi”

[SgtJohn]

Originally Posted by timnz

I think there should be a new terminology. They should talk about how many 'majors' a player has one, not how many grandslams. Grandslam tournaments as we know are the Australian, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open. These certainly are the current 'Major' tournaments. I think there should be a wider definition of what a Major is. I think that Pro GrandSlam events (Wembly, US Pro, French Pro) should be included in the list of 'Majors'. Hence, it would then be permissable to say that Ken Rosewall has won 23 Majors, Laver has won 19 Majors, Sampras 14 Majors, Federer 13 Majors etc.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_...ers_statistics

The reason for this is what it is realistic statement of actual winning performances (particularly from the 50's and 60's).

Also, upon Reflection Federer isn't chasing Sampras' total of 14, he actually should be chasing Rosewall's total of 23. (Kind of puts into perspective how good Rosewall was).

You are right, but as Carlo said, the difficulty is distinguishing between these events which were really significant ( for instance, for the open Era alone, eliminating Wimbledon '73, a bunch of 70s RG and AOs, etc.), and replacing them.
Have a look here at an example of this approach:
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showt...92#post1892492
(only an example, far from perfect)

Jonathan

[timnz]

Hello,

I guess recognition comes from an established tradition of a tournament being regarded as one of the greatest.

I agree that the best way to access the dominance of a player in a particular year is to start to look at what were the top 4 tournaments of that year and ask how did the player in question do in those tournaments.

The problem is that if you want the powers that be to accept something as a 'major' there would need to be more standardisation. And as there is not, the best we can do is to look at the 3 traditional Pro Grand Slam majors.

Nice list though. Interesting that Lavers 1971 win in Rome is considered superior to the Roland Garros win (by another player who Laver beat in Rome).

[timnz]

Originally Posted by SgtJohn

You are right, but as Carlo said, the difficulty is distinguishing between these events which were really significant ( for instance, for the open Era alone, eliminating Wimbledon '73, a bunch of 70s RG and AOs, etc.), and replacing them.
Have a look here at an example of this approach:
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showt...92#post1892492
(only an example, far from perfect)

Jonathan

I enjoyed reading that section. I have to say that I think I disagree with their top 4 tournaments in 1970 and 1971. Laver won the 'Tennis Champions Classic' both those years. In 1971, Laver achieved the seemingly impossible feat of winning 13 straight matches against the cream of the world's pros in the Tennis Champions Classic. That is like winning two Grand Slam tournaments back to back in a row!

[Carlo Giovanni Colussi]

Originally Posted by timnz

I enjoyed reading that section. I have to say that I think I disagree with their top 4 tournaments in 1970 and 1971. Laver won the 'Tennis Champions Classic' both those years. In 1971, Laver achieved the seemingly impossible feat of winning 13 straight matches against the cream of the world's pros in the Tennis Champions Classic. That is like winning two Grand Slam tournaments back to back in a row!

In the 'Tennis Champions Classic' only the WCT players were invited so Laver hadn't to face Smith, Kodes or Nastase (Rocket lost successively to Ian and Ilie at Stockholm and Wembley that year) so I don't truly agree that it was like winning 2 true Slam in a row. Besides Laver in his autobiography clearly wrote that those classics were merely exhibitions because sometimes the attendance were poor (if my memory is good he picked up the Boston Garden match against "Rochey") and Laver then understood that the public in the 70's wasn't interested any more in "head-to-head one night-stand" events but at the time already favoured tournaments.
In the early 70's the Italian champ was important (nowadays it is a "1000" as any other) and in particular in 71 the only great players missing were Rosewall (injured) and Nastase (because Tiriac had convinced Nasty to play Madrid where Ion beat Nasty for the last time) whereas at Roland Garros 1971 were missing exactly 16 (out of the 32) WCT players among them Laver, Rosewall, Okker, Newcombe, Roche (I recognize the latter being already injured enough) ...

Globally I agree superb SgtJohn's list (that I have recorded to scrutinize it precisely in months to come) except that in my mind he underrates Vines' pro feats in favour of Slam amateur events and that he never picked up Davis Cup events when that competition was the most important of all in the 20's. Tilden was considered as the best in the early 20's mostly because he was unbeaten in Davis Cup and Cochet the same in the late 20's because he beat Tilden in that team event. Here is my list (only since 1950) which is slightly different from SgtJohn because SgtJohn considers that in the 50's one has to select a great clay event each year to be fair to modern players. I answered somewhere that in return in the 2000's one should pick up a true fast court event each year to be fair to ancient players (unhappily a true great fast court tournament doesn't exist anymore : Wimbledon nowadays is "almost" as slow as Roland, of course I'm kidding a little but not so much, and Flushing is considered by the ITF as one of the slowest fast surfaces) : http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showp...0&postcount=45, and http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showp...0&postcount=46

[SgtJohn]

Thank you for your comments Carlo!
I actually now agree with you about the surface thing. Selecting a clay event led me to select average events for many years when fast indoors dominated the pro game, or to elevate depleted Roland Garros to major status.

I posted the new list I'm working on on this thread, because I'm aware the old one had many shortcomings:
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showp...5&postcount=41

By the way, for fairness, i have to say that carlo's list and his and others' interventions on wikipedia were an inspiration to me, for the idea of making such a list as well as for information... I wouldn't want to take all of the credit unfairly.

Of course all thoughts on any aspect of the list are more than welcome...

Jonathan

[Carlo Giovanni Colussi]

Hello Jonathan,

As some said this forum is of high quality and we learn very much from each other. My own short list has also been made with Jeffrey's or Urban's help on Wiki.
And Gentlemen AndrewTas and Károly (I don't remember his nickname on other Websites, something like Elegios7) had graciously given me invaluable information.

Your list is superb and it will take months if not years for me to do the same (these days I'm checking tournaments in 1905, 1910, ...).
Urban wrote that you made a list of Masters Series. Is this the following post http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showp...2&postcount=20
or is there a complete list since 1877 ?

Thank you.

[SgtJohn]

Originally Posted by Carlo Giovanni Colussi

Hello Jonathan,

As some said this forum is of high quality and we learn very much from each other. My own short list has also been made with Jeffrey's or Urban's help on Wiki.
And Gentlemen AndrewTas and Károly (I don't remember his nickname on other Websites, something like Elegios7) had graciously given me invaluable information.

Your list is superb and it will take months if not years for me to do the same (these days I'm checking tournaments in 1905, 1910, ...).
Urban wrote that you made a list of Masters Series. Is this the following post http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showp...2&postcount=20
or is there a complete list since 1877 ?

Thank you.

Thank you for your kind words Carlo!

About the 'Masters Series' list, apart from the thread you quoted, I posted the leader-board for 1877-2007 here:
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showp...0&postcount=14

I abandoned the idea of such a list for many reasons:

*apart from the amateur majors and the pro events (thanks to McCauley!), I don't have any draw whatsoever, which virtually makes the list a guessing exercise, based more on reputation of the events that quality of competition. As I try to avoid inaccuracy this is a big drawback.

*for many years there simply are not enough events. For example from 1947 to 1964, the pros did not have enough events with good fields, so most of the 'Masters Series' winners were amateurs, which obviously gives a deformed view of these times.

*before the 1930s the top players played only a few tournaments each year, so many of the events I selected were probably extremely depleted. You couldn't have 15-odds events with a majority of the top 10 entering it, as you have today.

*finally, one of the main aims of the MS list was to account for the great events that did not make it in the 4 majors, but now the coef system allows for much more flexibility in integrating these events...

Jonathan

[Carlo Giovanni Colussi]

Thank you very much.

[Tennisfan!]

Thanks to both, Carlo and Jonathan, for post here!

[Mustard]

Originally Posted by Bud Collins

A true Grand Slam is winning all four within a calendar year. Alone at that summit: Americans Don Budge (1938 ) and Maureen Connolly (1953), Laver (1962 and 1969), Court (1970), Graf (1988 ).

I can't agree with this at all.

Navratilova won 6 majors in a row, the last 3 of 1983 and the first 3 of 1984. S. Williams won 4 majors in a row from the 2002 French Open to the 2003 Australian Open, yet the calendar year fanatics would say that these two players have never won a Grand Slam.

If someone wins 4 majors in a row, that is a Grand Slam. Whether it was all in a calendar year or not is irrelevant. Don Budge actually won the last 2 majors of 1937, so winning the 1938 French Championships completed the Grand Slam for him. Winning 1938 Wimbledon and 1938 US Championships to complete the calendar year Grand Slam, just made it all "neater".

[krosero]

I found these headlines recently, from 1938, when Budge won at Roland Garros.

Hartford Courant:

Donald Budge Completes ‘Grand Slam’ of Tennis By Winning French Championship

Californian Trounces Menzel In Title Match

Crushes Huge Czech in Straight Sets, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4, to Become First American to Ever Win Tournament; Will Seek Doubles Crown Today

Chicago Tribune:

Don Budge Wins French Title to Complete Slam

An AP story in the Herald-Journal (http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...menzel&hl=en):

Don Budge completed his tennis “grand slam” today.

The red-headed Californian crushed Roderich Menzel, huge Czech, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4, to add the French hard court championship to his American, British and Australian singles titles and became the first player in history to hold all four at the same time.

If that’s not honor enough, Budge can aim at repeating his British and American championship victories later this summer and thus win all four singles crowns in the same year.

[krosero]

And there had been something similar right after Perry won the 1934 Wimbledon.

An AP story in The Montreal Gazette:

Perry went to Australia to take Crawford’s home title away on his own grounds, and he whipped Crawford for the American singles championship last September; but for an injured ankle, which probably cost him a quarter final match against Georgio de Stefani, in the French championships, he might have achieved the tennis equivalent of Bobby Jones’ golfing grand slam of 1930.

[Mustard]

Thanks for those, Krosero