Wimbledon men's singles final, 1957: Lew Hoad (AUS) d. Ashley Cooper (AUS) 6-2 6-1 6-2
From ‘The Daily Telegraph’, Saturday, July 6, 1957
By Lance Tingay
Superb form wins Hoad title twice running – Cooper no match for champion’s powerful game
Wimbledon, Friday
The annals of the Lawn Tennis Championships were distinctively inscribed today. Lew Hoad acquired a status rare in the history of the game, a first among firsts, a champion among champions, by winning the men’s singles for the second year running.
Since 1922, the first year the defending champion was required to play through, those who have successfully defended their men’s singles crown have been few. They are, in fact, only two. Fred Perry, who did so twice, in 1935 and 1936, and Donald Budge, who won again in 1938. Not all champions have essayed the chance of a hard-won title, but there have been thirteen failures, six of them in post-war years.
On the Centre Court today, where the grass is burned brown by the sun and worn to smooth bare patches by the battles of the last fortnight, Hoad, watched by Prince Philip, became a champion plus by beating Ashley Cooper. And what a beating he gave him! Hoad won by 6-2, 6-1, 6-2, in 56 minutes and to find a parallel for such a display of inhumanly good power lawn tennis in the final one needs to go back to 1932, when Ellsworth Vines, playing then as he never played again, trounced Bunny Austin in eight minutes fewer.
Hoad’s opinion – “Has played better”
Afterwards Hoad averred that he believed he had once or twice played rather better, citing his defeat of Tony Trabert in the Davis Cup challenge round at Forest Hills in 1955 as an example. I also saw that match and if there be a difference between Hoad’s form then and his expertise this afternoon, it was purely academic. Trabert withstood the pounding rather better.
One could make the point that this afternoon Cooper did not do his game own justice. There were certainly many occasions when he misfired on relatively easy shots – high volleys when the court was open, and such-like opportunities. Yet Cooper would have been superhuman if he had not quailed before the shots Hoad fired against him. There was rally after rally when Hoad had only to strike to ball to make a winner.
Without a peer – Tremendous service
His own service power was tremendous. His returns of service, which were the crux whereby he reduced the unlucky Cooper to ineffectiveness, were fantastic. It hardly seemed possible that eye and muscle could coordinate with such celerity. Writing admittedly with the excitement of the match still fresh, it is hard to imagine better lawn tennis. One can think of other superb performances, the Vines vs Austin final, which I have mentioned, that between Budge and Austin in 1938 and Jack Kramer’s impeccable display against Tom Brown in 1947, and still incline to the view that today Hoad was without a peer.
Statistics in lawn tennis usually prove little, but those that came from today’s match are interesting. The total number of points played in the final was 147, and of those no less than 52 were scored by Hoad with outright winners. This proportion of more than one in three is unusually high. Service winners accounted for 24, the other 28 were produced in the course of fast exchanges, many on the most difficult of all shots, the return of the service.
One-sided match – Brilliant virtuosity
One-sided finals, as this certainly was, are rarely interesting. It would, however, have been a cold-blooded observer who watched Hoad this afternoon and was not stirred by his virtuosity. His whole effort was one terrific tour de force, but if there were danger of Hoad transforming himself into a machine he proved he was flesh and blood after all with slight failings here and there.
Because Hoad was so good and Cooper given such few chances to get a foothold in the battle it is hard to assess the loser’s standing. It could be said that his service power failed him, but whether he served well or ill, Hoad’s response was nearly always so punishing it was small wonder his stronger power of arm was stayed.
When the match started I made a note that Hoad had taken a slick and expert opening game. He began like a sprinter, hardly faltering along the course, and also finished like one. Cooper was not permitted to hold his service at the start. Nor was he also in the fifth game, which Hoad won to 30 to lead 4-1.
Memorable game – Hoad lost it to love
The sixth game is memorable in retrospect as the first of the two service games that Hoad did not win, and which, moreover, he lost to love. Here Cooper signalled what seemed rising strength by fine returns of serve, against which even Hoad showed human failings. Yet the Cooper upsurge soon subsided, for with returns of service Hoad had the master touch. Cooper’s service was taken to 30, then Hoad won his own delivery to 15 to take the first set at 6-2 in 19 minutes.
Cooper has lost opening sets before and come back to rule the roost. This time, however, he hardly saw the first two games of the second set, both of which Hoad took to love. After the first Hoad was troubled with a hair in his eye and called on a linesman to assist him. He had the same trouble on two occasions later and one could not but wonder that if Hoad played as well as this with only one eye working perfectly, what miracles he might not perform with both!
Half-inch failure – Caused anguish
Hoad made few concessions in his striving for perfection. In the third game, the only one in the match where deuce was called twice, Hoad attempted a difficult forehand passing shot that missed the line by perhaps half an inch. His face screwed in anguish at his failure. Another love game took Hoad to 4-0 before Cooper gained his only reward in the second set. He did not do so until he had been within a point of losing it. The last point Cooper conceded on a double fault and it seemed a gesture of despair at the strength against him.
The start of the third set was the only period when Cooper approached anything like equality. When in the third game Hoad twice double-faulted to put himself down 0-40 and then failed to make up the leeway, a buzz came from the crowd at such human fallibility. Hoad changed his racket immediately and did not afterwards fall short of the standard of impeccability he had set himself. In the seventh game he again lagged 0-40, but this time he garnered the next five points.
His fifth game running gave Hoad set and match. His brilliance had been sustained for nearly one hour, and Cooper must have felt like a man on a pushbike who had presumed to race against a Bentley. Prince Philip then presented Hoad with the Challenge Cup. It sparkled in the sunshine, but not, I think, as brightly as the jewels that today were Hoad’s perfect power shots.
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