Rod Laver ‘Might Have Hurt Somebody’ With a Modern Racket

A half-century ago, there was no bigger star than Laver, who won 11 Grand Slam singles titles and who remains the last man to win the four biggest tournaments in the sport in a single calendar year.

Now 84 and living in California, Laver remains a king of the sport, a slight, diminutive redhead-gone-gray with a magical left arm.

He spoke with The New York Times on Friday afternoon at a restaurant in the arena that bears his name in Melbourne Park.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You played in a lot of places that bear little resemblance to an immaculate facility like Rod Laver Arena. Do you think about that, playing in La Paz, Bolivia, at 12,000 feet in a glorified gymnasium, as you watch the players compete in this grand stadium named for you?

Well, in La Paz, you’re so high and we were using regular balls. I was playing with Fred Stolle and Butch Buchholz and Roy Emerson, and we decided we had to puncture the balls because they were flying all over the place. We put a little hole in them so we were playing flat-ball tennis. At least the people who came then didn’t think we were animals.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/28/sports/tennis/rod-laver-australian-open.html