TOP PROFESSIONALS PLAY TOMORROW

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30390, 14 March 1964, Page 9

TOP PROFESSIONALS PLAY TOMORROW

FOUR of the world’s finest tehnis players will appear at Wilding Park tomorrow afternoon.. They are all Australians, K. Rosewall, L. A. Hoad, M. Anderson, and R. Laver, who from 1993 to tfus season helped to keep their country’s amateur tennis at the top but who could not resist the rich rewards of professionalism. Christchurch enthusiasts have come to expect a visit from a professional team each year—they missed for the first in eight last season —and also to expect a new face each time. This time the new face is Laver’s, seen here twice before as an amateur but not as a professional.

Laver will ne the twentieth of the professionals to have played in Christchurch since the tours became regular in 1955-56. Christchurch has welcomed the cream of the world’s amateur players after they have turned professional —D. Pails, F. Sedgman, K. McGregor, I. Ayre, R. Gonzales, A. Trabert, Rosewall, R. Hartwig, F. Segura, Kramer, Hoad, M. Rose, Anderson, A. Cooper, E. Buchholz, B. Mac Kay, A.

Olmedo, A. Gimeno, L Ayala, and now Laver. He was in New Zealand last year with Rosewall, Sedgman and Gimeno, but Christchurch was not included. Sunday's troupe is among the strongest ever to come. Hoad and Rosewall, the “twins” of Australia’s amateur boom period of the mid-1950'5, have not toured New Zealand together before. Anderson has made the one previous visit, in 1960. Rosewall, aged 29, is regarded as the top professional and therefore the world’s best tennis player. He won every major amateur championship except Wimbledon and played in eight Davis Cup challenge matches before he turned professional at the end of 1956. Originally known as a baseline player with brilliant backhand and passing shots, the slight, neat Rosewall has since developed his forehand and service power and depth from necessity. He has also become one of the game’s finest volleyers. In some ways Rosewall and Hoad are a contrast. Without Rosewali’s consistency or precision, Hoad, also 29, is a spectacular serve-and-voUey expert with terrific power. At 17, he was the youngest player to represent Australia in a Davis Cup team. In 1956 he won the Australian, French, Italian and Wimbledon singles, and another win at Wimbledon the next year gave him a good background for the hard professional play. After turning in 1957, he lost his first series to Gonzales, 36-51.

Hoad has developed the concentration early critics said he lacked, and he has learnt control and finesse to add to his considerable physical strength.

The left-handed, red-haired Laver, aged 25, has affinities with Hoad in style. He had one of the most successful amateur careers a player has ever had when, in 1962, he won the coveted “grand slam”—Australia, French, Wimbledon and United States titles which only Donald Budge had won before him. That year he won nine national titles and, like Hoad, he had his second Wimbledon win. As all those before him, Laver found the transition to professionalism difficult, but the fact that he made £21,000 in his first year last year shows he has made the grade and eventually he will

probably take Rosewall’s place. Lightning quick, Laver has great deception on both backhand and forehand and fantastic reflexes. Now 28, Anderson, another Queenslander, was widely hailed when he won the United States singles as an unseeded player in 1957 and for a time he was the world’s leading amateur. He was a Davis Cup player in 1957 and 1958, turned professional in 1959, and won the world professional indoor title. One of the best-equipped players, Anderson is noted for his attractive strokemaking.