Arthur Ashe

by Raymond Arsenault

  Such candor did not assuage Ashe’s critics on the left, who continued to question his judgment. But he soon turned to other, less controversial matters. For the first time in months, he focused on private concerns of mind and body. December was almost always a quiet month for tennis players, a time to rest and relax. Ashe played in only one tournament during the final weeks of 1974, traveling to Caracas, Venezuela, for the Galaxy Cup competition. And to his delight he won, taking home the top prize money of $12,000. Otherwise, he had plenty of time to reflect upon the recent past. All in all, it had been a good year. Despite several major aggravations—the tennis wars and the Connors suit, continuing criticism of his stance on South Africa, and inconsistency on the court—he had reason to be pleased. He had managed to sort out his personal life without becoming enmeshed in an emotionally draining and potentially loveless marriage; he had fulfilled his pledge to return to South Africa; and he had begun to earn the respect of his peers for his work as president of the ATP.

  Admittedly, his performance on the court had not been what he had hoped for. During the past twelve months, despite fighting his way into nine finals and emerging with three championship trophies, he had seen his U.S. ranking slip from third to fifth, and his world ranking from ninth to tenth. He couldn’t seem to beat Laver or Connors, and his volley and forehand were maddeningly inconsistent. Yet he took considerable satisfaction in being the third oldest player in the world top ten, just behind Laver and Rosewall. At age thirty-one, he was no longer a kid, despite his youthful looks and trim build. But he didn’t feel old—or even marginally over-the-hill. Although he was growing accustomed to being edged out by younger players, he was still competitive at the highest levels of tennis.

  Ashe was deeply introspective about aging and stages of life, and he always seemed to be assessing where he was in the scheme of things—where he had been, where he was going, and what he should expect out of himself. Keeping the year-long diary had encouraged this, and when Houghton Mifflin settled on Portrait in Motion as a subtitle, he must have laughed. When had he stopped long enough for a portrait? Perpetual motion was more like it. But that’s the way he preferred to live. Who knew how long anyone would be around, so it was wise to live every day to the fullest. He intended to be around for a long time, but with his mother’s early death in the back of his mind, he wasn’t taking any chances.

  Intellectually, he knew he was probably past his prime as a tennis player. But emotionally he couldn’t relinquish the dream of winning at least one more Grand Slam title, of beating the world’s best when it counted the most. Perhaps he could even win at Wimbledon, though the only man past the age of thirty to have done so in the last twenty years was Laver in 1969. And even Laver hadn’t been able to repeat the feat. Like the Rocket, Ashe had not given up on becoming number one. Amidst all of his administrative burdens, social concerns, and hopes for a better world, he still yearned to be the champion of champions. Simultaneously reaching for the stars and searching for the inner strength that would both set him apart and sustain him was what Dr. J had taught him to do two decades earlier. And he had learned the lesson well. As 1974 drew to a close, the boy turned man who had traveled so far from Jackson Ward was more determined than ever to prove to himself and the world that he could go a good bit further.37

  Ashe believed in the power of positive thinking. Yet he knew he could not simply will himself to the top of the tennis world. As a seasoned veteran, he knew that getting to the top would require something new and different, perhaps even a fundamental change in his approach to the game. Merely changing the arc of his backhand or deciding to charge the net more often would not be enough. After contemplating his situation following his return from South Africa, he became convinced he had two basic options. The first—and perhaps the most direct—means of improving his game was to concentrate on tennis while downsizing his numerous off-court interests and commitments. The second was to try to upgrade his stamina and athleticism.

  Theoretically, he could forget about the moral imperative of responsible citizenship, jettison his social, political, and business interests, resign as president of the ATP, and spend just about every waking moment thinking about or playing tennis. In other words, he could follow the lead of the dazzling young Swede Bjorn Borg, who had mastered the systematic, corporate approach to competitive tennis. “Borg has a coach, Lennart Bergelin, and a manager, Bob Kain, from the International Management Group,” Ashe observed, with more than a touch of envy, “and all he has to worry about is hitting the tennis ball.”38

  Ashe realized, of course, that he could never equal Borg’s single-mindedness. As he later confessed, “I knew that I would go nuts if I only played tennis.” So for him the second option was much more realistic. The idea of adopting a rigorous and scientific physical fitness regime was both appealing and practical. Athletes in other sports, especially track and field, had benefited from performance-enhancing fitness programs, and Ashe didn’t see any reason why tennis players shouldn’t follow suit. He had always taken good care of himself, but with the exception of the winter of 1967–68 when he had maintained a daily weight-training program at West Point, he had never been compulsive about fitness. Since 1968 proved to be his breakthrough year, he reasoned that a regimen of vigorous workouts might do the trick once again.39

  Ashe did not expect miracles. Unlike many leading African American sports figures, he had never been blessed or burdened with the label “natural athlete.” With his slight build, he did not have the commanding physical presence or bearing of his counterparts in other sports, where belief in the natural superiority of black athletes had gained considerable currency. By the mid-1970s, there was more than enough talent, from O. J. Simpson to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Muhammad Ali, to sustain a virtual cult of black athleticism.

  Primed as much by romantic racialism as by actual statistical dominance, popular explanations of black athletic achievement often relied on stereotypic images and pseudoscientific assertions and rarely included factors related to intellect or disciplined training. Thus, when Bill Russell became the NBA’s first black coach in 1966, or when Frank Robinson became Major League Baseball’s first black manager nine years later, or when Ashe became president of the ATP in 1974, they clearly were operating outside the expected parameters of African American life. In later years, Ashe would write about all of this with a spirit of passionate indignation. But in early 1975, as he carefully plotted a strategy for elevating his career, he was more concerned with overcoming the vagaries of his own mind and body.40

  To this end, he turned to a friend who had been urging him to pay more attention to physical training, balance, and body positioning. In early 1974, during a tournament in Japan, he had the good fortune to meet Henry Hines, a world-class long jumper and two-time NCAA champion who enjoyed a considerable reputation as an expert on footwork and agility. “Tennis players have never been great athletes,” Hines observed. “The top players in the past have been the ones with the best strokes, not the athletic talent.” Even Ashe, who was widely thought to be an athletic player, struck Hines as an underachiever: “There were a lot of balls that Arthur was just out of position to hit. He’d be up on one leg with his weight distribution totally off, and it made it difficult to hit the ball.” Hines envisioned a new style of tennis, more athletic and more powerful. “The level of the game is going to rise,” he predicted. “The athletes are taking over. Can you imagine if a guy like Dr. J [Julius Erving] had played tennis instead of basketball? That’s what’s coming: guys who can fly and get to every ball on the court, no matter where it is, and nail it.”

  Ashe was intrigued by Hines’s critique, and the two men soon planned a collaboration that took them to Puerto Rico during the winter of 1975. Prior to participating in the CBS Classic tournament, Ashe, Pasarell, and several others flew down early for a week of agility drills and serious exercise. As Hines put them through their paces, Ashe became convinced the track star was right, that tennis players had a lot
to learn about movement and proper physical conditioning. Unfortunately, he was so eager to meet Hines’s expectations that he overdid it, straining his left heel. While he remained in the tournament, he lost to Laver in the title match, 6–3, 7–5.41

  Over the next month, the heel continued to hamper Ashe’s performance on the court. In late January, at the U.S. Indoor Championships in Philadelphia, he lost in the quarterfinals to the Chilean Jaime Fillol. A week later in Richmond, the heel seemed to be improving and he was a little steadier on his feet. But he faded in the final, losing to Borg 4–6, 6–4, 6–4.42

  This was hardly the way Ashe had envisioned his ascent to the heights of greatness. During the previous two years he had reached nineteen finals, but he had lost fourteen of them, leading several sportswriters to dub him the tour’s “perennial bridesmaid.” And now he was at it again, playing well but losing the big matches. He could blame the Puerto Rico and Richmond losses on his sore heel, but in truth he wasn’t sure that the injury was his biggest problem. He knew he had to learn to bear down when the going got tough, to keep his focus on winning rather than simply competing, and to pace himself during long matches against younger opponents. The failure to close and the tendency to wear down in the late going were both in evidence against Borg, who had worn out opponents much younger than Ashe. But at thirty-one he was not ready to admit that age had caught up with him. He simply had to redouble his efforts, he told himself: train harder, keep fighting, and above all, win—which he began to do in March.

  The first sign that Ashe’s season was turning around came in Rotterdam, where he wrested a Grand Prix Masters title from Tom Okker. Ashe almost always had Okker’s number, having won 15 of their 23 previous meetings. But this time the mastery was different. Ashe was in complete control from start to finish, serving up 19 aces and hitting clear winners almost at will. And Okker’s annhilation was only the beginning. During the next two months, he played inspired tennis, beating Borg in the final at Munich in mid-March and Okker again in Stockholm at the end of April.

  Even at his best, Ashe did not win every match. Playing on the clay at Monte Carlo, he lost to Manolo Orantes. And he succumbed to both Newcombe and Laver at the Aetna World Cup in Hartford. In the doubles, he teamed up with Dick Stockton to beat Ken Rosewall and John Alexander. But in the end the Aussies won the annual team competition 4–3, defeating the Americans for the fifth time in six years. Following the final match, Ashe was philosophical in defeat. “We had a plan,” he said with a shrug, “but it didn’t work out too well. We think we know how to beat Rod, but it’s not easy.” When pressed for specifics, he added: “It’s his left-handedness that gets me. It makes me reverse my thinking.” Inevitably the questioning moved on to Connors’s noticeable absence from the team. Would Ashe and Captain Ralston be open to Connors’s participation on next year’s squad? “All Jimmy has to do is accept the invitation,” Ashe insisted. “That goes for Davis Cup as well. We’d all welcome him to the team.”43

  Despite the loss to the Aussies and the Connors situation, Ashe was in an upbeat mood by the end of March. Not only was he playing well, but he was also making a great deal of money. With earnings of nearly $70,000 in three months, he was first on the WCT money list, far ahead of second-place Borg. During the same period, Connors made even more on the independent circuit, earning an additional $100,000 by beating Laver in the so-called Heavyweight Championship of Tennis challenge match in Las Vegas on February 2. But Ashe was not concerned about that. His own life was going about as well as he could hope for, both on and off the court. In early April he became the first player to qualify for the WCT Masters Championship playoffs in Dallas. He had qualified for the playoffs four times before but had never won. Perhaps, he began to think, this might be his year.44

  During the second week of April, Ashe’s attention shifted for a time to Africa. As a board member of the philanthropic Phelps Stokes Fund, he had long supported the African Student Aid Fund, underwritten by a celebrity tennis exhibition held in Queens. A primary sponsor of the event, he played an exhibition match against Kenny Lindner, a recent Harvard graduate and the 1974 Ivy League singles champion, and he later teamed up with Walter Cronkite to play a spirited set against actress Dina Merrill and Gene Scott. It was the kind of event Ashe enjoyed but one that also reminded him of what was really important in the broader scheme of life. The Student Aid Fund, he explained to reporters, was essential to the future of Africa and had already made a difference: “Kwame Nkrumah, the leader of Ghana, had a grant. So did Eduardo Mondlane of Frelimo, the Mozambique liberation movement. And there are dozens of diplomats and cabinet officers.” The grants were small, never more than $1,000 per year, but the money raised by the tennis exhibition always went to deserving students who might otherwise be unable “to pay their way here.”45

  The day after the benefit in Queens, Ashe flew to Johannesburg to play in a WCT Green Group tournament (WCT’s original A and B tours were now split into three touring groups, Red, Blue, and Green). There were several white South Africans in the draw, and Ashe played two of them, Derek Schroder and Rauty Krog, in succeeding rounds. He won both matches with ease and felt surprisingly comfortable at Ellis Park. He still couldn’t find a decent hotel in Johannesburg that would accommodate a black man, so once again he stayed at the home of Brian Young. Playing in South Africa was becoming routine, and he now had a retinue of friends to welcome him back and cheer him on. His loss in the quarterfinals was disappointing, and he continued to ache for a singles title on South African soil. Yet, win or lose, he was glad to be back in a nation that had become an important part of his life. Asked why he was so eager to subject himself to the indignities of what he acknowledged was “a hell of a repressive place,” he laughed and cleverly put the onus on white South Africans: “It’s good for their education. They think blacks are stupid, that they can’t make decisions. I shoot down their theories.”46

  Ashe knew, of course, that not all white South Africans were racist reactionaries. One prime example was his friend Frew McMillan, who alongside his partner, Bob Hewitt, had developed into one of the world’s premiere doubles players. In late April, within days of his return from Johannesburg, Ashe found himself defending their right to play in the World Doubles Championship in Mexico. Despite being the defending champions, Hewitt and McMillan—along with McMillan’s family—were taken into custody after their arrival in Mexico City. A month earlier President Luis Echeverría had removed Mexico’s national team from Davis Cup competition after learning their next opponent would be South Africa, and he was now ready to expel Hewitt and McMillan as a further expression of his nation’s opposition to apartheid. The government’s official rationale was that the two men had entered the country illegally using tourist visas, as opposed to the required work visas; thus they lacked authorization “to play professionally” in Mexico. But nearly everyone on the scene knew what was really at issue.

  McMillan was actually traveling on a British passport, and Hewitt, a native Aussie married to a South African woman, was carrying an Australian passport. These details didn’t matter to Echeverría, who, along with the visiting President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, issued a joint statement condemning the South African government and by implication the two tennis players as well. Ashe was appalled. “Nobody hates apartheid more than I do,” he insisted, “but this is ridiculous.” Eventually international tennis officials worked out a compromise of sorts that put Hewitt and McMillan in a special “runoff” tournament in Dallas, where they played the Mexico City doubles winners, Ross Case and Geoff Masters, who had eliminated Ashe and Okker in the semifinals. The mixture of tennis and politics, Ashe now realized, was becoming more volatile with every passing week.47

  Late April also brought the release of the final point standings in the four-month-long WCT tour, and to no one’s surprise Ashe headed the list of eighty-four players. Compiling the best singles record was a coveted honor marked by the awarding of a thirteen-pound solid-gold tennis bal
l worth $33,333. Ashe, along with everyone else, was wide-eyed at the presentation ceremony as two women in gold dresses flanked by armed guards presented him with the gleaming ball. But he knew even a solid-gold tennis ball would feel hollow if he failed to follow up with a strong performance in the upcoming WCT Masters in Dallas.48

  The WCT playoffs, though only five years old, had taken on the status of a major sporting event. The total prize money had risen to $100,000, with the winner taking home $50,000, more than twice the winner’s share at Wimbledon. Ashe felt he had a reasonably good shot at the top prize, but it wasn’t going to be easy. Although defending champion Newcombe was not part of the field of eight, Laver, Borg, and Raúl Ramírez—who had dashed the American Davis Cup team’s hopes earlier in the year—were primed and ready to give him a run for his money. As the WCT point leader, Ashe received much of the press attention prior to the tournament, and there was also a considerable buzz about his recently released diary, Arthur Ashe: Portrait in Motion. Dubbed “the thinking man’s tennis player” by Bud Collins in an enthusiastic New York Times review, he came in for a lot of good-natured ribbing in the Dallas locker room. The irony of this characterization was inescapable, considering that many observers believed thinking too much was Ashe’s greatest limitation as a player. People were always telling him to be more instinctual, to just relax and hit the ball.49