ITF

20 ITFWorld // SPRING 2018 The first open Grand Slam tournament was the French championships of 1968, which had something of a carnival atmosphere OPEN TENNIS This year marks the 50th anniversary of tennis going 'open', with the end of the split amateur and professional circuits. As tennis historian Chris Bowers reports, the ITF found itself centre-stage in a watershed moment in the development of the sport. FEW DATES LAY CLAIM TO BEING SUCH MONUMENTAL DIVIDING LINES IN A SPORT'S HISTORY AS THE EUROPEAN SPRING OF 1968 when tennis finally went 'open'. Records talk about 'in the open era', discussions about the greatest players of all time are prefaced with 'since tennis went open', and some people even think of tennis as dating only from 1968, when it had nearly 100 years of previous history. The fact that it was such a watershed moment makes the run-up to it very hard to fathom from today's perspective. It has parallels with issues like the abolition of slavery and votes for women, in the sense that, once they happened, you wonder who could possibly ever have been against them. The answer to that, in the case of open tennis, lies in the original definition of the sport; indeed those who fought against open tennis felt they were battling to protect tennis's soul. Rod Laver was the first Wimbledon men's champion of the open era In the rules of tennis framed in the years after the ITF's foundation in 1913 (as the International Lawn Tennis Federation, or ILTF), tennis was an amateur sport. If you were paid for playing, you were simply not a tennis player. From the 1920s there were professional circuits, where players who had put a lot into becoming top players and had made their name by winning prestigious titles decided to earn their living by playing exhibition matches in a motley collection of makeshift tennis venues. But once they took money, they were considered no longer part of the tennis family, and were banned from playing in the traditional tournaments (including the Grand Slams and Davis Cup). For 40 years the sport suffered this split amateur and professional world. As national associations increasingly began making under-the-table payments to keep their best players amateur and thus win more prestigious titles, the whole essence of being amateur became a sham, and the official circuit became tainted with the term 'shamateurism'. Talk of open tennis began as early as the 1930s. In 1947 the Indian tennis association proposed abolishing the distinction between amateurs and professionals; in 1948 Bill Tilden proposed open tennis in his autobiography; and in 1953 the Australian great Norman Brookes spoke in favour. But still the split circuits persisted. By 1960 the momentum seemed unstoppable – a motion was put to the ILTF's annual meeting proposing that tennis go open, but it needed a two-thirds majority and fell five votes short. The ILTF's role in the debate also needs to be understood. In those days it was not the professional entity it is today. It had no paid staff, and it didn't own the Davis Cup or any other competition that brought in revenue. It was simply an umbrella federation of the world's national tennis associations, staffed by volunteers – many of them highly competent – whose mission was to keep the national associations happy. And as the national associations ➝ A N N I V E R S A R Y

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