Saturday 28 May 2016

'SOMETHING SPECIAL'

In 1984 at the French Open in Paris there was a gentleman by the name of Hans Gildemeister from Chile who owned a rather interesting style of playing, he hit with two hands off both sides. Hans went into Roland Garos un seeded in '84 as his ranking had dipped quite dramatically from his career high of 12 in 1980. He in fact sat outside the top 100 for his shot at the title in Paris in '84.
Gildemeister was not just a singles player however as he reached World number 5 in doubles in 1987, the year he actually retired. He won 23 doubles titles in his career, 17 of those were with 1990 French Open Mens Singles Champion Andres Gomez of Ecuador. Hans was a remarkably talented tennis player as he had to be to survive in the Borg era of the 70's and early 80's. 
He in fact played Borg in the quarter finals at Roland Garos in 1979 losing in straight sets though the final set was 7-5. Anyone who knows tennis will realise that if you managed to get to five games all against Borg on clay you were a gifted tennis player, to say the least. So back to the draw of 1984 and Gildemeister started his campaign with a straight sets win over the '79 finalist Victor Pecci and then won even more convincingly against Brad Gilbert in round two.
In the third round Hans was drawn to meet Swedish Davis Cup hero Henrik Sundstrom, the number 9 seed, a tough assignment on clay as the Swede was known for the brutal amount of spin he put on the ball. On clay that is tough to deal with. It is unclear just how Gildemeister actually did it as footage of this match is not available yet he lead Sundstrom by a score that would have any tennis die hard searching for the video for tactical ideas.
It is set in concrete that Hans Gildemeister of Chile lead Henrik Sundstrom of Sweden in the 1984 French Open, round three by the score of 6-2, 6-0, 5-1, 30-0. He then lost. Yep he LOST from there. How did that happen ??! It is uncertain what on earth went on in that match from that point that seemingly had the Chilean cruising to an easy straight sets upset victory against one of the fancies for the title in '84.
At 5-1 up in the third set Hans Gildemeister was receiving Sundstrom's serve and won the first two points then after that his whole game fell apart. There were no fewer than 12 unforced errors in a row from Gildemeister from that point on which later Sundstrom would in fact describe as a 'choke'. Not quite sure about the etiquette of players back then however can you imagine that being said now days of an opponent ? Would go down about as well as a fish milkshake.....
For history's sake the final score in that particular match was 2-6, 0-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 to Sundstrom and he would go on to win his next match in straight sets before the great Jimmy Connors found a way to hit through the topspin with his flatter style of play and beat him in straight sets.
I would give anything to watch what transpired from the 5-1, 30-0 moment in this match as it may in fact be the all time greatest comeback and 'choke' in the history of tennis.
There have in fact been more high profile matches such as the Davis Cup final of 1996 where Boetsch defeated Kulti after trailing 6-7, 0-40 in the final set in the fifth and deciding match but that particular match was tight throughout. The Gildemeister/ Sundstrom match was ridiculously one sided for the first three sets yet it went the way of the player who needed an alarm clock inside his head to wake him up before posting an outrageous comeback victory.
Sometimes in tennis a player can almost pace himself to a win even when victory it seems is not even on his agenda but we as spectators are non the wiser as to what is going on in their thought process. Did Faldo's win against Norman at the Masters in Augusta in 1996 have the same type of feel to it do you think ? After all the scoring was similar if you compare them.
Norman lead by six shots going into the final round yet shot a 78 whereas Faldo shot 67, there's an eleven shot discrepancy not unlike the twelve shot 'discrepancy' from the Gildemeister/ Sundstrom match.
The match in Paris in '84 will without a doubt go down as one of the all time greatest tennis comebacks from a seemingly impossible position yet the match was not a high profile one that people still talk about as they do the Norman/ Faldo result. Coming back from those types of losses is however where the mind comes into play.
Can you imagine the devastation ? It would be a tough thing to recover from.
For history's sake again, Gildemeister recovered, he won another nine doubles tournaments. Norman won three more including a million bucks in one particular event which required a birdie on the final hole for victory. The Swede Niclas Kulti went on to win the pivotal doubles with Bjorkman in the Davis Cup finals of '97 and '98 which set Sweden up for their two titles of those years.
A tough thing is professional sport. We as spectators simply look at it and offer our thoughts, "he choked, he's got no heart" or  "he's in the zone, he's a freak show".
A professional sportsman is a genius whether he wins a match or loses because he owns a mind to compete against the World's best and that requires something special.......

Friday 13 May 2016

'TED ADAMS' ( BIG TED )

The following is a chapter I wrote  just recently about an old mate of mine, Ted Adams. Sorry Ted I put it to a draft copy when I was tidying up this site just recently. It's now top of the page again out of respect for the man who won me a local doubles title through an act of sheer brilliance. Enjoy Big fella....

'OK, I read your blog and you are still managing to piss people off.
You were obnoxious as a 15 year old and, while I will concede you have mellowed a little with age, you still come across obnoxious and a little truculent as an adult (I use the term 'adult' loosely!)
You wouldn't play 'Pennants' for Lawley Park when you were a kid and it appears you still 'dont play well with others' now.
You broke rackets (Emrik Blitz's) like they cost you nothing! Sometimes I know they did?
You would ride your bike everywhere and sometimes you had a fat passenger on the back.
You loved to eat snickers bars but never put on weight.
You were the only serious tennis player in the Southern Hemisphere that still wore Dunlop 'Volleys'.
You went to Queensland with Kieron and when you guys came back he still couldn't take me.
And in all the years we would hit together I never did beat you.
Remember me!'
That was an email I just received from 'Big Ted', a mate of mine from way back in the 80's. I used to ride about 7 kms to Ted's house, he then sat on my seat while I dinked him down to the Lawley Park Tennis Club. The hardest part of our training session was in fact taking Ted on my bike as the big fella was just that, a big fella even in High School but boy he could serve.
It's funny but Ted and I trained a lot, as we also did with our other buddy Kieron ( as Ted mentioned ) yet we only played a couple of tournaments together as juniors. I recall Ted and I losing to two South Australian kids in the semis of the 18's Boys Doubles at the Albany Open Junior Tournament one year but we made 'em earn it.
Ted and I didn't really have any success on court together until we were around 30 years of age when we put in a late entry for the Albany Open Championship just for a bit of a laugh. In our second last match we faced match point against Max Loveridge and John Quinn and Ted did the most ridiculous thing, yet it worked a treat. 
I actually said to Ted "Just get it back mate, nothing fancy, make 'em play", so this is what Ted did. He ignored me, took Max's serve half way to the service line, chipped it on his backhand and came to the net where he hit a sublime backhand volley winner in the tram lines past John.
I remember looking at him with a rather wry smile and nodded in appreciation at his rather gutsy move but it was tough to watch. It was all up to Ted whether we won that match or not.
We saved one more match point then I served it out from memory to 15. We won our last match easily to take the title, classic day out at the Emu Point Tennis Club. I believe it was the year 2000.
Absolute legend of local tennis here in Albany was Big Ted and I am grateful for being able to play against guys like him in my junior days. Our practice matches were plentiful and most involved 4 or 5 sets where we put the friendship aside for several hours and did our best to kill each other on court. There were no niceties when Ted and I trained at Lawley Park in the 80's.
Ted won me my first ever Albany Open with a display of guts that I was simply in awe of as most players would tighten up at match point down, not Ted, he only knew one way of playing.
One day Ted when you get back to the land of Oz we will renew our rivalry down at our old tennis club but we may just cut that best of 5 sets down to best of 'one' as the old legs may struggle to do much more.
Legend you are buddy......