🎾 Rod Laver An Autobiography¶
Giới Thiệu¶
Rod Laver An Autobiography — tài liệu 294 trang từ thư viện sách tennis.
Chủ đề chính: Wimbledon, Roger Federer
Tóm tắt nội dung (trích từ tài liệu gốc): For Mary and my family Contents Foreword by Roger Federer Acknowledgements Acronyms 1. Bush boy 2. Charlie and Hop 3. Innocent abroad 4. Into the cauldron 5. Breaking through 6. Winning Wimbledon 7. Daring to dream 8. My first Grand Slam 9. The gypsy years 10. If it's Tuesday . . . this must be Khartoum 11. Love match 12. The open tennis revolution 13. Grand Slam II 14. Back to earth 15. Money-go-round 16. For Australia 17. Winding down 18. New horizons 19. Struck down 20. The ultimate honour 21. Life's passing parade Photo Gallery Foreword by Roger Federer If you really love the sport you pla
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Nội Dung Gốc (Tiếng Anh)¶
For Mary and my family
Contents
Foreword by Roger Federer
Acknowledgements
Acronyms
1. Bush boy
2. Charlie and Hop
3. Innocent abroad
4. Into the cauldron
5. Breaking through
6. Winning Wimbledon
7. Daring to dream
8. My first Grand Slam
9. The gypsy years
10. If it's Tuesday . . . this must be Khartoum
11. Love match
12. The open tennis revolution
13. Grand Slam II
14. Back to earth
15. Money-go-round
16. For Australia
17. Winding down
18. New horizons
19. Struck down
20. The ultimate honour
21. Life's passing parade
Photo Gallery
Foreword by Roger Federer
If you really love the sport you play then you must study its history to
understand how it has evolved into the sport we know today.
Few sports have a longer or richer history than tennis and no player occupies a
bigger part of that history than Rod Laver. From my earliest tennis memories,
Rod `the Rocket' Laver stood above all others as the greatest champion our sport
has known.
Winning all four majors in the same calendar year to complete the Grand Slam,
on two separate occasions no less, is one of the greatest feats a player can
accomplish. In 1962, Rod became only the second man to do this. Seven years
later, Rod conquered the game's Everest again to become the first player � man
or woman � to have won the Grand Slam for a second time. No male player has
completed the Grand Slam since.
When you consider the greats who have graced the world circuit since Rod's
second Slam in 1969 � Connors, Borg, McEnroe, Becker, Edberg, Lendl,
Sampras, Agassi, Nadal and Djokovic � you realise just how hard it is to do.
Three of us, Andre, Rafa and myself, have won all four majors but not in the
same year.
This monumental achievement is what sets Rod Laver apart. This is his unique
contribution to tennis history.
It wasn't until the Australian Open in January of 2006 that I actually met Rod.
It was just a few days before that well-recorded occasion when, in front of
15,000 screaming centre court fans and a worldwide television audience, I broke
down and cried just after Rod presented me with the Sir Norman Brookes
Challenge Cup.
I was pretty relaxed but certainly tired after winning the match. When they
called my name to collect the trophy from Rod Laver, in that great Melbourne
Park stadium that bears his name, the magnitude of the moment finally hit me. I
realised how fortunate I was to be presented the Norman Brookes trophy by Rod
himself. This was a moment I will never forget.
There is a footnote to these events. At our first meeting on the Tuesday before
the final, Rod and I had a chance to get to know each other. We discussed my
shyness early in my career. Similarly, Rod mentioned that he, too, was shy as a
young player. It was at this moment that I realised Rod and I had a lot of
similarities, and I really felt comfortable in his presence.
Seeing this, my then coach and good friend of Rod's, Tony Roche, arranged
for Rod and me to get together after my quarter-final and semi-final matches.
Tony had told me so many classic stories about Rod and the good old times from
his playing days, so it was really great to be able to hear some of those
experiences directly from Rod. It was very inspiring meeting someone like Rod,
who is such an important part of the fabric and legacy of our sport. There is no
doubt my chats with Rod over those few days gave me added impetus and
inspiration in my quest for back to back Australian Open crowns.
Since those heady moments in Melbourne, Rod has witnessed my two most
recent Wimbledon final victories � the marathon five setter against Andy
Roddick in 2009 and then against Andy Murray in 2012. I wouldn't presume to
call Rod my lucky charm, but his presence at any tournament is not only
motivational � it also helps to bring out the best in my game. I have always
appreciated it when the greats come back to the arenas in which we play, but
Rod's presence is always incredibly special.
Rod retired from the circuit just a few years before I was born so I never
witnessed his exquisite skills live. I have watched film of him playing in finals
and was mesmerised by his all-round game and incomparable court coverage.
Rod seemed to have no weaknesses and while always a true sportsman on court,
he was also a man of steely determination, and was incredibly strong under
pressure. Rod always brought his best game to the big stage, whether it was a
Grand Slam or a Davis Cup final.
Rod changed from being an amateur player to a professional one, aged 24,
after claiming the Grand Slam in 1962. As a result he was ineligible to play in
the amateur-only grand slam championships � the Australian, the French,
Wimbledon and the US � until a few months before his 30th birthday in 1968,
when these tournaments became open to professionals as well as amateurs. In
the interim Rod missed playing for 21 grand slam titles. We can only guess how
many of these he might have won.
Rod made a huge contribution to the game of tennis over his 22-year career,
which started in 1956. His enormous talent was largely responsible for changing
the way tennis was played. For example, Rod was the first player to master and
consistently use hard hit top spin on both his forehand and backhand sides. For a
left hander this was exceptional because, before the Rocket started wielding that
massive left arm, no southpaw had been able to perfect the top-spin shot off the
backhand side. So this was quite a feat, given the small head on those old
wooden racquets. By this time Rod was on the path to becoming the No. 1 player
in the world. Every other player realised they would have to eventually emulate
his top-spin skills or be left behind. The result was that by the time the 1970s
were in full swing, it was virtually impossible to win a big tournament unless
you hit top spin like it was second nature. Rod Laver literally forced others to
change the way they played the game and rethink their own playing style,
technique and tactics.
Rod was also a primary catalyst for the introduction of open tennis in 1968,
which completely revolutionised the structure of world tennis and, in turn,
changed the game forever. By the second half of the 1960s, Rod was universally
recognised as the best player in the world, with his closest rivals for that mantle
being mainly drawn from the professional ranks, including the great Pancho
Gonzalez and Australian stars like Lew Hoad (Rod's own hero) and Ken
Rosewall. As a result, the separation of the professional players from the
amateur-only grand slam tournaments was becoming increasingly intolerable to
anyone who had the best interest of tennis at heart.
The four grand slam events were beginning to lose their lustre as a result of not
having all the best players compete. Many of the amateur officials were hugely
resistant to change for fear of losing their influence and, often, total control of
their country's players. So it is to the eternal credit of a few forward-thinking
tennis administrators � notably Herman David, the chairman of the All England
Club � that the momentous decision was taken to introduce open tennis in 1968.
This breathed renewed life into the game and enabled the continuing evolution
of tennis into the great world sport it is today. Tennis had entered the modern era
and Rod had played his part.
Rod is quite simply one of the nicest individuals I have ever met. He is warm,
generous and good-humoured. He conducts himself with an endearing humility
that promotes his status as not only a tennis great but a genuine legend of world
sport.
Family comes first with Rod, and my wife Mirka and I have the deepest
admiration for Rod's absolute devotion in caring for his beloved wife, Mary,
during her final years. His personal attributes of total commitment and inner
strength were in play once again. Previously, Mary had been instrumental in
Rod's recovery from a debilitating stroke in 1998 and Rod reciprocated in full,
until her passing in November 2012.
In the following pages, Rod tells the extraordinary story of a talented but shy
freckle-faced kid from outback Queensland who, with the right support from the
right people at the right time, was able to fulfil his father's dream of having a
son win Wimbledon and then go on to become the world's greatest tennis player.
Rod loves tennis and everything about it and this shines through on every page.
After you've finished reading his story, you will understand so much more about
the game we love.
Roger Federer
September 2013
Acknowledgements
So many friends and colleagues made wonderful contributions to this book, and
to the life and career in tennis that it chronicles. Thank you to you all, and to
anyone else I've inadvertently omitted.
Larry Writer came to my home in Carlsbad, California, over some weeks in
October 2012 armed with a tape recorder and hundreds of questions that made it
easy, and a pleasure, to talk about the events of my life. Then Larry helped me to
put my memories and thoughts into the words that you are about to read.
My gratitude to my manager Stephen Walter, a fine man and a dedicated one,
who has always had my best interests at heart.
There is no more knowledgeable tennis man than Geoff Pollard, vice-president
of the International Tennis Federation, president of the Oceania Tennis
Federation, chairman of the ITF Rules of Tennis Committee and Technical
Commission, and president of Tennis Australia from 1989�2010, and I thank
Geoff for reading the text for accuracy and making invaluable suggestions and
amendments.
The tennis skills and winning mentality bestowed upon me by my coaches, the
late Charlie Hollis and Harry Hopman, are detailed in the pages that follow.
Suffice to say that without those special men I could never have been the player
I was.
For their camaraderie and fair but ferocious competition I thank my peers from
Australia's golden age of tennis: Ashley Cooper, Roy Emerson, Neale Fraser,
the late Lew Hoad, John Newcombe, Tony Roche, Ken Rosewall, Frank
Sedgman and Fred Stolle. I also pay tribute to their wives: Helen Cooper, Joy
Emerson, Thea Neale, Jenny Hoad, Angie Newcombe, Sue Roche, Wilma
Rosewall, Jean Sedgman and Pat Stolle. A cheer, too, to non-Aussies Charlie
and Shireen Pasarell, Butch and Marilyn Buchholz, Ray and Susan Moore, and
Cliff Drysdale. I thank my friends the late Frank Gorman, Jim Shepherd, and the
late Mr and Mrs Cereal Shepherd, who took me under their wing when I was
young.
John and Roberta McDonald are friends who have given generously of their
wisdom, friendship and tennis knowledge. It was John who introduced me to his
mate the late Charlton Heston and his wife Lydia, for whom nothing was too
much trouble. Chuck Heston showed me and the other tennis players of the day
that movie stars can be as in awe of sports champions as we are of them.
I thank the author and businessman Robert Edsel for his friendship and his
inspiration. I am similarly in the debt of my old friends Tony Godsick, who now
has the honour of managing Roger Federer, and his wife Mary Jo Fernandez.
What an honour it is that the great Roger Federer has taken time out from his
peerless career to pen the foreword to this book. I appreciate and am humbled by
Roger's kind and generous words. For her friendship and kindness, too, I thank
Roger's wife Mirka.
I am so grateful to my sponsors Rolex, Adidas and the ANZ Bank. They have
had my back through thick and thin. The ANZ was my first bank as a lad, the
rosewood Rolex I treated myself to three decades ago has not missed a beat and
Adidas has been producing the Rod Laver shoe for more than 40 years. We have
history.
Bud Collins happens to be one of the finest tennis writers and personalities
who ever lived. I'm proud to count Bud and his wife Anita as friends. In 1971
Bud and I collaborated on The Education of a Tennis Player, a book of which I
am very proud and which was a wonderful resource for this memoir, each page
jogging my memory as I looked back into the past.
Without the belief, guts and know-how of the late sports promoter and
businessman Lamar Hunt and his son-in-law Al Hill Jr, professional tennis as we
know it could never have happened. We all owe a debt to Lamar and Al, and to
Lamar's wife Norma.
In the gypsy pro years, a promoter with integrity who staged his events
professionally and didn't skip town before his players were paid was worth his
weight in gold. Pat Hughes was one such promoter, as well as an excellent
player and Dunlop sports administrator in London.
IMG, headed by the late Mark McCormack and with Jay Lafave as my
representative, for many years managed my career to perfection.
I admired the late Adrian Quest as a tennis player and a tennis journalist. I
thank him for his lifelong support and wisdom. I am grateful, too, to all the other
fine tennis writers who covered my career accurately and with insight.
Thank you to Chris Clouser, friend, businessman and chairman of the
International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island. He and his wife
Patti have been staunch allies.
The Wimbledon championships were, and remain, special to me, and under the
chairmanship of Philip Brook, the All England Tennis Club is in the very best of
hands. As are the Australian championships, with Steve Wood as chief executive
officer of Tennis Australia.
I thank Wick Simmons and his wife Sloane. Wick, chairman of Nasdaq Stock
Market Inc. and former president of Shearson Lehmann and Prudential
Securities, gave great, much-needed business advice, and was a good friend and
tennis partner.
Tom Gross gave wonderful service as an instructor with Laver�Emerson
Tennis Holidays and is still one of the best MCs in the business.
For helping to make this book a reality, I thank John Tall for so generously and
painstakingly sourcing and supplying many of the photographs that grace this
book, Jennie Fairs for her meticulous research, and Tom Gilliatt, director and
non-fiction publisher, and Jo Lyons, editor, of Pan Macmillan, my publisher.
Thanks also to publicists Tracey Cheetham and Eve Jackson. For putting
Stephen Walter and me in touch with Pan Macmillan in the first place, I owe a
debt to the fine Australian writer Les Carlyon.
Last, and most of all, I thank my much-loved, much-missed wife, the late Mary
Laver, for her love and her courage, for sharing my life journey, for broadening
my horizons, and for helping me to understand that there is more to life than
tennis and that family is everything. Love, too, to my son Rick, his wife Sue and
their daughter and my grand-daughter Riley. Loving thoughts also to my late
parents, Roy and Melba, and brother Bob, to my sister Lois and her husband Vic,
and my brother Trevor and Trevor's wife Betty, whose marvellous and
encyclopaedic self-published recounting of my career, The Red-Headed Rocket
from Rockhampton, was as affectionate as it was accurate and, like The
Education of a Tennis Player, a priceless resource for this book. Another of
Betty's blessings is her wonderful work scouring the Laver photograph albums
to find many of the candid family shots in our photo sections. And by
welcoming me into their lives, Mary's children Ann Marie Bennett and Ron and
Stephen Benson, Ann Marie's husband Kipp and Ron's wife Julie have given me
a gift I treasure.
Acronyms
ATP � Association of Tennis Professionals ILTF � International Lawn Tennis
Federation
ILTPA � International Lawn Tennis Players Association, later changed to
International Tennis Players Association
IMG � International Management Group IPA � International Players Association
IPTPA � International Professional Tennis Players Association (LA) ITPA �
International Tennis Players Association LET � Laver�Emerson Tennis
LTA � Lawn Tennis Association (Yugoslavia) LTAA � Lawn Tennis
Association of Australia NTL � National Tennis League
WCT � World Championship Tennis
1. Bush boy
Tennis was a big part of my life from as far back as I can remember.
What else was a kid to do? Growing up in those years when my family and I
were moving around rural Queensland, I can't remember a house, backyard or
paddock that wasn't littered with tennis racquets and tennis balls . . . along with,
of course, footballs, cricket bats and six stitchers. And it wasn't just me. If you
lived in Australia in the '40s and '50s, those golden, more innocent times before
the public tennis courts that were ubiquitous on Australia's rural and suburban
blocks were banished by houses, flats, offices, parking lots, factories and
shopping malls, tennis was what you played. It was every bit as much a national
pastime as cricket, footy and swimming. A tennis racquet was as prevalent in a
boy's life then as PlayStations, iPods and mobile phones are today. That being
so, and with tennis-mad parents, brothers, in-laws and mates like mine, I had
little choice but to play the game.
I was born on 9 August 1938, just one month before the American Donald
Budge won the first ever tennis Grand Slam, in Rockhampton's Tannachy
Hospital, the third child of Melba (named after Dame Nellie, naturally) and Roy
Laver. My brother Trevor was six years older and Bob had four years on me.
Sister Lois arrived nine years after I came along. Dad was a cattleman, a loving,
caring father but, like most bushies, a tough, hard bloke who treated his own
farm injuries (mainly because there was no hospital handy). Home for us was
Langdale, a 9300-hectare cattle property an hour's drive from the town of
Marlborough, which is 96 kilometres north of Rocky. My father, who was raised
in Gippsland, Victoria, was one of 13 kids, eight of them boys, so the Laver
brothers were able to field the best part of a cricket or football team and four
tennis doubles teams in local comps. My mother also hailed from a sporting
family, the Roffeys. Mum's mother, Alice Roffey, rode horses until she passed
away at age 90.
Queenslanders have always been tough, self-reliant people, but, apart from the
heat, tropical rain and those beautiful old wide-verandah Queenslander homes,
rural Queensland in the 1940s would be all but unrecognisable to anyone who
has known it only in modern times. Most roads were unsealed, and I remember
kangaroos bounding alongside the family car as we travelled the long distances
from town to town, farm to farm. When I was a boy, with World War II being
waged, the federal government introduced measures to aid the war effort. There
were blackouts and brownouts in the cities and larger towns to deter Japanese air
raids, food was rationed and fun was too, with sporting events confined to
weekends. Mum and Dad had to carry personal ID cards. There were fewer
blokes about because many were serving overseas. Short back and sides was the
hairstyle of choice for Queensland men, the vast majority of whom smoked
rollies and wore wide-brimmed felt hats and suit coats in a heatwave.
There was no TV back then, so radio was the main source of entertainment and
war news. The newsreel that was screened before the cartoons and the double
movie bill at the local picture theatre was another way of keeping up to date with
how we were faring against the Germans and Japanese. Churches on Sundays
were full to brimming. After church, people gathered in the church hall to
devour sandwiches and tea and talk about the weather and its effect on crops,
after which it was home for a Sunday roast with family and friends, no matter
how hot the day. Eating out on a Sunday was impossible for the simple reason
that pubs and cafes were not allowed to open on the Sabbath. Other days, when
restaurants were open, proprietors insisted that male patrons wear a collar and
tie. Lew Hoad told me how difficult it was to dine out when he was a young
player travelling the rural Queensland tournament circuit. He said he was
routinely abused and denied entry by restaurant staff if he entered dressed
casually. Dressing to the nines can be a challenge when you're living out of a
suitcase.
When I was a toddler, Dad's favourite sport was tennis and he was determined
that it become ours. To this end my brothers carted great quantities of ant bed �
you knock over an ant hill and crush the pebbles into smooth, hard grit, which
plays a little like fast clay � and loam, laid it in the yard, surrounded it with a
wire perimeter fence, erected a net, scratched out some markings . . . and we had
our own tennis court. We rolled and watered it every day to stop it from
cracking, or being washed or blown into the next paddock by rain or wind. That
upkeep was a small price to pay given the fun we had on that ant-bed court.
There was no quarter given or asked when I got a little older and played against
my brothers, or against my parents for that matter, and making it even more
interesting was that the court's bounce was anything but true so you had no clue
where the ball was going to go. Centre court at Wimbledon it was not.
What with tennis on our makeshift court, backyard cricket in wide, grassy
paddocks and doing my lessons � reluctantly, I have to admit � by
correspondence, life was idyllic on the property for the Laver boys, little blokes
with sun hats, T-shirts, shorts and no shoes. With my flaming hair, sticking-out
ears and 49,000 freckles, I'm told I was the spitting image of Ginger Meggs in
the Sunday newspaper comics. We hunted kangaroos and rode horses, playing at
being cowboys. That Langdale paddock became the endless plains of the wild
west, even though horses and I got off to an unfortunate start. When I was two,
Dad lifted me up into the saddle of one of our horses and led it across the
paddock but somewhere along the way I fell off without my father realising and
when he reached the stable and saw the empty saddle he hightailed it back to
retrieve me.
Life was everything a boy could wish for, so we were not pleased when Dad,
who wasn't the only one finding it tough to make ends meet on the land, took us
off the property and relocated us all to a house in the backblocks of
Marlborough, where he'd found work as a butcher. Trevor, Bob and I attended
the tiny local school where I excelled at tennis against my school mates � though
unlike my tennis pals, schoolwork got the better of me.
When I was 10, we moved again, to Rockhampton, because Dad, now in his
50s, could make more money butchering in a bigger town. Besides, he and Mum
believed my brothers and I would receive a better education at Rockhampton
Grammar School than at Marlborough. And, even more importantly, there was a
well-organised tennis competition at the Rockhampton Association courts,
where my parents played mixed doubles, and my brothers and I singles and
doubles. It was about then that I realised I had a better-than-ordinary talent to
follow and strike a tennis ball, and being naturally left-handed probably helped
me too because lefties were in the minority so I was awkward for others to play
against.
We lived on Lakes Creek Road for a while and then moved to a Queenslander
in Main Street Park Avenue. I'm told I had a thing for climbing up onto the roof
of our house and sitting there, only coming down when I got hungry. I was at
Rocky Grammar for three years and then finished my primary education at Park
Avenue School near our home before following Trevor and Bob to
Rockhampton High School, which they left after completing the first two years.
Trev then worked in our cousin Len Laver's sports store and Bob, much to
everyone's envy, got a job at Paul's Ice Cream Works.
Right through school, I was a handy cricketer, a batsman and a left-arm spinner
who bowled leg breaks. One afternoon when I was 11, I came home after
playing cricket for my school and when Trevor asked me how I'd fared I said,
`Oh, okay, I guess, I took nine wickets for seven runs.' I wasn't being modest, it
was just no big deal for me. I don't think I even realised these were amazing
figures. As far as I was concerned I'd just had a good day and a whole lot of fun.
I was a keen fisherman, sitting for hours on the banks of the Fitzroy River and
often returning home in the gathering dusk with a sugar bag filled with fish for
dinner. I hear that fishing is one of the most dangerous of pastimes and it
certainly proved hazardous for me when, after netting barramundi in the Fitzroy,
I suffered a mishap that easily could have ruined my tennis career. I was absent-
mindedly digging my fish-cleaning knife into the sand when it hit a rock and
somehow the blade sliced into my left hand, my racquet hand, and severed the
tendon in my little finger. Another centimetre or two and it could have cut off
my fingers or slashed the arteries in my wrist. The cut bled heavily. I staunched
the flow by wrapping my hand in my T-shirt and ran home. We lived too far
from the hospital to have the cut stitched and the wound, though a nasty one,
healed itself in time. To this day I have no feeling in that finger. Playing tennis, I
had to alter my racquet grip to compensate for the injury, and my fingers, which
forever after would stick stiffly out, were always catching on the left-hand side
pocket of my shorts. In the end, Mum sewed up my pocket.
In many respects life today is better for children, but I reckon in some ways we
had it very good. Surely playing games in the open air and swimming and
fishing for barramundi in Moore Creek and the waterhole at Park Avenue
Powerhouse is better than going cross-eyed in front of a computer game screen
or living life vicariously watching TV.
We had our movies, but even a night at the flicks was an adventure for us in
those long-ago country Queensland days. In Rockhampton there was an outdoor
theatre . . . just a big canvas screen set up in a vacant lot with rows of folding
chairs in front of it (though you could sit on the grass if you wanted) and a
projector that shone its magical rays through hordes of bugs and summer moths
up onto the canvas rectangle. Somehow, in my memory, it was always John
Wayne rounding up the baddies on that screen, and rain, hail or moonlight we
wouldn't leave until the big fella had brought the last black-hatted desperado to
justice. Even today, 60 years on and with the Duke long a resident of Boot Hill,
I'm one of his biggest fans and will happily watch a western any day of the
week. When I was touring on the pro circuit with Alex Olmedo, it bothered him
that the Indians always got it in the neck in the westerns we watched at the
movies or on the hotel room TV. So Alex, who was an Inca Indian from Peru
whose nickname was `The Chief', would wait until the Indians were winning,
usually in the very early part of the movie, and then he'd up and leave before
they inevitably bit the dust in the final reel. `I know we Indians will lose in the
end, so I'm getting out of here while we're still ahead,' he'd say.
When Dad was looking for a place for us to live, one of his requirements was
that the yard must have sufficient room for us to lay another homemade tennis
court. At the Main Street Park Avenue house we were able to clear the scrub and
Dad, Bob, Trev and I carted the soil and silt in his truck from the Fitzroy River
and laid the court in the clearing. The good thing about silt, apart from being a
good playing surface, is that when it dries and it's windy the sand is blown off
but when you water it again, more sand rises and holds it all together.
This time, we fitted out our home court for night play by stringing four 1500-
watt light bulbs on an overhead wire down the centre of the court. Any of us kids
who broke a bulb with a lob or smash was in for it. Those lights were dim, so
consequently our eyes grew sharp trying to see the ball in the gloom and the
ability I acquired to see the ball clearly and early stood me in good stead right
through my career. The Lavers' court was a magnet for local tennis players and
was in constant use, as we played against each other and all-comers from
kilometres around. One fellow who extended us was the young future champion
Mal Anderson. Both my brothers were excellent players. Trevor was possibly
---
[Cuối tài liệu]
Roger Federer is the greatest player of the modern era, and a true gentleman who treasures the history and
traditions of tennis. When I presented him with the winner's trophy at the Australian Open at Rod Laver
Arena in Melbourne in 2006, he wept with emotion. Roger, the pleasure was all mine. AP Images
It was one of the greatest honours of my life to be the one chosen to hold the Sir Norman Brookes Challenge
Cup high on centre court as the capacity crowd cheered. I like to think they weren't cheering me so much as
all of us and the way we played the game. AP Images
My heart is in Australia, but for many years, since I married Mary, my home has been in California. Here is
Mary and me at our home in Carlsbad in 2011, surrounded and made to feel special by our loving family.
Our son Rick stands directly behind me and behind him is my beautiful granddaughter Riley. To Mary's left
is Ann Marie, her daughter from her previous marriage. Mary's son Steve stands behind Mary; her eldest,
Ron, stands to my right. Courtesy of LAVER FAMILY
My brother Trevor and me... Courtesy of TENNIS AUSTRALIA
And my sister Lois and me (left, in 2013) are the last survivors of my immediate family. It is always special
when we catch up. Courtesy of LAVER FAMILY
Not a day goes by when I don't count my blessings. I've led a fortunate life. Courtesy of TENNIS
AUSTRALIA
Copyright
First published 2013 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney
Copyright � Rodney Laver 2013
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity
(including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
ISBN: 978-1-74261-297-3
ESIBN: 978-1-63319-456-4
Typeset in 12.75/17.5 pt Fairfield by Midland Typesetters, Australia Index by Sue Jarvis
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