Word: cooperating
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Much has changed in tennis in half a century. And some things haven't. What's the biggest change? Power. As a guest at last year's Wimbledon Championships, Ashley Cooper noted the path of the men's serves from his premium seat. When an ace was delivered down the middle of the court, he says, the ball would still be climbing when it crashed into the backboard. "In my time," he says, "a serve that reached the backboard on the first bounce would draw a gasp from the crowd." The biggest server in Cooper's day was the American...
...show you," he says, rising from his dining table and disappearing into another part of his Brisbane home. Though 70 and with two new hips, he moves lightly, returning moments later with a battered racquet. Its head is small by today's standards, but it feels heavy and unwieldy. Cooper's big break in the '57 Open was Fraser upsetting Lew Hoad in a semi-final. "Lew had an off day," says Cooper. "He could have those, but when he was on he was unbeatable. He played with such a lot of wrist. Watching [current world No. 1] Roger Federer...
...Cooper is a bridge between the old game (nice) and the present version (brutal). For nearly 30 years he was a leading figure in junior development in Queensland; he's now on the board of Tennis Australia, which for the moment is losing the battle to make Australia a force in world tennis again. Cooper was once among a handful of local men in the world's Top 10. At this year's Open, starting Jan. 15 on the Rebound Ace courts of Melbourne Park, the only seeded Australian in the men's draw is Lleyton Hewitt, who's also...
...Cooper was like Hewitt in the sense that his game lacked weapons but he wouldn't go away. "I made a point of being really fit," he says. "I got a bit of ribbing from a few of the players for over-training. Frank Sedgman was my idol, and Sedg did a lot of gym work. He was pretty scrawny as a lad and built himself up into a strong physical specimen. So I sort of did what he did." Though his name doesn't resonate today like those of some of his contemporaries, Cooper for a time was king...
...what hasn't changed about tennis? For one, the top guys have always attracted beautiful women. In 1957, Cooper realized he was in a hotel room next door to a Miss Queensland finalist, Helen Wood, who would soon become Miss Australia. Pestered by Neale Fraser into knocking on her door and asking her out, Cooper thought he'd erred when she eyed him contemptuously. "I can still see her face," he says. "But we went out and sort of clicked. I guess I wasn't what she thought I might have been. I was pretty shy." Their match became...