Many of us here have seen this clip on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-VeBIal8TU
The Tennis Channel broadcast the match as the 1977 World Invitational Tennis Classic (the WITC), but it actually took place on October 11, 1976. It was reported the next day in the New York Times.
Probably a lot of this post will not be new to those who were following tennis in the 1970s, but it was all new to me; I learned a lot about how tennis was televised in the 1970s.
The WITC event is listed as running from 1974 to 1978 on this page:
http://www.imgmediaarchive.com/home/browse/event/store127/item1575/
(click the “Programming” tab)
On that page, Borg and Laver are listed as playing in 1977. The score is not listed, but the Times reports it as 6-3, 7-5 for Borg. On the same day – a Monday – Evonne Goolagong defeated Sue Barker, 6-7, 6-0, 6-3. The next day’s schedule included Martina Navratilova against Virginia Wade. On Wednesday, Ilie Nastase was to meet Arthur Ashe.
On Oct. 15 (Friday), Borg defeated Ashe in the final, 6-1, 6-2.
It was the fourth annual WITC, and the purse was $195,000 – the same information reported by ABC’s commentators for the Borg-Laver match, Chris Schenkel and Pancho Gonzales.
What’s interesting is that the ABC coverage gives no real indication of when the matches occurred. Schenkel, when introducing Borg-Laver, says that “if you were with us last week, Evonne Goolagong picked up a victory point in a tough match with young 20-year-old Sue Barker.” But that match took place only hours before Borg-Laver. Schenkel says that the Borg-Laver match is the second in a series of 11, and it was, if you include the men’s and women’s singles and the mixed doubles. But the coverage gives the impression that the matches are taking place live – as if this tournament ran one match per week.
Schenkel calls Borg the “Wimbledon champion in 1976.” He adds, “when he won Wimbledon in 1976 he didn’t lose a set.” That sounds like he’s talking in 1977.
However, the explanation is in a September 1977 article written by Leonard Probst and published in the Times, “Has TV Killed the Goose That Laid the Golden Tennis Ball?” (MooseMalloy, this article is in the book you just bought). Probst describes how the networks frequently showed taped matches and that viewers were often confused about what they were watching. For example, some players would show up playing simultaneously on two channels, with no indication of what was live or taped.
It looks to me like the announcers called the matches live but that Schenkel knew the viewers would not see them until 1977. Hence his backward-looking references to 1976.
It’s interesting that during the Borg-Laver semi, Schenkel says that the other semifinal “in the future” will be between Nastase and Ashe. That’s exactly how you would refer to it if you didn’t want to say incorrectly that it would take place in a week but you also didn’t want to tell the viewers that it would occur on Wednesday, since they would actually see it on a Sunday.
The WITC matches at Rick’s DVD-selling site are all listed as IMG Media Archive lists them (see the link above). Rick lists the scores, and each year’s matches correspond to Times reports from the previous October.
I did not check every single match, just a handful from each year. I would paste the information in the Times articles here, but their archives are all in PDF format; and some people here are going to remember this situation first-hand anyway.
I could not find a Times report for the earliest matches listed by Rick and IMG – the year that Margaret Court took part. That event is listed as 1974, but Court did not play any of the Grand Slams (or any matches?) that year. If the event took place in October 1973, however, she could have participated, having just won at Forest Hills a month earlier.
I did find a Google hit describing “a series of 11 programs featuring matches by eight of the world’s best tennis pros”; that notice is dated to April 14, 1974, and it includes Margaret Court as a participant. That seems, then, to refer to the televising of an event that probably took place in 1973.
As far as I can tell, the tournament began in 1973 and ran through 1977, in October.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-VeBIal8TU
The Tennis Channel broadcast the match as the 1977 World Invitational Tennis Classic (the WITC), but it actually took place on October 11, 1976. It was reported the next day in the New York Times.
Probably a lot of this post will not be new to those who were following tennis in the 1970s, but it was all new to me; I learned a lot about how tennis was televised in the 1970s.
The WITC event is listed as running from 1974 to 1978 on this page:
http://www.imgmediaarchive.com/home/browse/event/store127/item1575/
(click the “Programming” tab)
On that page, Borg and Laver are listed as playing in 1977. The score is not listed, but the Times reports it as 6-3, 7-5 for Borg. On the same day – a Monday – Evonne Goolagong defeated Sue Barker, 6-7, 6-0, 6-3. The next day’s schedule included Martina Navratilova against Virginia Wade. On Wednesday, Ilie Nastase was to meet Arthur Ashe.
On Oct. 15 (Friday), Borg defeated Ashe in the final, 6-1, 6-2.
It was the fourth annual WITC, and the purse was $195,000 – the same information reported by ABC’s commentators for the Borg-Laver match, Chris Schenkel and Pancho Gonzales.
What’s interesting is that the ABC coverage gives no real indication of when the matches occurred. Schenkel, when introducing Borg-Laver, says that “if you were with us last week, Evonne Goolagong picked up a victory point in a tough match with young 20-year-old Sue Barker.” But that match took place only hours before Borg-Laver. Schenkel says that the Borg-Laver match is the second in a series of 11, and it was, if you include the men’s and women’s singles and the mixed doubles. But the coverage gives the impression that the matches are taking place live – as if this tournament ran one match per week.
Schenkel calls Borg the “Wimbledon champion in 1976.” He adds, “when he won Wimbledon in 1976 he didn’t lose a set.” That sounds like he’s talking in 1977.
However, the explanation is in a September 1977 article written by Leonard Probst and published in the Times, “Has TV Killed the Goose That Laid the Golden Tennis Ball?” (MooseMalloy, this article is in the book you just bought). Probst describes how the networks frequently showed taped matches and that viewers were often confused about what they were watching. For example, some players would show up playing simultaneously on two channels, with no indication of what was live or taped.
For instance, home viewers on Sunday, May 16, 1976, could have seen Bjorn Borg hitting his topspin forehand in mixed doubles with Virginia Wade against Rod Laver and Evonne Goolagong on ABC’s “World Invitational Tennis Classic” from 2:30 to 4 P.M., as well as in a singles match against Guillermo Vilas, from 1:30 to 4:10 P.M. on NBC. NBC’s coverage was live from Hawaii; ABC’s had been taped months earlier at Hilton Head, S.C., and was one of 11 Sunday matches to come out of that taping session.
It looks to me like the announcers called the matches live but that Schenkel knew the viewers would not see them until 1977. Hence his backward-looking references to 1976.
It’s interesting that during the Borg-Laver semi, Schenkel says that the other semifinal “in the future” will be between Nastase and Ashe. That’s exactly how you would refer to it if you didn’t want to say incorrectly that it would take place in a week but you also didn’t want to tell the viewers that it would occur on Wednesday, since they would actually see it on a Sunday.
The WITC matches at Rick’s DVD-selling site are all listed as IMG Media Archive lists them (see the link above). Rick lists the scores, and each year’s matches correspond to Times reports from the previous October.
I did not check every single match, just a handful from each year. I would paste the information in the Times articles here, but their archives are all in PDF format; and some people here are going to remember this situation first-hand anyway.
I could not find a Times report for the earliest matches listed by Rick and IMG – the year that Margaret Court took part. That event is listed as 1974, but Court did not play any of the Grand Slams (or any matches?) that year. If the event took place in October 1973, however, she could have participated, having just won at Forest Hills a month earlier.
I did find a Google hit describing “a series of 11 programs featuring matches by eight of the world’s best tennis pros”; that notice is dated to April 14, 1974, and it includes Margaret Court as a participant. That seems, then, to refer to the televising of an event that probably took place in 1973.
As far as I can tell, the tournament began in 1973 and ran through 1977, in October.