Word: laver
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...means successive victories in the Australian, French, Wimbledon and U.S. championships in a single season, and it was first accomplished by Don Budge in 1938. No one could do it again until 1962, when a nimble, lean (5 ft. 9 in., 155 Ibs.) left-hander from Australia named Rod Laver swept the four tournaments...
Even then, it was considered a bit of a fluke. Said Promoter Jack Kramer: "When Laver turns pro, he's going to get beaten just like every other amateur champion who turned pro." Sure enough, Laver lost 19 of his first 21 pro matches. Even when he began to win consistently, he played in the shadow of his countryman, Ken Rosewall...
...Laver no longer stands in anyone's shadow. In fact, at 31, "the Rocket" (as Laver is persistently called) dominates his game more completely than any other athlete in the world. Laver proved that last week in the quagmire of the West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills, N.Y. Playing his distinctively cool, calculating game, he overwhelmed another Australian, Tony Roche, 7-9, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2, to win the U.S. Open championship and thereby stash an unprecedented second grand slam into his tucker bag. His victory earned him $16,000 in prize money and brought...
...When Laver wins a match, and he won four at Longwood, he leaves the court quietly and without emotion. Winning, it seems, has become almost routine to him. And at the loser's locker, the feeling is almost routine as well...
There is something basically exciting about matching oneself against the best there is, even if defeat is certain. Just as in the last decades, when playing the Yankees was a moving, if disheartening experience. Laver's fellow pros enjoy meeting him in a tournament. It is an aesthetic experience, but if you are Ken Rosewell, who has been unable to beat Laver for four years in any major tournament, the aesthetic gradually give way to a sense of struggling hopelessly against fate...