Classic match: Gonzales vs Pasarell

[gzhpcu]

Here his career statistics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_Gonzales_career_statistics

Notice he beat Jimmy Connors as well as Clark Graebner twice in 1971!

Hopefully Roger will also resist for quite some time!

[gzhpcu]

Must admit, I enjoyed this match more than the Australian Open...

[stotty]

Gonzales the volleyer...

I heard Gonzales was an excellent placer with his volleys, that he placed his first volley very deep, not punched all that hard, just placed so deep that opponents found it very difficult to pass him with those wooden rackets. Does the video back this up?

[klacr]

I heard Gonzales was an excellent placer with his volleys, that he placed his first volley very deep, not punched all that hard, just placed so deep that opponents found it very difficult to pass him with those wooden rackets. Does the video back this up?

Treat that first volley as an effective approach shot. Take pressure off yourself to hit a great winner on the first volley. Trust your positioning, 2nd volley/overhead. Have confidence in your net game. Gonzales knew that.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[don_budge]

You have to admit...

a wise man once told me..."it's not the arrow, it's the Indian:

It's not the equipment or tools or surroundings. It's the players. It's all about the players. The way they carry themselves. The way they play with authority and purpose. Good stuff

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

When you watch something as beautiful as this match was…part of it is due to the ambience. It's the picture…the whole picture down to the infinitesimal detail. It is the clothes…it is the balls. It's the time period. This match was on the cusp of twilight in more ways than one. The bell was tolling for classic tennis. It's days were numbered. They never knew it at the time…they were suspended in time animation.

Here was this terrible old guy giving one last performance on the fabled lawn of Wimbledon. He had been restricted because of his financial conditions from playing amateur tennis for an extended period of time. He had missed his calling. This was for old times sake. One for all times. This was for us…for tennis. It wasn't him necessarily saying goodbye. It was goodbye to tennis once and for all. The old Aussies…the old Americans. The great legacies. All of it. Gone…dead and buried. A wisp of memory. A dream at twilight.

When you kiss tradition goodbye…it is the end of all things.

[don_budge]

Volley tactics 101...

I heard Gonzales was an excellent placer with his volleys, that he placed his first volley very deep, not punched all that hard, just placed so deep that opponents found it very difficult to pass him with those wooden rackets. Does the video back this up?

Treat that first volley as an effective approach shot. Take pressure off yourself to hit a great winner on the first volley. Trust your positioning, 2nd volley/overhead. Have confidence in your net game. Gonzales knew that.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

Perfect.

[gzhpcu]

I heard Gonzales was an excellent placer with his volleys, that he placed his first volley very deep, not punched all that hard, just placed so deep that opponents found it very difficult to pass him with those wooden rackets. Does the video back this up?

Yes it does. He hits some terrific first volleys close to the lines. His pressure is relentless. In the final set, he is down 0-40 on his serve, facing match balls. On the first match ball, he hits his first serve out. Hits a topspin second serve comes in, and Pasarell's lob is out! He goes on to close out the game with terrific serves and long volleys. Hits 3 terrific smashes. He never lets up in his attack.

[don_budge]

Richard Gonzalez…The Model

I heard Gonzales was an excellent placer with his volleys, that he placed his first volley very deep, not punched all that hard, just placed so deep that opponents found it very difficult to pass him with those wooden rackets. Does the video back this up?

The book is Tilden. The model is Gonzalez with the Budge backhand. Hopman is the coach. Federer is the "Living Proof".

While Richard Gonzalez has the reputation of being a "power" player because of his big serve…in reality he was the supreme "power" player because he was in control. Control is power.

His big serve set up his relentless advance to the net where he was the master of klacr's "Volley Tactics 101". But with his return game and with all of his game for that matter he was the consummate percentage tennis player. Which is of course why he is the model of my teaching paradigm.

Even his backhand, which was he only "weakness" as in the weakest link in the chain, was not so much a weakness as it was a supreme tactical tool. The only weakness as such was perhaps in his ability to pass on aggressive tactics from his opponent but he has loads of "touch" in his game as I am certain that gzhpcu's find is revealing to him. The power in the Gonzalez game was his ultimate control. Even at this late point in his career he shows that he is the master of control tactics on the tennis court based on his ability to place the ball in a place where his opponent cannot dictate the play with his next shot.

Looking at those Wikipedia results from his long and illustrious career it is no wonder to me…that to me his is the greatest tennis player of all time.

[don_budge]

Richard Gonzalez on "You Bet Your Life"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaRkgbK34dA

Another look at Gonzalez on "You Bet Your Life" with Groucho Marx. He appears about 15.35 in the video. Here he is being himself. He's a handsome guy with a great smile and holds his own with the great wit Groucho Marx.

[curiosity]

When you watch something as beautiful as this match was…part of it is due to the ambience. It's the picture…the whole picture down to the infinitesimal detail. It is the clothes…it is the balls. It's the time period. This match was on the cusp of twilight in more ways than one. The bell was tolling for classic tennis. .........
......It wasn't him necessarily saying goodbye. It was goodbye to tennis once and for all. The old Aussies…the old Americans. The great legacies. All of it. Gone…dead and buried. A wisp of memory. A dream at twilight.

When you kiss tradition goodbye…it is the end of all things.

I cannot resist trying to cheer you up, while adding some perspective. The "old Aussies...the old American" were already a second remote round of tradition that began in the 19th century and came to a close, in a sense, in the late 1920's to mid-1930's. Much changed. By the late '40s, surely, the Anglo-American polite culture had gone through a sea change induced by WWII.

On the other hand, at one of my two local clubs we still wear whites, the courts are either grass or clay, the clubhouse and dining rooms are elegant, and no one is loud.

I can't help but add that though I'm a US east coaster, I've spent more than 18 midsummers in Sweden, married a Swede in a church east of Stockholm where I later baptised my son, and enjoy that part of the Swedish leisure world that looks back to a more genteel era, that tries to keep things simple.

Tradition is not dead. It is just that various groups in any city or nation have a different notion of tradition, different desires as to what they keep alive, what they discard.

Personally I'm a bit nostalgic for the days when tennis was a sporting activity the venues of which were not monetized to the throat. I was trying to watch Federer, Kerber, and others this week but found the KIA signs and the Lacoste umpire's chair increadibly distracting. I want the green boards back.

[curiosity]

Let me guess…white balls. White clothes against tanned skin.

Tennis is still tennis at some clubs.

I'm 64. As a teenager I had the chance to see some very good players on local courts, some whose name rarely rises. Vic Seixas, for example, was a local man, competed here, but later moved to, of all places, Mill Valley, CA. He'd won Wimbledon in '53 and the US Open in '54, with several doubles victories at both with Tony Trabert as his partner.

Whites, grass/clay, polite manners joined to fierce competition...these haven't disappeared. They are rare, but let's be realistic, an exquisite few people in 1930's British, US, and Australian life got to enjoy "the old tennis traditions." The number was even more compressed in Sweden. That's still true today, but by choice, not poverty or class pressures.

[gzhpcu]

I have managed to put the match on a memory stick which I can now access on my iPad. The quality is acceptable, and low and behold I am in a time machine, watching a great match.

Also as curiosity says, not all is lost as long as Wimbledon, the last bastion of tennis tradition holds on. Whites and no ads..

[don_budge]

Various groups…hahaha

I cannot resist trying to cheer you up, while adding some perspective. The "old Aussies...the old American" were already a second remote round of tradition that began in the 19th century and came to a close, in a sense, in the late 1920's to mid-1930's. Much changed. By the late '40s, surely, the Anglo-American polite culture had gone through a sea change induced by WWII.

On the other hand, at one of my two local clubs we still wear whites, the courts are either grass or clay, the clubhouse and dining rooms are elegant, and no one is loud.

I can't help but add that though I'm a US east coaster, I've spent more than 18 midsummers in Sweden, married a Swede in a church east of Stockholm where I later baptised my son, and enjoy that part of the Swedish leisure world that looks back to a more genteel era, that tries to keep things simple.

Tradition is not dead. It is just that various groups in any city or nation have a different notion of tradition, different desires as to what they keep alive, what they discard.

Personally I'm a bit nostalgic for the days when tennis was a sporting activity the venues of which were not monetized to the throat. I was trying to watch Federer, Kerber, and others this week but found the KIA signs and the Lacoste umpire's chair increadibly distracting. I want the green boards back.

Just one thing curiosity…I don't need you to cheer me up but YOUR perspective is always welcome. I don't need cheering up. Not where I am at. So resist with all of your might and concentrate on keeping that paradigm straight in your own noodle. Oh…and just one other thing. By doctoring my quote you successfully misquoted me and therefore your comments are spitting in the wind…not that I cannot appreciate where you are coming from.

"It is just that various groups in any city or nation have a different notion of tradition, different desires as to what they keep alive, what they discard."

I find the above quote rather laughable. Various groups? That's funny. In fact that's really hysterical.

[don_budge]

The Stockholm Syndrome...

Tennis is still tennis at some clubs.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3418312/She-wanted-help-did-Mother-Swedish-refugee-worker-killed-Somali-migrant-says-country-fled-war-torn-Lebanon-no-longer-safe.html

And Swedes are still Swedes…at least they are out in the country. I cannot speak for the Stockholmites though. They are the new Swede…a different breed. Socially engineered. Just ask the police or the real Swedes in the country.

[curiosity]

Just one thing curiosity…I don't need you to cheer me up but YOUR perspective is always welcome. I don't need cheering up. Not where I am at. So resist with all of your might and concentrate on keeping that paradigm straight in your own noodle. Oh…and just one other thing. By doctoring my quote you successfully misquoted me and therefore your comments are spitting in the wind…not that I cannot appreciate where you are coming from.

"It is just that various groups in any city or nation have a different notion of tradition, different desires as to what they keep alive, what they discard."

I find the above quote rather laughable. Various groups? That's funny. In fact that's really hysterical.

DB, I'm nonplussed that you think I doctored your quote. I didn't add a word. The deletions are clearly marked. The entire quote is available one page up for checking.

As for cheering you up, do you really think your writing had not the tone of an elegy? Yes, I assumed the writing projected a style, not a bout of depression.

I've never played tennis in Stockholm, though I've played many years på Värmdölandet, where the expression "jävle Stockholmare" still has currency. My friends in Sweden are almost all farmers of one type or another, spread out across the country.

I enjoyed your piece, and the "cheer you up" bit was clearly meant to say "yes, many of us treasure some of the decency of the old ways, but these have not completely disappeared."