Remembering Vitas

One player leap frogged his way out of our generation all the way to the top: Vitas Gerulaitis

Timing can be both a blessing and a curse. During my entire career as a tennis player, it was my fate, as well as the fate of dozens of my contemporaries, to play in the shadow of another generation. I was born in 1955, and along with the likes of Brian Teacher, Bill Scanlon, and Gene Mayer, among others.

We were three to four years younger than one of the greatest crops of Americans in history – the likes of Jimmy Connors, Roscoe Tanner, Sandy Mayer, Harold Solomon, Eddie Dibbs, Dick Stockton and Brian Gottfried. It was rough. When we were 16, these guys were already tuning up for college tennis. When we turned pro, they were already experienced veterans. And when we entered our prime, they were pretty much in the thick of theirs too. Over time it was almost as if we developed a collective inferiority complex.

I say this as a prologue to a personal memoir of the one member of our generation who leap frogged his way out of our group to the top level: Vitas Gerulaitis. It’s hard to believe it’s been 8 years since Vitas died tragically…