Word: jakes
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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That fixed 16-year-old Jake; Vines became his hero and tennis ideal. Even now, Kramer's forehand is hit with the same bent elbow Vines used; he rolls into his serves the way Vines once did. "I even tried to walk like him," Kramer says (he only half succeeded; Vines walks like an arrested Tarkington adolescent...
Vines taught him strokes, but he did not teach him the "big game." Jake figured that out himself-along with such lesser notions as eating football-style steaks before big matches and drinking warm tea between sets as energy boosters. Finally, along came Benefactor No. 4, a brilliant automotive engineer named Clifton Roche...
...Jake found that Roche's theories worked. Sample: when running to the left sideline, never hit the ball down the line unless you are trying for an ace-it gives your opponent too big an angle for a cross-court return...
...Jake began calling his new engineer friend Coach Roche. The Coach was a fanatic on psychology and energy conservation. In "third-stage" tennis, as Roche calls the big-time game, he says that players are often so evenly matched that an iota of stamina cdn mean the difference between victory and defeat. He argued that it was scientifically sound to press only on the right points. One time to press: when serving from the left court; the two big points, "thirty-fifteen" and "ad," begin there and it is less hazardous (for a right-handed player) to come into...
Every now & then, Coach Roche drops in unannounced to watch his boys play. Says Big Jake: "Just knowing he's there is a big lift." A year ago, in the finals of the National Singles at Forest Hills, Jake spotted the Coach in the stands. Kramer was leading Tom Brown, 2-0, in the third set and was about to ease up a little when he saw Roche clenching a raised fist (meaning "go for it"). Jake closed out the set, 6-0, for his first U.S. singles championship...