Underrated part 2: jan Kodes

[kiki]

This is my second underrated player, a guy I grew up watching, along other all time greats like Nastase,Newcombe,Roche,Smith,Ashe,Laver and Rosewall.

A lovely guy and one of the hardest fighters on tour, he looked tinny but had great stamina and an enormous menthal strength, that he used to win 3 GS titles, beating guys like Newcombe,Nastase,Franulovic or Metrevali.he also reached 2 more finals ( both at the USO which he never won, in spite of being a few games away to win it, both in 1971 and 1973).

Was a very complete player, solid and percutant groundies, a tigger at the net, he fought every single point and he had just an average serve for a top player.He led Checoslovaquia to his only DC win, heading the team of 1980 ( which had Ivan Lendl as the big star).

Tennis in eastern europe was first known because guys like Kodes and his close friend - yet distant personality-Nastase broke into the top of the tennis world.

To me, the group of 1970-71: Laver,Rosewall,Newcombe,Ashe,Kodes,Nastase,Smith,Roche,Gimeno and Okker may be, possibly, the best top 10 ever in terms of variety and talent.

and guys like Pilic,Orantes,Graebner,Lutz,Richey,Gorman,Riessen,Metrevali,Cox,Taylor,Barthes,Jauffret,Drisdale or Franulovic provided depth and shotmaking.

Any of the seasoned and mature TT posters remember seeing Kodes at his best? Any different opinion to mine?

 

[pc1]

To be honest Kiki. While Jan Kodes was an excellent player I'm not sure how underrated he was. Yes he won a Wimbledon (in a boycott year) and a couple of French Opens in which the top players did not compete but I'm not sure he deserves a lot of applause. Vainquers has Kodes winning about twenty tournaments in his career. I think for example Tom Okker was a much superior player overall to Kodes but he never won a major.

Kodes was an excellent mover with a great return of serve, especially on the backhand which he could take serves often on the rise. He hit a hot streak against the great John Newcombe in the 1973 US Open in which he seemed to be hitting nothing but winners. Newcombe increase the power on his serve and overall game and cooled Kodes down.

Kodes won more majors than Ilie Nastase and Tony Roche but I believe both Nastase and Roche was far better players at their best. I like Kodes and he was a superb player.

 

[kiki]

To be honest Kiki. While Jan Kodes was an excellent player I'm not sure how underrated he was. Yes he won a Wimbledon (in a boycott year) and a couple of French Opens in which the top players did not compete but I'm not sure he deserves a lot of applause. Vainquers has Kodes winning about twenty tournaments in his career. I think for example Tom Okker was a much superior player overall to Kodes but he never won a major.

Kodes was an excellent mover with a great return of serve, especially on the backhand which he could take serves often on the rise. He hit a hot streak against the great John Newcombe in the 1973 US Open in which he seemed to be hitting nothing but winners. Newcombe increase the power on his serve and overall game and cooled Kodes down.

Kodes won more majors than Ilie Nastase and Tony Roche but I believe both Nastase and Roche was far better players at their best. I like Kodes and he was a superb player.

Talent wise, Nastase and Roche were better players, IMO.Not Okker, who was however a pretty good doubles player and one of the world´s best singles players in a very tough era att he top of the game.

As I said, Kodes beat the whole package,e xcept Laver who dominated him in the 1971 IO.As I posted before, look at the 1971 majors:

AO: Rosewall vs Ashe
IO: Laver vs Kodes
WCT:Rosewall vs Laver
Masters: Nastase vs Smith
FO: Kodes vs Nastase
Wimbledon:Newcombe vs Smith
USO: Smith vs Kodes

adding Gimeno ( 1972 FO winner) Roche and Okker, this list makes the toughest top ten ever ( to which I´d add 1980, 1985, 1995 as the toughest top tens in the open era)

 

[urban]

Bellamy called Kodes "a hard man". He was more a mechanical than imaginative player, who put on relentless pressure on his opponents. In some ways, he was a proto-Connors, with great pounding returns and baseline-strokes. In 1974, he gave Connors a tough five setter at Wim. I agree with pc1, that Okker was probably the faster and more creative player. He was a bit unlucky, that the super strong WCT tour prevented him from competing at RG in 70 and 71, when he was in his prime on clay. Okker however, won Rome, Hamburg and Monte Carlo, what Kodes imo never did.

 

[kiki]

Part of being a champion is thr menthal and physichal thing.Kodes had it,Okker not, that establishes the difference between a true champion and a very good player.If talent alone counted, Borg wouldn´t have won all those slams, and Panatta and Pecci would have won like 3 or 4

 

[pc1]

Part of being a champion is thr menthal and physichal thing.Kodes had it,Okker not, that establishes the difference between a true champion and a very good player.If talent alone counted, Borg wouldn´t have won all those slams, and Panatta and Pecci would have won like 3 or 4

Kiki,

Must as I respect you I do think Okker was extremely talented and a champion. But he didn't win a major. Perhaps you're right but I think in Okker's case it was just bad luck or timing.

And I think Borg was one of the most talented tennis players of all time with great powerful consistent strokes, speed, stamina, very good volley, quickness and of course great mental strength.

 

[NLBwell]

I agree that Kodes is underrated.

 

[MAXXply]

Slightly off topic, but I remember World Tennis published a pictorial spread of Kodes' family and home life back in the late 70s. It featured his palatial (by then-Czech standards) forest home near Prague complete with luxury swimming pool.
As an architecture buff, I thought it looked an awesome Eastern-bloc version of those fantasistical Robert Lautner-designed American futurist homes as featured in James Bond's Diamonds Are Forever.
It's probably decayed and diseased by now with concrete cancer and a prime example of Stalinist Brutalism.

 

[chrischris]

Slightly off topic, but I remember World Tennis published a pictorial spread of Kodes' family and home life back in the late 70s. It featured his palatial (by then-Czech standards) forest home near Prague complete with luxury swimming pool.
As an architecture buff, I thought it looked an awesome Eastern-bloc version of those fantasistical Robert Lautner-designed American futurist homes as featured in James Bond's Diamonds Are Forever.
It's probably decayed and diseased by now with concrete cancer and a prime example of Stalinist Brutalism.

A bit like Southcentral vs Beverly Hills?

 

[MAXXply]

A bit like Southcentral vs Beverly Hills?

Haven't been to either but from memory it looked a little something like this, but on a smaller scale:

I'm joking of course.

 

[kiki]

Kiki,

Must as I respect you I do think Okker was extremely talented and a champion. But he didn't win a major. Perhaps you're right but I think in Okker's case it was just bad luck or timing.

And I think Borg was one of the most talented tennis players of all time with great powerful consistent strokes, speed, stamina, very good volley, quickness and of course great mental strength.

Agreed on Borg, but his talent difference with , f.i, Pecci was much closer than the difference of their records.That´s what I meant, may be I didn´t use the right words...

as for Kodes vs Okker, I´d have agreed if you said that Roche was a bigger talent than Kodes, which I could support, but injuries or bad luck hampered him.Not with Okker; he was a very good player but no better than a Franulovic or a Pilic, who had comparable talent ( and they were really talented) and results.

That is why I asserted that Kodes - or Newcombe- are underrated players.Not because anybody is disputing their records, but because almost everybody diputes their talent..or underrecognizes it ( while going nuts for mediocrities like Henman,Rios,Hewitt and so on)

 

[kiki]

First Pecci has no business being mentioned in the same breath as any of these guys......as for Okker v Kodes yes Kodes has more singles slam titles but Okker had much greater success over his career. Kodes as said before played in a very very weak Wimby and French Opens when he won.

Kodes won 3 slams to Okker 0...no contest.Pecci and Okker have almost the same results in GS or big events.But I doubt Okker ever beat Vilas and Connors back to back in the same event as Pecci did in the 1979 FO.

 

[kiki]

Slightly off topic, but I remember World Tennis published a pictorial spread of Kodes' family and home life back in the late 70s. It featured his palatial (by then-Czech standards) forest home near Prague complete with luxury swimming pool.
As an architecture buff, I thought it looked an awesome Eastern-bloc version of those fantasistical Robert Lautner-designed American futurist homes as featured in James Bond's Diamonds Are Forever.
It's probably decayed and diseased by now with concrete cancer and a prime example of Stalinist Brutalism.

Now that you mention Stalin, Kodes was always hypermotivated to face ( just as Nastase) the USSR Davis Cup squad...he had clear memories of what happened in the 1968 Prague Spring.BTW, Prague is one of the nicest, if not clearly the nicest cities of europe, without any kind of doubt....even, after Stalinism...

 

[kiki]

Pecci had one great run at one event.....he flamed out within what 18 months, couldn't keep the coke out of his nose. He was no different than Chris Lewis who had a great Wimby a few yrs later - got into the zone for two weeks.
Sorry the Wimby in 73 was a joke......Okker's slam record strong in doubles and he had a stronger and longer career - top 10 for longer and top 3 doubles for almost 10 yrs -

a joke? Borg,Connors,Nastase entered, and Nastase was the undisputed nº 1 by that time, while Connors would be nº 1next year.Not all top players were there? yes.Weak field? No.And without that W, Kodes leads 2-0.

 

[kiki]

oh¡ and Tom Okker would have certainly given his ass to ever have a chance to win that " weak" 1973 Wimbly event...