MAY 2008

In a demented season of searing assassinations (Martin and Bobby) a once proud president (LBJ) retreated as long hair flowed and short tempers flared: all we are saying is give transformation a chance.

After all “smile on your brother” hippies, fresh off the Summer of Love, were gathering the tribes en route to Woodstock — the ‘69 gathering of all gatherings. ‘Twas the dawning of the Age of Aquarius — “I’m a double Pieces with Gemini falling in the seventh house — what’s your sign? But then again, all you need is love.”

 Still, anger simmered. Ragtag lads, exploding with fury, burnt draft cards. Sounding defiance — they insisted “Hell no, we won’t go!” — while the defenders of faith — proud patriots — countered, “Stand up and fight for your country, ya yellow cowards. ‘America —  love it or leave it?’”

‘Nam defined: brave warriors, the battle for hearts and minds, Green Berets, Tet Offensive, My Lai memories, napalm burns- light at the end of the tunnel.

But, no matter the gravitas of sensible Nixonian pleas for law and order — Main Street’s silent majority shook in it’s considerable saddle. The middle held, but it’s lofty swagger — certain and unchallenged — was never quite the same. After all, a firestorm of insurrection swept the land. Ivy League Columbia was subsumed. In Mexico City — where martyrs fell in the public square — “how dare they” Olympians held aloft defiant fists — a protocol shattered — while blood flowed on Chicago’s steamy streets. A scruffy/media savvy “army of the night” chanted, “The whole world is watching,” leaving the bemused bard to wonder: “Where have all the flowers gone?”

Across the globe a couple of champions-to-be — Martina Navratilova and Ivan Lendl — stared scared on a sad gray day of horror as tanks rumbled by, chilling the once gentle warm breezes of Czechoslovakia’s Prague Spring. (“Was this really what the sages of socialism really had in mind?”)

Meanwhile, back on the court, off in it’s own modest domain, our game forged it’s biggest change ever: the dawning of a new age — Open tennis.

Gone, after tedious years of debate, were all those too-proper/more-than-hypocritical decades of servitude. ‘Shamateurism’ they called it:  that curious system where inspired, world-class players were told – “Never mind that hefty crowds pay big dollars to see you. You are but an amateur sportsman: post-Victorian Ladies and Gentleman who shall dutifully play for free, for the joy of sport. Got it?”

And, yeah, here for all your troubles, is a little under-the-table expense money. Now hush, be quiet.

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In one of the more under-reported convergences in cultural history, two gigantically divergent ships passed on that most turbulent of seas — 1968 Paris.

 Here Gauloises-puffing students and pipe ‘n beret intellectuals were joined by 10 million muscle workers.

“Aux armes, citoyens!” 

The scent of rebellion filled the air, barricades blocked broad boulevards and anonymous alleys. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life!” 

Lore tells us that the events even inspired a fissure between the two greatest bands that have ever rocked this planet. Inspired by pulsating Paris — (but stuck in too-calm London) — Mick Jagger lamented: “Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet ‘Cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street … I’ll shout and scream, I’ll kill the King, I’ll rail at all his servants. Well now what can a poor boy do, except to sing for a rock & roll band? Cause in sleepy London Town there’s just no place for a street fighting man.”

To which the Beatles promptly answered “You say you want a revolution…But when you talk about destruction…you can count me out …We all want to change the world…But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao, you ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.”

But the Parisian insurgents begged to differ. Led by a left-bank rebel — Danny-the-Red — they closed schools, occupied factories and briefly sent the mighty “emperor” Charles De Gaulle into retreat in Germany. The question was clear. Would the reeling Republic actually topple?

All the while, a rather different army — a brigade of modest baseliners and net-chargers, (focusing on toppling seeds not governments) — slipped into town, barely noticed amidst the fury. But, for the first time in the history of our sport, all players, amateurs and pros, would compete together at a major. But it wasn’t easy.

Forget strike-ridden planes and trains — just to reach Paris was dicey. Ken Rosewall had to fly into a military airport. American Cliff Richey hailed a cab — from Luxembourg. Once in town, matters didn’t get easier. Fans and players alike had to tip-toe past the barricades and endure mountainous piles of less-than-fragrant garbage.

On the advice of tournament officials, Richey’s sister Nancy changed hotels three times. Good move. Paris was running out of gas. Incredibly, the tournament was hobbled by an unheard-of 52 walkovers or defaults.

Nonetheless, fans — on foot or bikes — flocked to Roland Garros.

“In a strife-torn city,” reported legendary journalist Rex Bellamy, “the soaring center court blazed with color. People even perched on the scoreboards, which was as high as they could get without a ladder.”

In it’s way, France’s foremost tournament served a function suggestive of the Apollo 8 Space Program in America (which circled the moon in ’68) — a feel-good beacon of establishment “can-do” achievement amidst the turmoil.

“Roland Garros was a port in a storm,” noted Bellamy. “One thought of…Nero and his fiddle. The fortnight’s excitement was two-edged: A revolution on the courts, and a whiff of revolution in the streets…The first major open was played in the sort of environment that nightmares are made of. But the tennis was often like a dream.”

After all, tennis’ most compelling stars — who long had been banished to wander lost from one meaningless outback exhibition to another — would at long last be coming in out of the cold. Finally there was a tennis draw that bristled with sizzle. The world’s best –- Rod Laver, Pancho Gonzalez, Lew Hoad, Roy Emerson, Ken Rosewall, Ilie Nastase — at last were lined up to face wide-eyed Princeton undergrads or aspiring Hungarian wannabes.

“It was eerie, kind of surreal,” said Cliff Richey. “All us young bucks looked up and suddenly saw all those great legends we grew up admiring -  Pancho, Rocket [Laver] or Muscles [Rosewall].

Ironically, amidst the revolution, the French was won by two straight-shooters without a radical bone in their bodies. Aussie Rosewall — a clay-court whiz with a nasty slice backhand who had won in Paris 15 years earlier — beat his countryman Laver to again prevail and collect a whopping $3,000. And Texas’ favorite baseliner, Nancy Richey, swept past Billie Jean King and Brit Ann Jones for the women’s title. She should have won $1,000, but had declared herself an amateur, so all she got was a $400 voucher. Some things die hard.  

But remember, this is tennis, where they say forging change is like trying to turn a battleship in a lagoon. Still, truth be told, the ’68 French Open opened wide a golden door to a snazzy new universe of pro tennis where many a new sparkling pleasure palace would rise proud and players soon would come to pocket inflated purses which would have undoubtedly astounded those poets and proletarians who manned the storied barricades of ’68.

As for ‘68 itself, many would concur, “yeah, it’s good to live in interesting times.” Nonetheless, the year will forever be debated in classrooms and parlors across the planet — it’s long-lasting, tough-to-quantify impact remains nuanced and controversial.  To many the year was but a headache: a free-fall, shaped by self-indulgent ‘sex-drugs and rock and roll’ narcissists bent on destroying values (in life and culture) and victory (in causes good and noble.)

“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?”

Others insisted ’68 was a cathartic watershed — a daring (question authority!) renaissance which challenged restrictive roles and locked-in-place convention, while all the while jump-starting an inspired, at times magical mindset of discovery — inward and beyond: a fresh dawn of spontaneity and adventure — let a thousand flowers bloom. Some 40 seasons ago, the journey kicked into gear, having taken to heart instructive scrip on a French wall — “All power to the imagination!”

To contact Bill Simons, email him at editorial@insidetennis.com

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