The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Manolo Santana - an obituary: He made Spain a tennis country

2021-12-12T07:39:05.607Z


A Spaniard had never won a tennis Grand Slam title, then came Manolo Santana. He became the pioneer who would later be followed by stars like Rafael Nadal. An obituary.


Enlarge image

Manolo Santana in 2015

Photo: fotopress / Getty Images

It was still the white sport.

The tennis players stepped onto the pitch in crisp white shirts, no logo, no sponsor, no colors.

Violations against it were punished by the strict rulers.

But Manolo Santana didn't care before July 1, 1966.

When he stepped on the sacred turf for the Wimbledon final against the American Dennis Ralston, he wore the Real Madrid emblem on his polo shirt.

Real's Vice President Raimundo Saporta, the deputy of the legendary Santiago Bernabéu, had flown to London the day before to bring him the club's crest.

A hotel employee sewed it onto the tennis dress of the avowed Real fan Santana - with that he beat Ralston in three sets and became the first Spaniard to win at Wimbledon.

And the tournament officials turned a blind eye.

"Grass is for cows"

Triumph at Wimbledon on the underground that Santana actually loathed.

"Grass is for cows" - the sentence that tennis professionals, who didn't like Wimbledon, liked to repeat so much later, is ascribed to him.

He grew up on ashes, he loved the red ashes, the Spaniards, a people of clay court specialists, decades later.

It goes without saying that the star of Manuel Santana, whom everyone called Manolo, rose in 1961 in Roland Garros, the most famous and largest clay court tournament in the world.

Seeded at number six in the French tennis championships, Santana marched through the tournament.

His semi-final match against Rod Laver electrified the fans, in the end the Spaniard got the upper hand in five sets 3: 6, 6: 2, 4: 6, 6: 4 and 6: 0.

He annoyed the final opponent Nicola Pietrangeli with eternally long rallies, again it went over five sets until Santana triumphed 6-2 in the last set.

Already this year he surprised the competitors with the backhand topspin praise, a stroke that he brought into men's tennis.

The role model for Nadal and Co.

Never before had a Spaniard won a Grand Slam title, Santana became the pioneer, followed by Rafael Nadal, Conchita Martínez, Andrés Gimeno, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, Sergi Bruguera and the others.

Since then, Spain has been a tennis nation.

For Santana, the successes are above all the start of a great career, in the 1960s he was one of the stars of the scene: in 1964 he repeated his victory at the French Open, again he won against the unfortunate Pietrangeli.

After that, he feels confident and strong enough for new challenges.

The US Open in Forrest Hills was also played on grass at that time, and the Spaniard was eliminated several times in the first round.

First European win at the US Open since 1928

But now, with two Grand Slam titles from Europe behind him, he is no longer afraid to play his qualities on unfamiliar terrain.

In the semifinals of the US Open 1965 there was a showdown with Arthur Ashe, the rising star of US tennis, ten years later the first black professional to win Wimbledon.

Santana beats him in four sets, he repeated that in the final against South African Cliff Drysdale.

Santana is the first European to win the US Open - since 1928, since Henri Cochet, one of the famous four musketeers, won for France.

The only thing missing now is the Wimbledon victory, he is preparing for it like never before, for five weeks he trains exclusively and obsessively on grass, so much meticulousness was still the exception at the time.

It's worth it, the success in London has finally made it a legend in the sporting country of Spain.

Learned the game as a ball boy

Santana wore down his opponents, he played seemingly impossible angles, always seemed a fraction of a second faster than his competition.

He claims to have learned the extraordinary coordination and flexibility of the wrist as a ball boy in Madrid's Club de Tenis Velàzquez.

Santana had already made a little extra money as a child, he came from a poor family, every peseta is welcome.

At a time when tennis is still considered an imperial sport, Santana works her way up, to the top.

He is received and honored by Spain's ruler Franco.

At that time Spain was still a dictatorship, like all dictatorships, it likes to decorate itself with sporting successes.

The triumphs of Real Madrid in European football and the victories of Manolo Santana are also exploited by the regime for propaganda purposes.

Even after the end of the Franco dictatorship, this did not harm Santana's reputation.

Not even the fact that after winning the Olympic Games in Mexico in 1968 - tennis was a demonstration sport at the time - he gradually withdrew from active sport.

As captain of the Spanish Davis Cup team and as coach of world-class player Manuel Orantes, he remained loyal to the sport for many years.

Manuel Manolo Santana died on Saturday at the age of 83.

Spain's King Felipe called after him: "There are people who become legends and make a country great." Santana made the tennis country Spain great.

Source: spiegel

All sports articles on 2021-12-12

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-10T09:34:01.118Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.