Legendary Tennis Players RICHARD (PANCHO) GONZALES	Browse Other Pages Homepage A Viewpoint on the Game How It Began A Viewpoint on the Game 2 A Viewpoint on the Game 3 Concentration; Practice Condition, Physical and Mental Keep Your Eye on the Ball Footwork and Weight Control Women's Tennis The Grips The Service The Drive The Chop and the Slice The Volley The Subtle Shots Courage Your Opponent's Weaknesses General Tactics Outside Conditions Pressure on Your Opponent Doubles and Mixed Doubles The Coaching Job Legendary Tennis Players Olympic Tennis Does Youth Rule Tennis Hall of Fame Amateurism to Open Tennis Some Defects in Tennis Doping Olympic Review Technology and Sport The Slice Service Flat Serve The American Twist The Drive The Backhand Drive Drive - The Main Uses The Volley Net Position The Volley Position The Overhead Smash The Half-Volley The Drop Shot The Mechanics of the Slice The Main Uses of a Slice The Grips Doubles and Mixed Doubles To Open the Court Doubles In Europe and US Legendary Tennis Players (1940's) Questions in Australian Tennis History of Australian Tennis History of Australian Tennis 2 History of Australian Tennis Players Women's Tennis in Australia Australian Tennis: Nature Ages of Tennis Players The Careers of Women Players
	(1949) This remarkable young player-he is only twenty-two has all the attributes of a storybook character. His record up to date is uneven and marred by amazing defeats. However, one thing that stamps him as a great player in the making is his ability to come through when the chips are down and the pressure greatest. He won the 1948 United States grass court, clay court, and hard court championships and the 1949 indoor and grass court titles, but was ignominiously defeated in many smaller tournaments. His nemesis on the Pacific Coast was Ted Schroeder, who seemed to have the Indian sign on him. Schroeder beat him every time they met until early in 1949, when Gonzales finally laid the jinx at La Jolla by winning a very close three-set match. That win gave him the confidence against Schroeder that he needed, and he went on to beat Ted in a wonderful, up-hill, five-set final at Forest Hills in the National Championships. He then turned professional, and joined the Kramer-Riggs tour. It is a fine and potentially great game that Gonzales plays. He has a first-class service of great speed and good control. It is a flat first service with both a slice and "kick" variation if needed, and Gonzales can lift it effectively under the stimulus of danger. He relies largely on his net attack, volleying and smashing with tremendous aggressiveness. His overhead is reminiseent of Ellsworth Vines'. His ground strokes are supposed to be weak, but to my eye they are hit with reasonable soundness. He makes many errors, owing more to a desire and attempt to do too mueh with his strokes than to any inherent weakness of produetion. His backhand is, perhaps, a shade unsound and breaks up under extreme pressure, a thing on which players of equal class capitalize, but it is not a structural weakness so much as a tendency to hurry his shot. The past two years have seen Gonzales improve his ground game materially, by slowing his tempo and adding steadiness to his aggressiveness. His tacties remain mainly aggressive, without much subtlety, but he is a boy who learns fast, and experience will do much to add more defence and finesse to his game, just as it did for Jack Kramer in his tour with Riggs. At this writing, his day-today game is not yet quite in the world class of Perry, Budge, Riggs, and Kramer at their respective bests. But he has many days when he just about reaches it, which is a good indication that he will soon develop into it on a consistent basis. Pancho's decision to turn professional seems a good one. He is married, the father of a young child, and this move should give him and his family the security he could not provide so quickly in any other way. His defeat in his opening match against Kramer at Madison Square Garden surprised no one-not even Pancho, I suspect; it will in no way cut down his earning power. He is intelligent enough to take full advantage of the chance to play Kramer regularly, and in the matches following his debut he has been winning a smalI but decent percentage of the time. I am sure that the year 1950 will lift Pancho's game almost a class, and make him realIy a first-flight player. His galIery appeal will make him a box-office draw for many years, even if he never becomes the number I player in the world. Pancho is the most interesting and distinctive figure to rise in tennis since the war, and his appearance was like a tonic to amateur tennis, which was slowly dying of dry rot. Now that he has turned professional, the amateur game again badly needs a successor to chalIenge the only other amateur who seemed to be in his class. Richard Pancho Gonzales Ted Schroeder Frank Parker Doherty Brothers Other Players 1940's Professional Players The Women Players Helen Wills Home