Word: laver
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...tennis has been good to Amateur Rod ("The Rocket") Laver: it has lured away everyone who might make the nimble Australian redhead work up a sweat on the courts. For years. Lefthander Laver, 23, labored as a B-team scrub on the great Down Under squads that dominated amateur tennis, taking his lumps regularly from such talented first-stringers as Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall and Ashley Cooper. Even after the varsity turned pro, Laver could not seem to win the big ones: he lost twice in the finals at Wimbledon, twice more at Forest Hills. But this year The Rocket...
...Melbourne's Koo-yong stadium boiled to 112° last week, but nobody minded except the spectators (too of whom fainted in their seats) and a listless pair of players from sunny Italy. In a mismatch worthy of the Roman Colosseum, Australia's Davis Cup defenders, Rod Laver, Neale Fraser and Roy Emerson, beat back the Italian challengers 5-0, took home the 62-year-old cup for a record tenth time in twelve years...
Brutal Efficiency. The coolheaded squad that shellacked Italy last week operated with precision and brutal efficiency. Redheaded Rod ("Rocket") Laver, 23, raised puffs of chalk along the base line with his accurate overspin backhands. Neale Fraser, 28, hampered all year by a bad knee, forced the Italians into error after error with neatly placed volleys. Star of the team was wiry Roy Emerson. 25, a tireless technician who plays like a blackjack shark: he does not hit hard, but he thinks fast and rarely makes an error of judgment. Last week Emerson got Australia off to a 1-0 lead...
Foreign tennis fans could find small hope in the fact that Emerson & Co. probably will not be around to defend the Davis Cup next year: at week's end Fraser was already talking about retiring: Emerson and Laver insisted they had no immediate plans to turn pro. But these days, the top amateurs, both in the U.S. and Australia, almost always defect to the pros. But Australia plans for such losses. Ever since 1950, the ever-changing Aussie roster has almost always been good enough to lick the rest of the world. The teams...
...Davis Cup in 1957; they might have repeated in 1958 if Peruvian Alex Olmedo had not carried the U.S. to victory. Both turned pro with varying success: Cooper has done well, but Anderson is erratic and unspectacular. They were ably replaced as Davis Cuppers by Fraser, Laver and Emerson...