The Forgotten Era of Tennis: Bill Tilden Part 1

Far from a prodigy, Big Bill Tilden nevertheless went on to dominate world tennis. Until the late 1960s professional tennis players were banned from competing in the world's major tournaments. Professional players were forced into a traveling circus playing each other in long and often tatty tours that took them all over the world. My book, The Pros: The Forgotten Era of Tennis (Click Here), tells this story through the lives and careers of eight champions who dominated these tours. In these exclusive excerpts for Tennisplayer, I tell the stories of the first and last of these champions, Bill Tilden and Rod Laver, starting in this first article about Tilden's amateur career. A Stumbling Apprenticeship Bill Tilden was far from a prodigy. Born into money in Philadelphia, he had started tennis at high school and continued playing a little at university--there, says biographer Frank Deford, he wasn't good enough for the "very ordinary" university team. Following a couple of desultory years - coincident with a series of family traumas to be explored in future articles--he began playing the local East Coast tennis circuit to fill in time. Then came a crucial turning point. Overnight, tennis became his life. By now,...