Tennis pays court to Rosewall 50 years after

"Muscles" Rosewall was talking about his Australian compatriot, "Rocky" Hewitt, which just goes to show that ironic nicknames span the generations. Physically, neither Ken Rosewall nor Lleyton Hewitt amount to much more than a drink of water until it comes to playing tennis.

To be accurate, the skinny Hewitt, at 5ft 11in, is a giant beside the 5ft 7in Rosewall, and "Rocky" alludes to an aggressive attitude on court as well as a fondness for Sylvester Stallone films. Rosewall was an exquisite player whose economical style made the game look easy, a classicist in an era of pure tennis: "before," he says, "the advent of the really good, big rackets."

Rosewall remains the youngest ever and also the oldest ever winner of the men's singles title at the Australian Championships, and he will be there again next month, aged 68, to mark the 50th anniversary of his initial success by competing in the senior mixed doubles alongside the 39-year-old Liz Smylie.

"I was fortunate as an 18-year-old to win the Australian and the French in that same year, '53," he says, "and I was lucky enough still to be around when open tennis started in '68." Rosewall won the first tournament of the open era, in Bournemouth in 1968, and the first Grand Slam men's singles title of the open era at the 1968 French Championships. He was 37 when he won his fourth Australian Championship, in 1972.

Of course, there was more to his success than simply being in the right place at the right time, as Rosewell will concede if pressed: "Day in and day out my game was pretty competitive, because I was fairly consistent and I basically had very few things that would go wrong."

Hewitt, the 21-year-old Wimbledon champion and world No 1, is expected to win his home Grand Slam tournament. "When you become No 1," Rosewall says, "there's always a certain amount of pressure. Their idea is to stay No 1, and it does put a lot more stress and strain on their game every time they walk on the court. But Lleyton is a very strong character. The way he plays the game shows that he's going to be a top player for many years, as long as he stays healthy and retains the same amount of desire. He will be No 1 and favourite for the Australian Open, and, having been sick [with chickenpox] before the last one, he'll be preparing in a way that will really put him in good condition and good form."

Rosewall won every major singles title except Wimbledon, where he lost in four finals over a period of 20 years. When he played Jaroslav Drobny, in 1954, the sympathy vote was with the Czech-born, adoptive Briton. The final was viewed as Drobny's last chance, while the young Aussie would no doubt have numerous other opportunities. In 1974, the sympathy was with Rosewall against Jimmy Connors, the American upstart. Rosewall was the runner-up, just as he had been to Drobny and to his fellow Australians Lew Hoad (1956) and John Newcombe (1970).

"Everybody tries hard at Wimbledon," Rosewall says, "and I know, from an Australian point of view, it's one of a player's ambitions to play and to win at Wimbledon. That was mine. The others, of course, were to play Davis Cup for Australia and win your own national championship. I had some good opportunities at Wimbledon, and I obviously missed a lot of years in between, but that can be said for a lot of the other top players, too, including [Frank] Sedgman and Hoad and [Rod] Laver and even [Pancho] Gonzales, who missed so many great years of his tennis career. I might have had a good chance of winning the title in those years when I was in the pro ranks, because I did come back and play in two more finals."

Tim Henman has not faced the agony of losing in one Wimbledon final, never mind four, but his quartet of semi-finals have resulted in two defeats by Pete Sampras, one by Goran Ivanisevic and one by Hewitt. "Tim has a pretty good temperament," Rosewall says. "He's been No 1 in Great Britain for quite a number of years and there is a lot of pressure on him to perform, particularly at Wimbledon. I have watched him play a lot of matches on the different surfaces. I think he has the ability, but I think in some ways he's got to find something else to give more variation in his game. I don't want to be too critical, because Wimbleon semi-finalist four times, plus all of his other wins, is a top effort. But there is something in his game that is holding him back when, in his own mind and a lot of other people's minds, he should be winning more events."

Henman has taken a degree of pace off his serve in favour of accurary. Could that lead to opponents having less fear of Henman's game? "That's certainly a possibility," Rosewall says, "because players in today's game all seem to return serve a lot better, and there's a tendency to stand back a little bit further and have a good swing at it. If you're a serve and volleyer, certainly the Rebound Ace surface doesn't help as much, and that's why Tim is usually a much more competitive player on the grass at Wimbledon, or on any grass court. On other surfaces he's just got to find a little bit more consistency and variation."

Sampras, who refers to Rosewall as "one of those classy Aussies" he studied on video, has decided to continue playing after his triumph at the United States Open, though the Californian will not be travelling to Australia this time. His success at Flushing Meadows last September was astonishing. "That's true," Rosewall says. "Pete was fortunate to get through his match with [Greg] Rusedski. After that, he was off and running. On his day, I don't think you can write him off, and if he has a fair number of tournaments before Wimbledon this year I think he's in with a chance.

Recounting life on Jack Kramer's professional circuit between 1957 and 1968, after leaving the official, amateur game, Rosewall says: "It was very challenging. In my last year as an amateur I'd just turned 22, and it was quite an experience to be one of the players to travel around the world with the Australian team, a very good learning period, with good experience of Davis Cup and Wimbledon finals, and everything else. But there was no money with the tennis, and going into the professional ranks, with Jack Kramer running the pro circuit, was an opportunity for us to improve our tennis and to make our future life a bit more secure financially.

"I had a lot to learn. I became a better player as a professional, playing against the likes of [Pancho] Gonzales and [Pancho] Segura and [Frank] Sedgman, and [Tony] Trabert, and even Jack Kramer himself. As the years went on, the group expanded, with Alex Olmedo, Lew Hoad and the other Austalian Davis Cup players, [Mal] Anderson, [Ashley] Cooper, and Alex Omedo, joining us. And Rod Laver did a lot to help pro tennis keep going when he came in with us at the beginning of 1963."

Rosewall's match against Laver in the WCT final in Dallas in 1972 ranks in the top 10 in Steve Flink's book, The Greatest Matches of the Twentieth Century. "I think the main thing – and I know Rod felt the same way – is we were part of a circuit that helped to put professional and open tennis on a businesslike basis. It certainly encouraged other tournament directors and sponsors to be part of tennis, and that helped the game to grow and be exposed a lot more through the advertising medium and television."

Professionals and amateurs were first allowed to play against each other in 1968, with Rosewall winning the inaugural open tournament, in Bournemouth, and going on to win the first Grand Slam event of the open era at Roland Garros. "You can't really compare the tournaments now with the the amateur days, or even the early events in open tennis," Rosewall says. "The Australian Championships is so much different now in terms of the facility and the surface they play on, and the sponsorship, and the crowds – not even thinking about the money – and the depth in the competition is so much greater.

"The Grand Slam events just became too big for the older tennis facilities, like Kooyong, and Forest Hills. Only Wimbledon and Roland Garros were able to keep pace with the growth of the game. The site of the Australian Open in Melbourne, so close to the city centre, is a great location."

Tennis Australia has taken care to honour the nation's great players. In 2000, the Centre Court at Melbourne Park was named Rod Laver Arena. Next month, Show Court One will become Margaret Court Arena. Laver and Court are the only Australians to have accomplished the Grand Slam of winning all four of the world's major singles championships in a calendar year (Laver twice, in 1962 and 1969, Court in 1970). Pat Cash, the 1987 Wimbledon champion, is to become the 25th former player to be inducted into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame. Rosewall was inducted in 1995.

Rosewall was not impressed, however, by the switch from grass at Kooyong to the rubberised concrete Rebound Ace at Melbourne Park in 1987. "A lot of people didn't agree with the change of surface," he says, "but because it was a multi-purpose stadium they needed a so-called low-maintenance type surface. Rebound Ace came after my time of playing any decent tennis, but I'm not a supporter of that particular surface. I don't think a lot of club and social players enjoy playing on it that much.

"Tournament players can adapt fairly readily, although it doesn't suit all of the tournament players' games. For example, it doesn't suit Sampras's game, although he won there twice, because it does take quite a bit away from the serve-and-volley type player. And that's why this next Australian Open you'll probably find top baseline players – Hewitt, or [Andre] Agassi, or [Marat] Safin, or [Juan-Carlos] Ferrero – fighting out the final. It's a very high-bouncing type surface, higher than any other hard court surface they play on. And it's very hot on the feet." Never the less, the old master is not in a hurry for the carpet slippers.