My Champion of Champions: Bud Collins, Veteran US broadcaster and author, on Rod Laver
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Your support makes all the difference.My champion of champions is Rod Laver. His qualities can be summarised easily: as a player he did everything, and he completed two Grand Slams, winning every Slam as an amateur in 1962, and every Slam in 1969 in the Open era, the 40th anniversary of which is this year.
I'd say Laver in 1969 is probably the greatest season a player has had. I remember Wimbledon that year especially well. I'd been commissioned to write a book with him. What I didn't tell him was that the publishers only wanted it if he completed the Grand Slam. He had enough to worry about. His wife was pregnant, and it was a difficult pregnancy.
I recall his second-round match against India's Premjit Lall and Laver went two sets down. It was inexplicably played on an outside court. I rushed to watch and it was so packed all I could see were the arms going up as they served. Of course Laver came back to win.
'The Bud Collins History of Tennis' is out now in paperback. Collins' 1969 book about Laver, 'The Education of a Tennis Player', is about to be re-released.
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