Here's my latest question-and-answer Deep Tennis post from over at No Mas. (Click there to read about a still-unavailable-on-DVD documentary called "The French" (about the 1981 French Open) by William Klein. Has anyone ever seen this, or know how to get a hold of it? It looks like must-see stuff.)
“So I heard you played some doubles with Mr. Smooth tennis announcer, Cliff Drysdale? What was that like?"
Yes, you heard correctly. For those of who don’t know, Eric Clifford Drysdale, known to many as “Cliffy” (he’s just “Cliff” to his friends), is the man behind the swank accent you’ve heard on ESPN’s tennis telecasts since the network debuted almost 30 years ago. For most fans, Drysdale’s ramblings (they’ve gotten slightly less, well, trenchant as the years have passed) are almost a soundtrack to the sport by now, one you’ll likely hear again this weekend during the women’s tournament in Charleston, S.C.
Before he was a commentator, Drysdale was a world-class player from South Africa. He came up during the game’s amateur era in the 1950s and was at the center of the transition to the professional era in the late 60s and early 70s. He reached the final of the U.S. Championships (the amateur-era name for the Open) in 1965 and won the doubles at Forest Hills in 1972. While he may seem like an old-fashioned smoothie these days, he was an agitator back in the day. Drysdale was part of a groundbreaking 1960s pro tour begun by Lamar Hunt (yes, that Lamar Hunt). The members were coined the Handsome 8 and consisted of many of the Australian greats of the era. More significantly, Drysdale founded the ATP, the men’s professional players union, to help the pros take control of the sport from its amateur ruling bodies (this happened at the same time that free agency began in baseball). Drysdale was married at a church next to the Wimbledon grounds. One thing about Cliff: The guy is all about the game.
Drysdale is a U.S. citizen now and lives near the beach in Key Biscayne, Fla.—the “island paradise” as he never fails to refer to it. (Another thing about Cliff: The guy sells.) That’s where I played some friendly doubles with him and his business partner a couple years ago. It was 65 degrees but Cliff had a cold and was covered from head to toe in a black sweat suit, with a huge sombrero teetering on his head.
We walked past a beautiful South American woman. Cliff told us she had scheduled a lesson with him just because she wanted to meet him. “I told her, look, we didn’t have to have the lesson for that!” Women are a tradition with Cliff. His fellow South African player, Gordon Forbes, said he was “fast” even as a teenager, and when he was young Drysdale looked more like a Hollywood version of a tennis player than any real player ever has (except maybe Stefan Edberg). It may tell you something about Cliff's charm that Forbes would eventually see his sister, Jean, an outstanding player herself, married to him.
Jean died years later from a rare disease, a part of Drysdale's history that runs counter to the charmed-life style he projects. Anyone who meets Cliff quickly sees that he has more edge than he shows on TV—“banter” could be his middle name. After his comment about the woman on the court next door, Drysdale and I began to warm-up. He stopped playing and pointed to my lefty slice backhand. “You’re just like those old lefties I used to play, Nikki Pilic and Rod Laver, with those little slices,” he shouted. He paused for a beat. “I always loved to play those guys.” Indeed, at the first U.S. Open, in 1968, Drysdale upset Laver on his way to the quarterfinals.
On the first point, I was at the net and Cliff was returning. He took my partner’s serve and blasted his two-handed backhand by me for a clean winner into the alley. Without missing a beat, he and his partner, Don Henderson, began a sing-song chant, “No-body’s home! No-body’s home!” On my first service game, I kicked a ball into his backhand and he drilled it by me again, this time crosscourt. On the changeover, he stopped me and said, “Tignor, baby, a piece of advice. I’ve got two sides on my ground strokes, a forehand side—and a suicide.”
His “suicide,” his backhand, was famous in its day. It was one of the first two-handers—before Chrissie’s, Connors’, and Borg’s—and later in his career he hit it while wearing a white glove (naturally). It’s always strange, and intimidating, to see that kind of well-known stroke in person. No matter how old the player gets, the stroke remains. It’s like a celebrity in its own right—when Cliff’’s backhands went by me, part of me was thinking, “Yeah, that’s it! That’s the backhand, right in front of me.” I don’t know what I would do if I had to face John McEnroe’s serve and its legendary windup.
The set went on and I got a little more comfortable. I even managed to sneak a slice serve past Drysdale’s backhand side for an ace. He stopped, put his hands on his hips, and stared at me. I started to smile, then stopped. He looked pissed for real; it gave me an idea of just how competitive Cliffy must have been in the old days. On the first point of the next game, he went after another backhand return and again drilled it by me at the net for a winner. He lifted his arms high over his head and bellowed, “That’s right, baby, that comes from a U.S. Open champ, and don’t you f---ing forget it!” I doubt I ever will, Cliff.
So there you have him at his best: Eric Clifford Drysdale, a historic and underrated figure in the game. There have been rumors about retirement in recent years, and he was out with a fairly serious illness last year. When Cliff does hang up the mike, tennis will lose perhaps its most quintessential character. How many people get to have the classic look of a sport in one lifetime, and then become the defining sound of that sport in the next?
