By Scoop Malinowski
Status: Winner of 1965 French Championships and 1966 US Championships. Winner of ten Grand Slam doubles titles and seven Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. Also the only male player to have lost his first five Grand Slam singles finals. Won 39 career singles titles and was ranked no. 1 in 1966 by World Tennis. Inducted into International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1985. Coached Vitas Gerulaitis from 1977-1983. Longtime TV broadcaster for ESPN, Fox Sports and Nine Network. Son Sandon Stolle was an Australian Davis Cup player, once ranked ATP no. 2 in doubles and winner of the 1998 US Open doubles title.
DOB: October 8, 1938 In: Hornsby, New South Wales, Australia
Childhood Heroes: Well when I was 12 and started to play, the guy that everybody looked up to was Frank Sedgman. And he was a champion at that time and a role model as we all grew up. And he had pigeon toes. So we thought if we wanted to be a good team player, we had to try and walk around like him, pigeon-toed. And then when I started to play a little better and went on the Tour, my idol then was Lew Hoad, because he used a Dunlop racquet and I used a Dunlop racquet. Hoady brought back my first Frank Sedgman shirts with my initials on them. I actually think Frank Sedgman sold them to me because he had my same initials.
Nicknames: The Fiery One. I didn’t have nicknames. Fiery came around from rooming with Emmo. I don’t like the mornings. And Roy used to watch the late, late shows. And I used to get up and turn the TV off at about 4 in the morning. And I never liked to get up in the morning. And Australians have nicknames and it wasn’t because I lost my temper or anything like that. A lot of people might think that now as you become a grumpy old man. Basically, those days I wasn’t too fiery in the morning. I didn’t like the morning, didn’t like to practice in the morning. Hated playing matches in the morning.
Early Tennis Memory: When I first started playing it was difficult. Because I was not one of the top juniors in Australia. And you used to have to battle to make the best. I was (ranked) about 8 or 9 in Australia in juniors. You had to battle to get on the teams. In the early days, I made the state team. And then when we went down to play the tournaments, they pushed me back from being no. 2 on the team, to number 4. Because one of the other boys had won a tournament the week before. You get disappointed for that. Then I was dropped off the Davis Cup team in 1963 when I thought I played and won a couple of state titles. And that was when Newk was a young fellow. Hopman, in those days, didn’t like me too much. And Newcombe played when he was seventeen. And I was told to go to the beach because I was getting stale. I was told to take my wife to the beach. So the next year I got to the finals of Wimbledon again – that was two years in a row – when I played my first Davis Cup tie in Mexico. And I didn’t think I was gonna play. And Hopman never told me I was gonna play. And I proved that when I did get the opportunity, I did okay. And once you’re on a team with Hopman and you won, it was tough to get out of the team. But it was awfully difficult to get in the team in the first place. We beat Mexico. I lost my first singles match and then Ray Ruffels and I won the doubles match – that was the longest Davis Cup doubles played, it was four and three quarter hours, up until just a few years ago. I never dropped serve at all during that five set match. So I proved that I could hang in there. Then the next day, the third day, I beat Palafox very easily. And we went on to win four matches to one. And that year we went on to win the Davis Cup, beat the Americans in the final in Cleveland. And I obviously played through there. Lost my first match in the finals to McKinley. But then I beat Ralston in probably the best match that I played. And one of the most important matches playing for Australia.
Favorite Movies: Alan Ladd in Shane. I used to like watching westerns as kids. I probably watched Shane 20 times.
Favorite Meal: A good steak.
Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Vanilla.
Musical Tastes: I like a bit of jazz.
First Job: Bank clerk. I was a banker (age 15). Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Eastwood, which is a suburb of Sydney.
Greatest Career Moment: Winning the Davis Cup the first time in 1964 for Australia.
Most Painful Moment: Losing to Roy Emerson in the final of the Australian Open where I lead two sets to one and two breaks in the fourth – 4-1 in the fourth – and I lost it in five.
Pre-Match Feeling: I used to go out on the courts at the same time, whether I played at 2 o’clock or whether I played at 5 o’clock. In those days you just ate the meals that were there, you didn’t know anything about stretching. So there was no real pre-match warm-up in those days. Same thing at Wimbledon, when it rained, you went off and in the finals of Wimbledon I lost to Emerson in the finals twice. One of the years we went back on the court four times after rain. And on the four occasions I had to serve and there was no warm-up when you went back on there. I had to start serving with a sweater on. It used to be cold and rainy. And in those days there were not sit-downs on the changeovers. But hey, I don’t begrudge anything with the players today. Tennis has been great for me.
Funny Tennis Memory: Lots of things made me laugh but I can’t tell you too much of them [laughs]. I used to have a phobia of kids crying in the stands, babies crying in the stands, that used to annoy me. And I guess it was a match in the Queensland Championships. And I yelled, GET THAT KID OUT OF THE STANDS! GET THAT KID OUT OF THE STANDS! I looked up and it was my wife with my daughter. I don’t know if that’s funny but it was funny at the time. But not for the kids.
Favorite Players To Watch: I love to watch Federer. I enjoy watching Kim Clijsters, probably Justine Henin. I quite enjoy watching some of the top women play. I think they hit the ball almost as hard as the men and I enjoy doing that.
Toughest Competitors Encountered: There’s a lot of them. I used to like to play against the guys who made a few errors and you got a few cheap points. So I didn’t mind playing against a Laver or Newcombe or… Ken Rosewall used to drive me nuts. Manolo Santana on the clay – he’d jerk you all around the court and so he was very difficult to play on clay.
Most Treasured Possession: I still have my first Cup and I’m going to give it to my grandson when he’s old enough to know. I was 12 so that’s 54 years ago (66 at time of interview) and I still have the little trophy that I won in the under 14 Metropolitan championships in Sydney, which is the first time that I ever got noticed and ever got involved with coaches and got a free tennis racquet.
Funniest Players: Most of the Australians have a good sense of humor. You can play with any Australian and have fun. It’s just fun to be with them. And that’s one of the treasured possessions of all Australians on the Tour is the fact that the camaraderie of the Australians is something that will never be surpassed anywhere. Some of the other teams that have done that lately have been the Spaniards and the Swedes. But we were so far away from the rest of the world in Australia when we played, that you couldn’t go home. The American boys could go home in six hours. Australia was 32 hours away if you were playing in Europe. And if you weren’t doing well you had to have buddies around where you could go and have a beer, go out and work on your game. And help one another. And I think those friendship from the days – Frank Sedgman who is now in his 70s down to Lleyton Hewitt – I think we all respect one another’s abilities as tennis players. And if you got ’em all together, that whole group, if you got ’em all together, could still go on and have a couple of beers together and have a good meal.
People Qualities Most Admired: Honesty and friendship I think goes a long way. Not talking behind, knifing people in the back. If you have something to say, say it. If you don’t have the balls to say it, then don’t say it.
Note: This Biofile interview was done at the 2004 US Open. You can read more Biofiles at www.mrbiofile.com
Australia · Davis Cup · Dunlop · Fred Stolle · Roland Garros · US Open · Wimbledon
