John Newcombe never planned to play in the 1975 Australian Open.
Newcombe, 30, was nearing retirement. He played in his home country’s major tournaments almost every year since 1960, winning the championship in 1973 and reaching the semifinals three times. He also won Wimbledon three times and the United States Championship twice, as well as 16 Grand Slam doubles titles (he won one more in 1976).
This year’s Australian Open, which begins in Melbourne on Sunday, marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most important matches of Newcomb’s career.
Newcombe was at home in Sydney in mid-December 1974, less than two weeks before the start of the ’75 Australian Open, when he received word from Tennis Australia, the tournament’s governing body, that defending champion Jimmy Connors had entered. draw.
Connors, then 22 years old and ranked No. 1 in the world, and Newcomb had been waging war on and off the court since their first meeting in the quarterfinals of the 1973 U.S. Open. Newcombe won that match en route to the title.
Newcombe was ranked number one in 1970 and ’71, when the rankings were determined by a group of journalists before the ATP established an official ranking system in 1973. He also briefly topped the list in 1974. With number 74, she won the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and US Open. He missed his chance to win a Grand Slam (winning all four majors in the calendar year) that season when he was banned from the French Open by the International Tennis Federation for promising to play World Team Tennis in the United States.
There was no shortage of verbal volleys between Connors and Newcombe. The two members formed the No. 1 club, which includes 29 players who have recently achieved the highest ATP rankings. Newcombe accused Connors of withdrawing from the tournament to avoid playing with him. Connors countered.
“Newcombe needs to talk more with his racket and less with his mouth,” Connors said at the time. “He says I’m avoiding him, but I don’t need to avoid anyone. “Every time we got to the finals, he was missing,” he said.
Newcombe, now 80, was a student of coach Harry Hopman. Known for his Salvador Dali-style moustache and charismatic personality, Newcomb had a powerful serve that allowed him to reach the goal with ease. He could also play cautious backcourt tennis, luring his opponents with a crafty drop shot and then tossing a winning lob over their heads.
“Nyuk was one of the most thoughtful and technical players to ever play the game,” Australian Fred Stolle, 86, said in an interview. He reached five consecutive major finals from 1964 to 1965, beating Tony Roche in 1965 to win the French Championship, the predecessor to the French Open, and the 1966 US Championship, beating Newcomb.
“He analyzed the game better than anyone else,” Stoll said. “He was one of our greatest thinkers.”
Connors, 72, was one of the early users of the two-handed backhand. This allowed him to race across the baseline and baffle his opponent with a perfectly placed short-angle winner.
As soon as Newcombe learned that Connors would be participating in the ’75 Australian Open, he wanted him to participate as well.
“I told the tournament to put me in the draw if they could guarantee Jimmy would come,” Newcombe said during a video call from his farm northwest of Sydney last month. “We had to prepare quickly because we hadn’t played for three or four weeks. I didn’t play much tennis, but I did run a lot. I ran a 3-mile course from my house in Sydney, the last mile of which was a very steep hill. I called it Connors Hill and ran it in the middle of the day when it was about 90 degrees. I want to get to the top of the hill and do a rocky jog on top of it.”
Despite being seeded second behind Connors, Newcombe’s road to the final was tough. He was defeated in the second round by Rolf Gehring in five sets, and in the quarterfinals by Geoff Masters, winning 10-8 in the fifth set. He then had to undergo two hours of treatment with a physiotherapist to rejuvenate his tired legs.
His most challenging match was the semi-final against former French Championship winner Roche, who had reached five other major finals. Roche, the third seed, took a 5-2 lead in the fifth set before Newcombe saved several match points to win 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 2-6, 11-9. A fifth-set tiebreaker was not played at that time.
“There were about 45 more memorable minutes from 5-2 onwards,” Newcombe said. “I have never felt this physically exhausted before. It was like an out-of-this-world experience. But I knew I had to win because I had to get to the final against Jimmy.”
The final was held before a sold-out crowd of 12,500 at Kooyong Stadium on Lunar New Year’s Day.
“The whole of Australia was listening on TV or radio,” Newcombe said. “Everyone on the beach had their radios on. “This brash young American became a huge hit as he took on everyone’s favorite older Australian.”
Connors has dropped just one set in his previous five matches and has yet to face a seeded player. Newcombe admitted feeling exhausted, energized and determined. Newcomb, who won 7-5, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(7), jumped over the goal, shook Conor’s hand, had a quiet dinner with friends, and soon fell asleep.
Connors and Newcombe would face each other again in Las Vegas in 1975. Connors, who won that game, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Newcombe never won another major. His retirement in 1981 marked the end of three decades of Australian male dominance, which included 17 victories in Davis Cup team events between 1950 and 1977.
Thanks to the management of long-time Davis Cup captain Hopman and the examples of Roche, Newcombe, Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, Ken Rosewall, Lew Hoad and Neale Fraser, Australian men’s tennis flourished but stagnated until Pat Cash won Wimbledon. 1987.
Pat Rafter was a two-time US Open champion in 1997 and 1998 and a two-time Wimbledon runner-up in 2000 and 2001. Current Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt is the last Australian player to win a major tournament. Won the 2001 US Open and 2002 Wimbledon. Alex de Mino is currently ranked in the top 10 in the world, but has not advanced past the quarterfinals in a major tournament.
The Australian women’s team was led by Margaret Smith Court (who holds 24 major singles titles with Novak Djokovic), Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Ashleigh Barty.
Newcombe believed Australian tennis could shine again, but said only if the Davis Cup regained its importance.
“When I toured with Frazer, Laver and Emerson, I was hanging out with champions,” said Newcombe, who was a member of five Australian Championship Davis Cup teams from 1964 to 1973. You can see how they live, how they train and how they play. So you start thinking like a champion.
“We created a culture of ‘you can beat anyone, any time,’” added Newcombe, who is inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame with Connors. “When you do that, players start to believe, exceed their own expectations and achieve the most they are capable of. That’s what happened in our time and I believe we can go back to that time.”
