Torben Ulrich:
Still Original
Lee Tyler
Long before the long haired tennis days of Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, and Andre Agassi, there was Torben Ulrich. The bearded, pony-tailed Dane was a favorite with fans and the press in the 1950s and 1960s for his tennis, his catchy quotes, and Renaissance qualities.
For four decades he was competitive and entertaining, renowned (according to the press of the day) for his "dangerous left handed serve, delicate touch, leaps to pull off incredible returns, and volley angles never learned in geometry class."
Although Torben was never an elite world class player, he had success at the Grand Slams. At Wimbledon, he made the semis in doubles twice with his younger brother Jorgen. At the French, he reached the round of 16 in singles. At the U.S.Open, he took the great Pancho Gonzales to five sets.
When Open tennis arrived, he played on Lamar Hunt's World Championship Tennis Tour from 1969-1974. Once past 45, he joined the Tennis Grand Masters for 8 more years.
Torben was also a serious musician who had his own jazz band and would take his sax or clarinet on the road for relaxation and to entertain at tournament parties. He owned a night club in Copenhagen called the Blue Note and was often invited to sit in with local musicians wherever he was playing tournaments.
He was known for staying up all night for music, going for a run in city streets at 4 am, grabbing a little sleep and somehow managing to turn up on time for his scheduled matches.
For 19 years, until he was 48, he also played Davis Cup for Denmark, totaling an astounding 98 matches, in both singles and doubles. He partnered often with his younger brother Jorgen.
The Ulrich brothers followed in the footsteps of their father, Einer, who played for the Cup from 1924-1938. Sadly Jorgen died in 2010. But Torben is still going strong at the age of 85.
I knew I was in for an unusual interview when Molly, Torben's second wife, phoned to say "Please dress comfortably. We sit on the floor here." Stepping inside their Tiburon, California hilltop home you see bare oaken floors, but no furniture just smashing view of San Francisco Bay through sliding glass doors.
Downstairs in the kitchen was a low round table laid out with platters of cheese, crackers and grapes, and four floor seats like you might find in a Japanese restaurant.
Enter Torben with his trademark beard, which is white now and reaches halfway to his waist. Trim and light on his feet, he was garbed in a blue turtleneck, tights, long shorts, and tennis socks. We sat, he lit a small incense candle, and assumed a lotus position in which he stayed for the next three and a half hours.
When did he learn tennis? "When I was 8 or so at boarding school in Sweden. My father had sent my mother, baby brother and I for safety there during the Nazi occupation of Denmark.
"Father had to stay behind because of his business, but being a favorite tennis partner of Sweden's King Gustav, he was often asked to take the night train up to Stockholm for a game -- a command performance, you might say -- so we got to see him often.
"Gardnar Mulloy was one of my heroes when I was growing up." (Click Here to read Lee's story on Gardnar.)
"I also studied ballet, and the clarinet, and got exposed to American jazz through records my classmates had of the Mills Brothers, Benny Goodman, and Lionel Hampton."
Back home post-war in 1945, Torben won a string of junior championships and then served in the Danish Navy. Returning to tennis, he won the Danish Championships 4 times in singles, 8 times in doubles. He became a fixture at Wimbledon and the French, and in 1953 came to the U.S.for the first time to play Forest Hills.
It was at a tournament in Denmark where Torben met his first wife, Lone. Learning of his passion for music, she asked "Would you like to hear my records?" She had all the latest Duke Ellingtons, Louis Armstrongs, Count Basies. He jumped at the offer, and soon they were married.
Lars, their only son, was born the day after Christmas, 1963. And yes Lars Ulrich is the drummer and front man for Metallica, in case you didn't know.
It was the custom in those days for Europe's players to take their wives and children along to tournaments away from home. Wherever expenses were paid, the families would go.
At the age of 3, Lars was one of 17 children at the gala Monte Carlo Invitational. Trips to Iran and Egypt followed, and South Africa where Lone and Lars stayed on for six months by themselves while Torben pursued tennis - and music - elsewhere.
Armed with a press pass as music critic for a Danish newspaper and radio station, Torben had a freedom other players didn't, to travel beyond the strict number of days away set by their home tennis associations.
Even so, his own father, as head of the Danish Tennis Federation, suspended him several times. "He was always doing that until I was needed for Davis Cup."
By the early 1960s, Torben had let his neatly trimmed chin-beard grow long. Not for affectation. He just didn't like to shave. Urged to cut it all off by Lone once, he did -- using her razor -- and made such a bloody mess of his face she never again bothered him about it.
In 1969, a year after the WCT was formed, Torben, at 41, turned pro for the sum of three cents. "That's what I thought of the sham, the hypocrisy of tennis not being open to everybody all along." His earnings that first year? $10,000. (Rod Laver, at the top of the ladder, won $201,000).
Meanwhile, son Lars was growing up and a fateful event happened. In February,1973, Torben, always interested in all kinds of music, got tickets for five friends, including South African tennis player Ray Moore, to a Deep Purple concert.
It was held in the same Copenhagen stadium as one of his tournaments. One of the guests couldn't go, so Lars, then age 9, took his place. The boy loved the loud music, was mesmerized by it, particularly the drums.
As a teen, Lars was torn between tennis or music, but was intrigued enough by tennis (and his heroes, McEnroe and Connors) to consider making that his career.
"His mother and I wanted him to feel free to pursue his own path. So we sent him at 15 to the Nick Bollettieri school in Florida. Nick was an old friend from way back."
Lars lasted a year. He found he was far more interested in local music than practicing tennis all day long. Metallica's first concert was at Anaheim, near Disneyland, when Lars, vocalist and drummer, was 19. (The band is now in its 33rd year.)
Torben and Lone's marriage was winding down, and fate stepped in again. In 1981, in Seattle, a young sports writer named Molly Martin watched Torben play a match on ESPN, and phoned him for an interview.
Two years later, when he was in Seattle on a Tennis Grand Masters event, they met for the first time. Torben began spending more and more time in the Pacific Northwest, and in1999 they were married.
Four years ago, they moved to Tiburon, an exclusive suburb in the Marin County hills across from the Golden Gate Bridge. This put them close to Lars, and Lars' partner, actress Connie Nielsen, and Torben's three grandsons, ages 6,12, and 15.
They couldn't be much nearer; they live across the street. Occasionally, they all go out to hit tennis balls together, on public courts in the area.
I asked Torben if he keeps up with today's tennis. "Sure, we follow tournaments on TV up here on the mountain."
What does he think of it? "Interesting...but not very interesting.
"Today's players get very good too early. They're so nursed with their coach, standby coach, masseur, psychiatrist, their mother or girlfriend, or both. That's what happens when people get rich. They get isolated. It's like putting themselves in a castle and building a moat around them.
"In my day, we players were together. We traveled together, ate together, played cards together. Playing with the Grand Masters especially was a lot of fun. A precious time for me. We were welcomed everywhere we went.
His website (Click Here) shows a myriad of interests, some of which have to do with tennis. "It is all inter-connected," says Torben, states wryly, in his soft, deep and gently accented voice, "Some of it's pretty weird." He has an experimental musical group in which he plays a drainpipe. He's a choreographer for a modern dance company.
He writes books -- four so far -- all published in Denmark, and in the Danish language. He does paintings --he calls them "rice papers." sometimes using colored inks on swatches of rope, racquet grips, or tennis balls.
In 1978 he made a video called "The Ball and the Wall" which became a cult classic that chronicled how a tennis player can get maximum practice out of a backboard, or any kind of wall. Owned by the French Federation however, copies are virtually non-existent.
With all his varied projects, I wondered how he decides what to do each day. "A little voice tells me," he answered, adding "I'll never be finished."
He can be brutally honest. During our interview he had described his son's music as "muscular, very physical."
On YouTube, I found an amusing clip called "Torben versus Lars," (Click Here) with Metallica playing a newly recorded track in the studio and Torben listening and then advising his son: "Delete that."
