This Week in Tennis History: Rosewall def. Laver in Dallas

The greatness of the match was that it had everything: a huge title, comebacks by both of us, spectacular shotmaking, tension, heavy money, and a steady buildup to an unbelievable finish.”

And that was the loser talking.

Ken Rosewall’s 4–6, 6–0, 6–3, 6–7 (3), 7–6 (5) win over Rod Laver in the WCT Finals in May 1972 in Dallas has been called the match that made tennis in the United States. It’s hard to argue. That spring, the sport had been broadcast on national TV for the first time. To fit the needs of NBC, though, the tour had moved its 1972 schedule up half a year; no sooner did the men wrap up ’71 than they started ’72. It all paid off in Dallas.

Muscles and the Rocket were so brilliant for so long that NBC did the unthinkable and preempted its sacred 6:00 p.m. Sunday news broadcast to show the conclusion. Twenty-one million people watched the legends run each other around in what one writer described as “the kind of match that one waits a lifetime to see—a nerve-wracking, blood-tingling epic.”

By 1972, the 33-year-old Laver and the 37-year-old Rosewall had been waiting a lifetime to play it as well. Looking back, Laver said he believed the two old Aussie rivals and fellow barnstormers had played better matches, “But did anyone else but Kenny and I know?” One thing is for sure: It was the first one where the winner took home a $50,000 check presented by Neil Armstrong, a gold ring, a giant cup and a Lincoln Continental. This was tennis, Texas-style, and Laver-Rosewall made Dallas the sport’s new capital.

The Battle in Big D introduced mainstream America to a new phenomenon known as the pro tour. The WCT Finals had been launched the previous year by Lamar Hunt, an heir to a family oil fortune and a force behind the rise of pro football in the 1960s. Hunt knew that tennis didn’t just need a little Texas-size pizzazz; it needed a logical tour that culminated in something any sports fan could comprehend: a world championship. WCT succeeded in offering both.

What the sport needed most were entertaining matches, and few have ever fit that bill like this one. Laver jumped ahead early; Rosewall bounced back to lead two sets to one; Laver countered by winning the fourth-set tiebreaker. When Laver went up 3–0 in the fifth, it appeared that he would record his first win at the only major event that had eluded him.

But Rosewall—a “bloody thief,” in Laver’s words—won five of the next six games and reached match point. When Laver saved it and went up 5–3 in the tiebreaker, it appeared again that this match had taken its final turn. Laver, seeing Rosewall drag himself around the court, believed his friend was spent.

Or was he? “Ken’s exhaustion was always something of a deception,” said writer Richard Evans. When Laver served at 5–4, he had the title on his racquet; a minute or so later, he was walking to the net a loser, wondering what had happened. Rosewall’s backhand is what happened.

At 4–5, Rosewall found an angle with a backhand return that Laver himself had never seen. At 5–5, Rosewall reached out and cracked another backhand return—“Kenny’s last stab”—for a winner. Laver was too stunned to get his return at 5–6 back.

Rosewall, after gathering the check, the ring, the cup and the car, cried in the locker room. But it was Laver, who never won a WCT Final, who called this loss the most disappointing of his career. The biggest winner was pro tennis.