Rod Laver

Early life

Rodney George Laver was born in Rockhampton, Australia, on 9 August 1938. He was the third of four children of Roy Laver, a cattleman and butcher, and his wife Melba Roffey.

Amongst his relatives were the cricketers Frank Laver and Jack Laver.

He attended Rockhampton State High School in 1951.

Career

Amateur (1956–62)

Laver was a teenager when he left school to pursue a tennis career that lasted 24 years. He was coached in Queensland by Charlie Hollis and later by the Australian Davis Cup team captain Harry Hopman, who gave Laver the nickname "Rocket".

Laver was both Australian and US Junior champion in 1957. He had his breakthrough on the world stage in 1959, when he reached all three finals at Wimbledon, winning the mixed doubles title with Darlene Hard. As an unseeded player, he lost the singles final to Peruvian Alex Olmedo after surviving an 87-game semifinal against American Barry MacKay. His first major singles title was the Australian Championships in 1960, where he defeated fellow Australian Neale Fraser in a five-set final after coming back from two sets down and saving a Fraser championship point in the fourth set. Laver captured his first Wimbledon singles crown in 1961 beating Chuck McKinley in straight sets in the final, which lasted just 53 minutes (one of the shortest men's singles Wimbledon finals on record). Laver was ranked the world No. 1 amateur in 1961 by Lance Tingay.

In 1962, Laver became the first male player since Don Budge in 1938 to win all four Grand Slam singles titles in the same year. He won an additional 18 titles, for a season total of 22. Among those titles were the Italian Championships and the German Championships, giving Laver the "clay court triple" of Paris, Rome, and Hamburg that had been achieved previously only by Lew Hoad in 1956. At the Australian championships, Laver beat Roy Emerson in the final. The biggest hurdle to Laver's winning the Grand Slam was the French Championships on slow clay, where Laver won three consecutive five-setters beginning with the quarterfinals. In his quarterfinal with Martin Mulligan, Laver saved a matchpoint in the fourth set with a backhand volley after coming to the net behind a second serve. In the final, Laver lost the first two sets and was down 0–3 in the fourth set before coming back to defeat Emerson. At Wimbledon, his progress was much easier. Laver lost only one set the whole tournament, to Manuel Santana in a quarterfinal, who held a set point for a two set lead. In the final, Laver beat Mulligan in 52 minutes (a minute shorter than the previous year's final). At the US Championships, Laver lost only two sets during the tournament and defeated Emerson again in the final. Laver was ranked world number one amateur for 1962 by Tingay, by Ned Potter and by an Ulrich Kaiser panel of 13 experts.

In February 1963, Laver appeared on the panel game show To Tell the Truth, where all four panelists identified him based on his knowledge of the history of tennis.

Professional

In December 1962, Laver turned professional after winning the Davis Cup with the Australian team. After an initial period of adjustment he quickly established himself among the leading professional players such as Ken Rosewall, Lew Hoad and Andrés Gimeno, and also Pancho Gonzales when Gonzales returned to a full-time schedule in 1964. During the next seven years, Laver won the U.S. Pro Tennis Championships five times, including four in a row beginning in 1966.

In the beginning of 1963, Laver was beaten consistently by both Rosewall and Hoad on an Australasian tour. Hoad won the first eight matches against Laver, and Rosewall won 11 out of 13. However, Laver won the best-of-five set matches against Rosewall at Kooyong Stadium and at Adelaide's Memorial Stadium. By the end of the year, with six tournament titles, Laver had become the No. 2 professional player behind Rosewall. In the first phase of the World Series tour, Laver finished second, with a 25–16 record. The top two players Rosewall and Laver then played a series of matches against each other to determine the champion. Rosewall won 14–4.

Laver's gross earnings for 1963 were first among the pro players.

In 1964, Laver and Rosewall both won seven important titles (in minor tournaments Laver won four and Rosewall won three), but Laver won 17 of 24 matches against Rosewall and captured the two most prestigious titles, the US Pro Championships over Gonzales and the Wembley Championships over Rosewall. In Tennis Week, Raymond Lee described the Wembley match, where Laver came from 5–3 down in the fifth set to win 8–6, as possibly their best ever and one that changed tennis history. Lee regards this win as the one that began and established Laver's long reign as world number one. The other prestige title, the French pro, was won by Rosewall. Rosewall finished top of the official points table in 1964 and after winning at Wembley, Laver said "I've still plenty of ambitions left and would like to be the world's No. 1. Despite this win, I am not there yet – Ken is."

In 1965, Laver was clearly the No. 1 professional player, winning 17 titles and 13 of 18 matches against Rosewall. In ten finals, Laver won eight against the still dangerous Gonzales. Laver won the Wembley Pro, beating Gimeno in the final.

In 1966, Laver won 16 events, including the US Pro Championships (beating Rosewall in a five-set final), the Wembley Pro Championship (beating Rosewall easily in the final), and eight other important tournaments.

Rivalries

Laver had a long-running, friendly rivalry with Ken Rosewall between 1963, when he started out as a pro, and 1976, when both were semi-retired from the main tour. Including tournaments and one-night stands, they played at least 164 matches, all of them as professionals, with some results from the barnstorming pro tours lost or badly recorded. Overall a match score of 89–75 in favour of Laver can be documented.

Against the older Pancho Gonzales, whom he played 1964 to 1970 on the pro tour, Laver had a lead of 43–22.

Laver had another, even longer rivalry with his fellow Queenslander Roy Emerson. They met first on the senior amateur tour in 1958 and dominated the amateur circuit until 1962, before Laver turned pro. When open tennis arrived in 1968, Emerson joined the pro tour, and had many new battles with Laver. Overall the score is 49–18 in favour of Laver, with 7–2 in major Grand Slam tournaments.

Laver had also many battles with Lew Hoad in his first years on the pro circuit 1963–1966. Although he lost the first eight matches in January 1963, Laver later in the year began to turn around their rivalry, and until 1966, he had built a 38–21 lead. Against Arthur Ashe, Laver had a head-to-head lead of 21–3, winning all of the first 18 matches. Ashe's first win came in 1974, when Laver was 35. Another younger rival in the Open Era was John Newcombe, whom Laver led 16–5 in their head-to-head score.

Davis Cup

Laver helped Australia win the Davis Cup four consecutive times from 1959 to 1962. In 1973, professionals were permitted to play in the Davis Cup for the first time, and Laver was on a winning team for the fifth time, claiming two singles and a doubles rubber in the final as Australia beat the United States 5–0. Australia were crowned Davis Cup champions in each of the five seasons Laver played in the competition. Laver won 16 out of 20 Davis Cup singles matches and all four of his doubles.

Playing style

Although of average height and medium build (1.73 m; 5 ft 8 in), Laver developed a technically complete serve-and-volley game, with aggressive groundstrokes to back it up. Commentator Dan Maskell described him as "technically faultless". His left-handed serve was well disguised and wide swinging. His groundstrokes on both flanks were hit with topspin, as was the attacking topspin lob, which Laver developed into a weapon. His stroke technique was based on quick shoulder turns, true swings, and accurate timing. His backhand, often hit on the run, was a point-ender that gave him an advantage. Laver was very quick and had a strong left forearm. Rex Bellamy wrote, "The strength of that wrist and forearm gave him blazing power without loss of control, even when he was on the run and at full stretch. The combination of speed and strength, especially wrist strength, enabled him to hit ferocious winners when way out of court." At the net, he had forcing volleys, often hit as stroke volleys. Especially on the backhand, he could hit sharp underspin angles as well. He was difficult to lob, because of his springing agility, and when forced to retreat, he could come up with a vicious counterpunch.

As an amateur, Laver was a somewhat flashy player, often a late starter. He had to learn to control his adventurous shot-making and integrate percentage tennis into his game when he turned professional. In his prime, he could adapt his style to all surfaces and to all conditions. Laver had a strong record in five-set-matches, often turning things around with subtle changes of tactics.

Tennis legacy

Laver is regarded by many as the greatest tennis player in the history of the sport.

Laver won six major titles as an amateur, including the Grand Slam (Australian, French, Wimbledon, and US Championships), before turning professional in December 1962. From then until 1968 he was banned from playing in any tournaments except for those on the professional circuit. He won eight Pro major titles (which included the 1967 Professional Grand Slam), along with the Masters Pro, Madison Square Garden Pro (twice), Forest Hills Pro, and the Wimbledon Pro. After the Open Era began in 1968 Laver won five more major championships, bringing his final total to 11 and comprising his second Grand Slam; the only male singles player to win two Grand Slams and the only male singles player to do so in the Open Era. Laver also won nine major doubles titles.

Laver won titles on all court surfaces of his time (grass, clay, hard, carpet, wood), and he contributed to five Davis Cup titles for Australia during a time when the Davis Cup was deemed as significant as the four majors. The Rod Laver Arena (the main show court of the Australian Open) and the Laver Cup tournament are named after him.

Laver was ranked the world No. 1 amateur in 1961 by Lance Tingay and in 1962 by Tingay and Ned Potter. Laver was the number one professional in some rankings in 1964, in all rankings from 1965 to 1969, and in some rankings in 1970. His record 200 career singles titles will likely never be broken. He also holds the record for most titles won in a single year during the amateur era (22 in 1962), during the touring pro era (19 in 1967), and during the Open Era (18 in 1969). His rivalry with Ken Rosewall is among the greatest the sport has ever seen.

Most tennis experts (former players, historians, and the press) have high praise for Laver and his place in history. Dan Maskell, John Barrett, Butch Buchholz, Cliff Drysdale, Joe McCauley, Ted Schroeder, and Tony Trabert rank Laver as the best of all time. Trabert said in January 2008, "I still maintain that Rod Laver is the best player who ever played the game because he's done something no one has ever done in the 120 or 140-year history of our sport: he won the Grand Slam as an amateur and he won the Grand Slam as a pro." Malcolm Knox of the Sydney Morning Herald put Laver and Ken Rosewall in a class of two. Former players Frank Sedgman, Ellsworth Vines, Don Budge, and Sidney Wood, ranked Laver all-time as 3, 4, 5, and 5, respectively. In 1983, Fred Perry ranked Laver No. 1 in the post-World War II greatest players list. Tennis promoter and former Wimbledon champion Jack Kramer ranked Laver outside his six best all-time.

Honours

In 2000, the centre court at Melbourne Park, which today hosts the Australian Open, was named the Rod Laver Arena in his honour. In 2016, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia.

The hall at the Rockhampton Tennis Association's Victoria Park precinct in Wandal where Laver competed until the age of 14 was named the Rod Laver Hall upon its completion in December 1963 in recognition of his Grand Slam win the previous year.

In 1969, Laver was awarded the ABC Sportsman of the Year Award and the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1981. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985 and upgraded to a Legend of Australian Sport in 2002. He is also an Australian Living Treasure. In 1998, Laver received the Philippe Chatrier Award (the ITF's highest accolade) for his contributions to tennis and in 2000, Centre Court at the National Tennis Centre in Melbourne was renamed Rod Laver Arena.

Laver was named as a Queensland Great in June 2005. In 2009, he was inducted into the Queensland Sport Hall of Fame. Also in 2009, as part of the Q150 celebrations, Laver was named one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland.

Bronze busts of Laver and Margaret Court by sculptor Barbara McLean were unveiled at Melbourne Park in 1993 upon their induction into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame. Another bronze bust of Laver, also by McLean, was installed on the banks of the Fitzroy River in Rockhampton's city centre which was unveiled by Laver and Rockhampton City Council deputy mayor Dell Bunt on 7 December 2002. There was some concern raised by the local community when the bust was removed in 2016 during the riverbank redevelopment. However, the bust was re-installed upon the completion of the redevelopment which was officially opened in 2018, with the recreational precinct on the low bank being named Rod Laver Plaza. A bronze statue of Laver by sculptor Lis Johnson was unveiled at Melbourne Park prior to the 2017 Australian Open.

Personal life

On 27 July 1998, Laver suffered a stroke while being interviewed by ESPN-TV in the United States for their SportsCentury 20th Century sports retrospective series. He was hospitalised for a month and suffered from memory and speech difficulties after the stroke, but recovered over the course of the following year.

In 1966, Laver married Mary Benson in San Rafael, California. Born Mary Shelby Peterson in Illinois, she was a divorcee with three children and ten years his senior. Together, they had a son named Rick. The family lived at various locations in California including Rancho Mirage, Corona del Mar, a ranch near Santa Barbara and Carlsbad. Mary Laver died in November 2012 at the age of 84 at their home in Carlsbad. Since 2018, he has been living with his partner Susan Johnson, a widow from Florida.

In 1985, Laver's cousin was killed in the crash of Delta Air Lines Flight 191; the latter's son survived the crash.

Laver resides in Carlsbad, California, and attended Los Angeles Chargers games on occasion. On 1 October 2017, he was inducted into the Southern California Tennis Hall of Fame.

Performance timeline

Laver joined the professional tennis circuit in 1963 and as a consequence was banned from competing in the amateur Grand Slams until the start of the Open Era at the 1968 French Open.

Career statistics and records

All-time tournament records

Records in bold indicate peerless achievements.

Combined tours: NTL, WCT and Grand Prix

Notes on sources: John Bercow's book Tennis Maestros: The Twenty Greatest Male Tennis Players of All Time confirms in chapter 9 Rod Laver's titles for the following years 1962 (22), 1965 (17), 1966 (16), 1967 (19), 1970 (15), 1971 (7), 1972 (5), 1973 (7), 1974 (6). The ITF confirms titles in 1975 (5) titles.