I was channel surfing and caught part of a match between Chris Evert and an American named Eisel from 1971 on ESPN Classic. I have never watched a women's match from that era, and a few things really surprised me.
Chris Evert served with two balls, and if she made her first serve, she tossed the other ball a few metres behind her and played the point. This struck me as a very dangerous practice. Does anyone know when she stopped doing that? I can't even imagine a club player doing that.
Also, she would walk up to the service line and immediately serve. Was that a common practice back then? The players seemed to take no time between points.
until the time rule came into to effect(1979 & I believe it was to prevent excessive players arguments with umpires that were starting to become common) almost all players played at a very fast pace, despite there not being an official amount of time that they had to be aware of in between points.
I have a lot of old matches on tape, guys like Laver, Ashe, etc took absolutely no time in between points. It does look strange in todays context, if a player did that today it would look almost like they were tanking. see how Clijsters is often criticized for playing too fast. I remember Darren Cahill saying that a player was rushing too much in between points & Cliff Drysdale saying, "Darren, that's how everyone used to play in my time."
Cahill seemed pretty surprised by that comment, I guess Laver was before his time.
This is how 'expected' fast play was among players back then. was watching Rosewall-Roche '70 USO. commentators were talking about how unusual it was for Roche to put the 2nd ball in his pocket, not holding both in the same hand like most players did. Bud Collins said, "but I guess its ok because he takes the 2nd ball out of his pocket quickly!" It really was the fastest I've seen anyone take a ball out of their pocket, like almost on the follow through of his 1st serve fault, he was whipping out that 2nd ball.
so you can see how it may have been tough for Evert, a 2 hander with no pockets, to keep up the 'continuous play' that was expected by players of the time. and saying 2 handers were uncommon at the time is a bit of an understatement. probably 95% of all pro players, male & female, in '71 had one handed backhands.
I guess just throwing the ball behind her seemed like the easiest solution of the time, they eventually got a little bit more relaxed & allowed her to get the 2nd ball from a ball boy.