ITF

ITF World Spring 2020 15 Above A media career followed for Stolle a er his playing days. Above right Emerson and Stolle having a drink together PHILIPPE CHATRIER AWARD "When you're nervous and you're tight and you get through and win, the next match becomes a hell of a lot easier." Emerson aside, he ranked the remarkable Ken Rosewall as his toughest opponent in the pro ranks, even ahead of Laver. "With Kenny you never got any cheap points. He never ever missed," he said. Asked to assess his own game, Stolle believed he had a good serve and return, but lacked the uncompromising will to win of his father, Bill, a former player and Sydney railways labourer who in 1960 led a nine-month fundraising drive to rescue young Fred from life as a bank teller and facilitate his first tennis trip abroad. Stolle believes the fact he has not lived in Australia in more than four decades has cost him and other expats in terms of recognition, as did the fact he failed to win either of the two titles his country value most. Easily the biggest disappointment was his trio of Wimbledon finals losses from 1963 to 1965. "Better to have run second three times than not run at all, but if you win a Wimbledon title and you're Australian you're made for life, and that's not the case if you're runners-up, and I know that," said Stolle. For the 191cm serve-volleyer, Roland Garros was always his Slam-least-likely, so the 1965 French triumph – beating Tony Roche – was a surprise to many, not least Stolle himself. The following year, controversially unseeded, the snub helped to propel him to the US Championship title, with a rare big-match win against Emerson followed by a four-set victory over Newcombe. In 1966, the young father turned professional for a US$90,000 contract over two years; a "bargain", he thought, because it only required him to play 42 weeks a year, not 48. The move gained the unexpected support of Hopman, who had been critical of the defection of the likes of Laver, Rosewall and Lew Hoad in the years before, but encouraged Stolle to join them if the price was right. "We had our ups and downs with Hop, but eventually he and I were very good friends and I even gave a eulogy at his funeral," added Stolle. "It was something that had to be done and it was a tough thing, but it just shows you the respect that I had for him and that he had for me at the end." A believer in what can be gained from hard lessons, or, well, "kicks in the backside", the International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee can reflect on plenty of his own, including a famous Davis Cup selection snub in 1963, and the words that followed his inclusion for Australia's 1961 tie against Italy in Melbourne. "At the introduction against the Italians in the town hall Mr Hopman got up and said 'well, we have a three-man team in Neale, Roy and Rod, and Fred's a good workhorse but he's never going to have the talent to play for Australia'," Stolle recalled. For a player who would build a 13-3 record and become a three-time Davis Cup champion, it was a motivating, perhaps sobering, moment. And, not for the first or last time, cheers to that. n

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