Continue Reading
This is a preview of the article. The full content is available to TennisPlayer.net members only.
Ever since the days of the gladiator, athletes have been pitted against each other in single combat, the ultimate challenge. Today, there are only two sports which preserve this ancient legacy, the consummate test of all the resources an athlete can bring to bear.
One is boxing, the other sport is tennis. Very few practitioners of tennis, this most demanding of sports, have achieved a level of proficiency that can be defined as mastery. These articles tell the stories of some of these divinely gifted few.
Big Bill Tilden was the first king of the court. .Big Bill Tilden stood atop the tennis world like a colossus.
At the start of his career, Big Bill was one half of the first great rivalry in tennis history–a rivalry with the ” other” Bill, Little Bill Johnston.
Little Bill defeated Big Bill in the finals of the U.S. Championships with a devastating western forehand, which Johnston developed in his native California .
The first king of tennis, Tilden was a colossus for decades.
Click here to read about Little Bill’s Forehand
In order to counter Johnston , Tilden went back to the drawing board. He developed and refined the eastern grip,…