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1970 Italian Open (tennis)
The 1970 Italian Open was a combined men's and women's tennis tournament that was played on outdoor clay courts at the Foro Italico in Rome, Italy. The men's tournament was initially part of the Grand Prix circuit but was withdrawn during the tournament when it became known that the organizers had paid management fees to the competing World Championship Tennis (WCT) organization in order for the WCT players to participate. The women's tournament was a non-tour event, i.e. not part of the Virginia Slims Circuit. The tournament was held from 20 April through 27 April 1970. The singles titles were won by Ilie Năstase and Billie Jean King. Finals Men's singles Ilie Năstase defeated Jan Kodeš 6–3, 1–6, 6–3, 8–6 Women's singles Billie Jean King defeated Julie Heldman 6–1, 6–3 Men's doubles Ilie Năstase / Ion Ţiriac defeated William Bowrey / Owen Davidson 0–6, 10–8, 6–3, 6–8, 6–1 Women's doubles Billie Jean King / Rosie Casals defeated Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clay Court
A clay court is one of the types of tennis court on which the sport of tennis, originally known as "lawn tennis", is played. Clay courts are made of crushed stone, brick, shale, or other unbound mineral aggregate depending on the tournament. The French Open uses clay courts, the only Grand Slam tournament to do so. Clay courts are more common in Continental Europe and Latin America than in North America, Asia-Pacific or Britain. Two main types exist: red clay, the more common variety, and green clay, also known as "rubico", which is a harder surface. Although less expensive to construct than other types of tennis courts, the maintenance costs of clay are high as the surface must be rolled to preserve flatness. Play Clay courts are considered "slow" because the balls bounce relatively high and lose much of their initial speed when contacting the surface, making it more difficult for a player to deliver an unreturnable shot. Points are usually longer as there are fewer winners ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia Slims Circuit
The Virginia Slims Circuit was a tennis tour consisting of a group of originally nine female professional players. Formed in 1970, the Virginia Slims Circuit eventually became the basis for the later WTA Tour. The players, dubbed the ''Original 9'', rebelled against the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) because of the wide inequality between the amount of prize money paid to male tennis players and to female tennis players. Background The Open era began with the British Hard Court Championships in Bournemouth in 1968. At the first Open Wimbledon, the prize-fund difference was 2.5:1 in favour of men. Billie Jean King won £750 for taking the title, while Rod Laver took £2,000. The total purses of the competitions were £14,800 for men and £5,680 for women. By the 1970s, the pay difference which had been a 2.5:1 ratio between men and women had increased. In 1969, ratios of 5:1 in terms of pay were common at smaller tournaments; by 1970, these figures increased to 8: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1970 In Tennis
Year 197 ( CXCVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Magius and Rufinus (or, less frequently, year 950 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 197 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * February 19 – Battle of Lugdunum: Emperor Septimius Severus defeats the self-proclaimed emperor Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum (modern Lyon). Albinus commits suicide; legionaries sack the town. * Septimius Severus returns to Rome and has about 30 of Albinus's supporters in the Senate executed. After his victory he declares himself the adopted son of the late Marcus Aurelius. * Septimius Severus forms new naval units, manning all the triremes in Italy with heavily armed troops for war in the East. His soldiers embark on an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Open (tennis)
The Italian Open ( it, Internazionali d'Italia; literally: ''Italy's Internationals''), originally called the Italian International Championships, is a tennis tournament held in Rome, Italy. It is one of the most important clay tennis tournaments in the world with the men's competition being an ATP Tour Masters 1000 event on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tour, and the women's competition being a WTA 1000 event on the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) tour. The two events were combined in 2011. The tournament is played on clay courts, currently during the second week of May. The event is also known as the "Rome Masters" for male edition, as well as sponsored name "Internazionali BNL d'Italia". Rafael Nadal has won the men's singles title a record ten times. History The Italian tennis championship was first held in 1930 in Milan at the Tennis Club and was initiated by Count Alberto Bonacossa. The singles events at the tournament were won by Bill Tilden and Lilí Á ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Françoise Dürr
Françoise Dürr (born 25 December 1942; sometimes referred to by English writers as Frankie Durr) is a retired French tennis player. She won 50 singles titles and over 60 doubles titles. According to Lance Tingay, Bud Collins, and the Women's Tennis Association, Dürr was ranked in the world top ten from 1965 through 1967, from 1970 through 1972, and from 1974 through 1976, reaching a career high of world No. 3 in those rankings in 1967. She finished second to Billie Jean King in prize money earnings in 1971. Dürr reached a total of 27 Grand Slam finals – one in singles, 18 in women's doubles, and eight in mixed doubles. She won twelve of them. Biography Dürr is best known for winning the singles title at the 1967 French Championships. She defeated Maria Bueno in a quarterfinal and Lesley Turner in the final. In addition to her singles championship, Dürr won seven Grand Slam women's doubles titles and four Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. She was the runner-up in 11 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Owen Davidson
Owen Keir Davidson (born 4 October 1943) is a former professional tennis player of the 1960s and 1970s. Alongside Billie Jean King, Davidson won eight grand slam mixed doubles titles. In 1967 he won a calendar year slam for mixed doubles, when he won the Australian Championships (with Lesley Turner Bowrey), and the French Championships, Wimbledon and the US Championships (with King). Davidson became the first player to win a match in the open era of tennis when he defeated John Clifton in the first round of the British Hard Court Championships in Bournemouth played in April 1968. His best grand slam singles result was at Wimbledon in 1966, when he reached the semifinals (beating top seed Roy Emerson before losing to Manuel Santana). He is also the 1972 Australian Open and the 1973 US Open men's doubles champion, partnering John Newcombe and Ken Rosewall. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 2010. He was inducted into the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Bowrey
William Bowrey (born 25 December 1943) is a former Australian tennis player. Bowrey was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia and is best remembered as the last amateur to win the Australian Championships in 1968 before the tournament opened itself to professional tennis players in 1969. At the age of 16 Bowrey was a member of the schoolboys' NSW state PSAAA tennis team. In the process of qualifying he overcame promising Newcastle junior Ross Flanagan who had match point against Bowrey. Bowrey held on to win and Ross Flanagan decided to pursue a less spectacular career as a Physics and Sports Biomechanics Lecturer at The University of Newcastle. Biography Bowrey reached the quarters of the Australian (international amateur) Championships in 1965 (losing to John Newcombe), 1966 (losing to Roy Emerson) and 1967 (losing to Emerson) and the US Open quarters in 1966 (losing to Manuel Santana). At the 1967 US Open doubles, Bowrey and partner Owen Davidson lost the final to N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pat Walkden
Patricia Molly "Pat" Walkden-Pretorius (born 12 February 1946) is a former female tennis player from Rhodesia and South Africa. Walkden was a runner-up in the 1967 French Championships doubles, partnering compatriot Annette du Plooy. They lost the final in straight sets to Françoise Dürr and Gail Sherriff. Her best singles result at a Grand Slam tournament was reaching the fourth round at the 1967 French Championships, the 1968 French Open and the 1969 Wimbledon Championships. She played for the Rhodesian and South African Fed Cup The Billie Jean King Cup (or the BJK Cup) is the premier international team competition in women's tennis, launched as the Federation Cup in 1963 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the International Tennis Federation (ITF). The name was chan ... teams in 15 ties between 1966 and 1974 comprising a record of 17 wins and 11 losses. She was part of the South African team, together with Brenda Kirk and Greta Delport, that won the Federa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia Wade
Sarah Virginia Wade (born 10 July 1945) is a British former professional tennis player. She won three Major tennis singles championships and four major doubles championships, and is the only British woman in history to have won titles at all four majors. She was ranked as high as No. 2 in the world in singles, and No. 1 in the world in doubles. Wade was the most recent British tennis player to win a major singles tournament until Andy Murray won the 2012 US Open, and was the most recent British woman to have won a major singles title until Emma Raducanu won the 2021 US Open. After retiring from competitive tennis, she coached for four years, and has also worked as a tennis commentator and game analyst for the BBC and Eurosport and CBS in the U.S. Early life Wade was born in Bournemouth, England, UK, on 10 July 1945. Her father was the archdeacon of Durban. At one year old, Wade moved to South Africa with her parents. There, she learned how to play tennis. When she was fifte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julie Heldman
Julie Heldman (born December 8, 1945) is an American tennis player who won 22 singles titles. In 1969 and 1974, she was ranked as the world No. 5. In 1968 and 1969, she was ranked No. 2 in the U.S. She was Canadian National 18 and Under Singles Champion at age 12, U.S. Champion in Girls’ 15 Singles and Girls’ 18 Singles, Italian Open Singles Champion, Canadian Singles and Doubles Champion, and U.S. Clay Court Doubles Champion. She won three medals at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and three gold medals at the 1969 Maccabiah Games. In 2018, Heldman published a memoir, ''Driven, A Daughter's Odyssey''. The book offers insights into the history of women's tennis in the mid-20th century, including an insider's account of the birth of the tour. Heldman reveals her struggles with the trauma of her mother's emotional abuse and with bipolar disorder. Early life Heldman was born in Berkeley, California, the daughter of Julius and Gladys Heldman. Julius was the 1936 USA National Juni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jan Kodeš
Jan Kodeš (born 1 March 1946) is a Czech former professional tennis player. A three-time major singles champion, Kodeš was one of the premier players in the early 1970s. Kodeš's greatest success was achieved on the clay courts of the French Open, where he won the singles title in 1970 and 1971. However, he also won Wimbledon on grass courts in 1973, although the tournament was largely boycotted by top players that year over the ban of Nikola Pilić by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF). Kodeš never played at the Australian Open, but was twice the runner-up at the US Open, in 1971 and 1973. Kodeš reached his highest ATP ranking of world No. 5 in September 1973. During the Open Era, he won nine top-level singles titles and 17 doubles titles. Kodeš was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1990. In 2013, he received the Czech Fair Play Award from the Czech Olympic Committee. He is an economics graduate of the Prague University. Career statist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Championship Tennis
World Championship Tennis (WCT) was a tour for professional male tennis players established in 1968 (the first players signed a contract at the end of 1967) and lasted until the emergence of the ATP Tour in 1990. A number of tennis tournaments around the world were affiliated with WCT and players were ranked in a special WCT ranking according to their results in those tournaments. The WCT had an important impact on the commercial development of tennis. It instituted a tie-breaker system and outfitted players with colored clothing, a radical idea at that time. WCT also strongly encouraged the audience to cheer for players, rather than politely applaud, as the more staid tennis audiences had done before. They publicly emphasized their prize money structure and special bonus pool as an incentive to attract top players. History World Championship Tennis was founded in September 1967 by New Orleans sports promoter David Dixon, who had earlier witnessed the dreary conditions of the prof ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
