Richard Gonzales:
The Greatest Ever, Period
David Hernandez
Is Roger Federer the greatest player of all time, or is it Rafael Nadal ,or was it really Pete Sampras? Or Rod Laver? Or someone else? The argument will continue indefinitely. But an unbiased examination of the actual history of the game shows that player was Richard Gonzales.
What are the criteria for determining historical greatness? Most pundits start with Slam titles. Whenever the name of Richard "Pancho" Gonzales comes up in that discussion, he is dismissed because he only won two, the US Nationals in 1948 and 1949.
In some polls, Gonzales doesn't even make the twenty greatest of all time. Jack Kramer, who had an agenda regarding his own greatness, said this about Gonzales's history: "You look up the records, they don't show anything."
But the quality of pre-open tennis is completely misunderstood and therefore the validity of the Slam criteria. Why? Because of the vast difference in levels between the amateurs who played the Slams and the pros who could not.
A look at the real history of the game tells a different story. That record shows conclusively that Gonzales was the greatest of all time. He dominated the best players in tennis for an amazing number of years, even at the unbelievable age of 40 and beyond - far longer than any of the other contenders for all time best.
How could this claim be true? The critical fact is that Richard Gonzales turned professional in 1949 at age 21 after his second US win. That made him ineligible to play in the slam tournaments for two decades.
But the critical question to ask is this: what did winning slam titles in the amateur era have to do with measuring the greatness of a tennis player?
The Reality of the Pre-Open Era
Open tennis began in 1968. Prior to open tennis, professional tennis players, barred from the top tournaments, could only compete on their own circuit.
There was virtually no competition between the amateurs playing the slam tournaments and the pros playing on the pro tours. But who were really the best players between these groups?
There was no comparison. It was the professionals. The reality is that the winners of slam titles before the open era were inferior players.
One writer of the day put it this way, "There isn't an amateur to be found who can beat any of the top pros." Because of this central fact, it is pure idiocy to consider slam titles in the pre-Open era as the yardstick for measuring the greatness of a player.
If you are skeptical of that claim, let's examine the distortion the slam title criteria for "greatness" created. We can begin with Roy Emerson, king of amateurs, who won 12 slam titles before 1968.
Emmo was a wholesale flop on the professional level. He failed to win one pro title and was crushed in pro events by Gonzales.
Next is Rod Laver, often called the greatest player of all time, and the man who won two grand slams. When he won his first slam in 1962, Laver was of course an amateur.
The next year he turned pro and he went on tour versus Lew Hoad. Laver won the first set of the first match, but was unable to win another set in 13 matches. Hoad at that time had virtually retired from the game, was suffering with a chronically bad back, and had had only three weeks to practice before the tour started.
Now let's look Gonzales, the man with "only" two slam titles. The facts are that over the course of his career he was the absolute and merciless ruler of the professional world, the best player among the best players. His astonishing dominance lasted for 12 years, starting in 1951 and continuing through 1962.
Even more incredible, Gonzales was still winning major tournaments and beating the very top pros of the open era well into his 40s.
No player of any era has ever accomplished that. The equivalent would be Pete Sampras, or Andre Agassi, competing today on the current tour and beating Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal.
Richard's Story
Richard Gonzales, born in 1928, did not have the advantages of his contemporaries or predecessors when he was coming up in Los Angeles, rife with prejudice against Mexican Americans. (Click Here to read an intimate biography of Pancho's life.)
Perry Jones, dictator of the Southern California Tennis Association, was a known bigot who actively discriminated against Richard when he was young. (Click Here.)
With little competition in relatively insignificant amateur venues and a two-year interruption for service in the Navy from 1945 to 1946, Pancho was a diamond in the rough when he finally got the opportunity to compete in important tournaments after his service.
With no formal instruction and little preparation after leaving the Navy, by 1947 he was already beating world-class players including Jaroslav Drobny, Frank Parker, and Bob Falkenburg.
This earned him a No. 17 national ranking and a No. 8 seeding for the 1948 U. S. Championships . He proceeded to win the tournament--the first time he played it.
Think about it - an almost unknown 20 year old with little high level competitive experience, who had been in the service for two years, suddenly wins one of the biggest 4 tournaments in the world.
But Pancho didn't get his due for that title. Why? Jack Kramer, the winner of the 1947 U. S. Championships, had turned pro. And the top-ranked amateur, Ted Schroeder, did not compete in the 1948 U. S. Championships.
So Pancho was seen as a hollow champion. But he made believers of at least some when he defended his title in 1949, this time beating the highly touted Schroeder.
After his "shocking" victory over Schroeder, Gonzalez immediately turned pro. For the first time in his life, he was freed from worry about money on a day to day basis. It was also the last time he would compete in the slams for almost 20 years.
But Gonzales did not dominate in the pros his first year. And this has caused some to misrepresent his overall record. His introductory tour in 1950 was a rude awakening. He was embarrassed by Jack Kramer, who walloped him 96-27 in 103 matches.
Because of his dominance in pro tennis between 1946 and 1953, a span of eight years, Kramer is considered one of the greatest players of all time--even the greatest. And that first tour dominance is often cited to "prove" Kramer was better than Gonzales.
The fact is that from 1951 on, Gonzales not only beat Kramer regularly but dominated him. He beat Kramer for World Indoor title in 1951, and never lost to him after that.
As a promoter, Jack Kramer recruited the best new competitors year after year to play against King Gonzales, players like Tony Trabert, winner of Wimbledon and the U. S. Championships in 1955. Gonzales demolished Trabert 75-27 in 102 matches. This dominance over Trabert continued throughout their careers.
The next player who fell haplessly into the clutches of the King was Ken Rosewall. On his first pro tour in 1957, Rosewall quickly learned why Gonzales was King, losing to him 51-26 in 77 matches. Again, Gonzales maintained this dominance in all the years they played against each other on the pro tour.
After allegedly retiring in 1960, Gonzales immediately came back in 1961 and beat, among others, Lew Hoad, Barry MacKay, Butch Buchholz, Alex Olmedo, and the new star Andres Gimeno, who lost a tour to Gonzalez 16-9--after which Gonzalez retired again. This time he retired for good as a regular member of the tour to give more of his time to drag racing, for which he also had a fanatical passion.
The facts show Gonzales dominated for a twelve-year span, almost twice as long as Kramer. Gonzales, said Alex Omedo, "beat every Wimbledon champion 10 years in a row. If there had been open tennis, he might have won 10 Wimbledons." And how many other Slam titles? 20? 30? More?
Over the course of his entire career, Gonzales actually finished the pro year ranked number one 14 times. There is no other tennis player of any era whose record comes anywhere close to that. John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl both finished number one in the world 4 times. Connors did it 5 times. Pete Sampras did it 6 times.
The modern greats? Federer finished number one 5 times. Nadal 3 times. And Novak Djokovic 4 times, so far.
When asked who was the all time greatest what did Lew Hoad answer? That Mexican "prick" Gonzales. Pancho was known for his simmering rage on court, and for being one of the few players who played better when he became angrier.
Allen Fox, a long-time practice partner of Pancho's, says, "Compared to Gonzales, Connors and McEnroe were pussycats." Laver added: "We hoped he wouldn't get upset; it just made him tougher."
Commentators who never saw Gonzales play also speak of him as being a one-dimensional player: cannon serve and volley. And no doubt his serve was one of the greatest of all time.
Says Fox, "I never personally witnessed Gonzales lose his serve when he was serving for a set or a match." But his skills and shot making were varied and complete
. Adds Fox, "Pancho had wonderful control, amazing touch, and an instinct for putting the ball in awkward positions for his opponent." (What was it like to actually play him? Click Here for Allen Fox's first person account.)
Bionic Pancho
There is one other yard stick to consider in evaluating Gonzales greatness. Pancho could still beat the top players on any given day and win pro tournaments well into his mid 30s and, more amazingly into his 40s, all after his alleged retirement. That puts him at a level by himself of all players in tennis history.
Although retired from regular tour competition, at the age of 36 Gonzales entered the 1964 World Professional Championships and won, beating Andres Gimeno for the title as he had done the last time they played, as if the King had never left the tennis scene.
That same year Gonzales entered and won the 1964 U. S. Professional Indoor Championships at White Plains, N. Y., beating Mal Anderson, Hoad, Rosewall (the pro tour champ since Gonzales' retirement), not to mention Rod Laver.
Howard Cosell commented on this amazing victory by Gonzales: "It struck me as one of the extraordinary achievements in my lifetime in sports."
That "incomparable extended heyday," unmatched by any other tennis player in history, continued through the next few years. In 1965 at Dallas, Texas, at age 37, Gonzales entered and won the first nationally televised tennis tournament, in which he beat the top pros, including Frank Sedgman, Rosewall, and Laver.
At age 38, Gonzalez traveled to Wembley, England and won, beating Rosewall 15-13 in final set of the semi-final, and then, with only a 15 minute rest, beating Laver in three sets in the final for the title. Difficult to believe, but true.
To inaugurate the "open era" in 1968, Gonzalez, now 40, entered the French Open, devastating amateur champ Roy Emerson in the quarter finals before losing to Laver in the semi-finals.
Still remembered as perhaps the most astounding match of all time was the contest between Gonzalez (age 41) and Charlie Pasarell (age 25 with a 1967 No. 1 U. S. ranking) at the 1969 Wimbledon Open, in which the two played their historic 112-game, two-day marathon. Gonzales finally prevailed when his much younger opponent crumbled under the pressure.
That same year Pancho entered the 1969 Howard Hughes Open and won the tournament, annihilating new tennis darling John Newcombe (with a No. 1 world ranking in '67, '70, and '71), then beating Rosewall, Stan Smith (No. 1 world ranking in '72), and then finally Ashe (winner of U. S. Open, Wimbledon, and a No. 1 ranking in '75) in three easy sets for the title, 6-0, 6-2, 6-4. (To see Gino Tanasescu's incredible film chronicling that tournament from the inside, with rare interviews and footage, Click Here.)
The following year Gonzales (now age 42) played in a special winner-take-all format against Laver (1969 winner of the only men's pro grand slam) at Madison Square Garden before a full house of 15,000 fans, which Gonzales won. Two weeks later in Detroit with the same format, Gonzales battered a hapless John Newcombe (age 26) in three easy straight sets, 6-4, 6-4, and 6-2.
Gonzales returned again in 1970 to the Howard Hughes Open, in which he trounced Andres Gimeno, Tony Roche (No. 2 world ranking in '69), and then beat Laver in four sets for the title - a year after Laver's second Slam.
At practically age 44, Gonzalez entered and won his last pro tournament at the 1972. For that last year Gonzalez played in 14 tournaments, winning 32 of 43 matches (for a .744 winning percentage).
Having learned through personal experience Tony Trabert once said, "Gonzales is the greatest natural athlete tennis has ever known." That may have been true but, by omission, diminished the full nature of what he accomplished.
There are still those who qualify Gonzales' greatness with "he was one of the greatest." The truth is we should dismiss all qualifiers and give the man his due by admitting the record shows he was by far the greatest tennis player of all time.
Richard Gonzales broke the "racial" barrier before Althea Gibson and long before Arthur Ashe. The grand slam venue in New York has been deservedly named after Ashe. But where is Pancho's stadium?
