Tennis ‘great’ urges conduct crackdown

Press, 18 December 1985, Page 72

Tennis ‘great’ urges conduct crackdown

PA Wellington Tennis officials have to toughen up if they want professional players to improve their court conduct, according to a tennis great, Don Budge. \ On a visit to Wellington, Budge, the first player to achieve the Grand Slam, said the behaviour of top players was the most disappointing aspect of the modern game. "It rankles me to see the behaviour of a lot of these kids,” he said. “If officials make these new rules they have to enforce them. The players know that if they act up, they can get fined $lOOO but that is peanuts. "They have got to look at disqualifying players like they do in other sports,” Budge, aged 70, said. “Three years ago at Wimbledon, McEnroe was begging for disqualification

but he got away with it. If they had disqualified him, Wimbledon would still have been packed but McEnroe would have improved his behaviour,” he said. Nevertheless, the only man to win the singles, doubles and mixed doubles twice at Wimbledon considers McEnroe the most talented player on the circuit these days. “He can do everything and doesn’t try to hit the ball hard whenever he can. “He has a nuance to his game that Becker and Lendl don’t have and if he can take a point by just nudging the ball over the net he will,” Budge said. “Hitting the ball hard all the time impresses someone who doesn’t know much about the game but not people who follow it closely.” To the often-asked ques-

tion of whether champions of old could match the players of today. Budge said there was no direct answer. “There are more good players around today but at the top level I think standards would be, about the same,” he said. ' “Kids today don’t take any time off but players in my day would use the months in the off-season to improve their games. “Bill Tilden took three months off to improve his backhand but players today don’t do that.” So who is the greatest player of all time? “I think the best hitter of a tennis ball I’ve seen was Ellsworth Vines (Wimbledon and United States champion in 1932) and 365 days a year I would take Jack Kramer (Wimbledon and United States champion in 1947),” Budge said. “He never had a bad day.”