They only played once but tennis magic was created

Todd, atmosphere at Rios matches was always a special experience, as the photographer Alese Pechter said in my Rios book, from her experiences covering Rios in Miami, “Rios brought the stadium to life.” Rios did not engage the fans or interact during the match, if he did they might have doubled down on their animation and support for Rios and all hell could have broken loose. But Rios did show appreciation for his crowd support after matches. Though not like Kuerten drawing a heart on clay or Djokovic’s opening his heart gesture. Rios matches were always exciting on many levels and the crowd’s involvement added to it.

Ken Rosewall story…from Marty judge…This is a true story about a hit that I had long ago with Ken Rosewall — not that I have ever fibbed about anything on Facebook, of course ;-).

It was an October Friday morning in the year 1995 or so and it was at the annual Legends camp at Newk’s tennis ranch in Texas. It was about 11:30 am, and it was at the end of the competition when the various Legends who had stayed on had been broken out onto separate courts where they were each having a hit with the campers, like me. I was on one of the Har Tru courts with about 5 other guys, and we were taking instruction from none other than Muscles himself on the proper technique for the backhand volley. You could hardly ask for a better teacher.

We expected to have about a half hour with Rosewall and then we would stop, everyone would have lunch, the event would be over, and people would catch their flights to go home. But it didn’t work out that way for me.

At first, Rosewall had us stand 3 to each side across from each other near the net. He then fed us balls on a rapid fire basis and we were supposed to hit only backhand volleys back and forth to each other until we missed. No forehand volleys were allowed, and Rosewall made sure he varied the pace, height and other placement of his feeds to give us lots of different backhand volley “looks.” He told us it was a drill that Harry Hopman had used, and we believed it. It was rather intense.

As it got closer to noon and lunch, some of the campers had to leave to get ready to travel. So, one by one players dropped out. The group of 6 then became a group of 4, and then 3, etc. I was actually not traveling that day so I stayed on the court. Meanwhile, Rosewall was really getting into the drill. He paid no attention to the clock.

Eventually it got down to just myself and another camper on the court with Muscles. He suggested that we hit backhand volleys back and forth among we 3, while we alternated on who stood alone on one side of the net and which side had two players. But it was basically the same drill, only even harder to do because there were less people to cover the court on each side, and about one third the time you had to be hitting volleys alone. It also seemed as if the pace, direction and difficulty of Rosewall’s backhand volley kept increasing as we drilled. I became certain that Rosewall was testing us to see how well we could continue to hit backhand volleys as he kept making his own volleys more intense. He also looked like he was enjoying it. Meanwhile, all of the other Legends and players on the various other courts were quitting in droves to go get lunch or showers. But the 3 of us were still drilling volleys on Rosewall’s court.

Finally, it got to be about 12:20 pm and the other camper announced that he was tired and hungry and said he was going to quit and get lunch too. I fully expected Rosewall to say something like, “Ok mates, let’s pack up,” but he did not. He just stood there with his racquet in his hand and a bunch of balls in his other hand and he said he would feed me and we would continue hitting backhand volleys just between us. I was already pretty tired and hungry myself, but I thought to myself, “You fool. This is the great Ken Rosewall, and he wants to hit backhand volleys with YOU!! Don’t be insulting. Keep going!!”

So, I did. For about 35 more minutes. With the great Ken Rosewall and myself being the only two players on any court in the entire camp, just hitting nothing but backhand volleys back and forth to each other, with me trying to keep up. And I kept thinking I needed to pinch myself over the combined absurdity and ecstasy of the moment. I envisioned myself a number of decades earlier being part of the Aussie Davis Cup team and hanging out with these guys while Harry Hopman beat an impossible work ethic and discipline into all of them so they could succeed on the tennis court. And there I was, the lucky imposter.

But at about 12:55 pm even I could not take it any longer. Although it was obvious that Rosewall was enjoying himself and wanted to keep going, I was exhausted and my stomach was screaming at me to eat something. So, finally, and very reluctantly, I said, “Ken, if you don’t mind, can we stop now? I am reaching my limit and I need to get lunch.”

Rosewall actually looked surprised and a bit sad when I said that. Like he had somehow been transported back in time to the Hopman days and my comment somehow had broken his practice rhythm. I think he said something like, “Well, ok, if that’s what you want to do….” with a wistful tone to his voice. He clearly did not want to stop, but he was too polite to actually say that so he agreed.

So, I put my racquet down and grabbed one of the ball hoppers to go pick up the balls. Meanwhile, Rosewall did the same, all the while still giving me verbal instructions on little nuances that he had seen with my volley technique and his making comments to help me improve it.

Finally, when we were all done picking up the balls, I slung my tennis bag over my shoulder to get ready to walk toward the lunch room. But Rosewall was still standing there with a truly perplexed look on his face. I could not figure out what the problem was until he finally said to me, “Aren’t you forgetting something?” I responded, “I don’t think so, Ken.” He responded, “Yes, you are. We need to sweep the courts.”

THAT was the biggest revelation to me of all. Here, this true Legend of the game, with one of the greatest backhand volleys in the history of the sport, had not only wanted to continue to hit backhand volleys with ME, but he was so humble and down to earth about it that it never occurred to him to walk off a clay court and not sweep it.

I thought about pointing out that there were dozens of ranch pros and others who could and would take care of that chore while we have lunch. But then I thought to myself, “You are never going to get this opportunity to be with this Legend again, you fool. So take advantage of all of the time you can spend with Muscles, because you will always remember this, and there will never be a group of Legends like this again, Marty.” And so here I am writing down this memory almost 25 years later because I was right.

And so we swept the court together, Ken Rosewall and me, and then we walked up to get lunch, also together. As I recall, Muscles liked baloney sandwiches. And he continued to talk about backhand volleys all through lunch.

Krzysztof; No, did not see that Rios vs Blake match in 2001. Scoreline shows it was a good battle. They also played in Boston before that. How do I know? In my book Marcelo Rios The Man We Barely Knew, a fan told me a Rios anecdote about the Boston match. A guy in the crowd cheered Blake and then after the next point which Rios won, he glared at the guy in the crowd. ) Rios won that match in two tough sets.