Guillermo Vilas in his first rental tournament. Photo: IG @guillermovilasok
The 1968 season was historic for world tennis such as the barriers between professionals and amateurs were abolished. And the rented tennis players – few, but of the highest level – were able to return from that year to the Grand Slam tournaments and the Davis Cup, which they dominated as expected. And it was also historic for William Vila. It was his debut on the international circuit.
Also that year, the most important of the tournaments in our environment, the Republic Championship on the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis courts, played from 4 to 11 November, took on the category of To open (open) and thus brought the great personalities of the time. Among them, Australians Roy Emerson (man who has amassed 11 Grand Slam titles) and Rod Laver, the prodigious southpaw who had won the Grand Slam in 1962 before becoming a “pro” and who would join him again in 1969, an unrepeatable undertaking among men until today. Other figures were the American Fred Stolle, the Czech Jan Kodes and the Spanish Andrés Gimeno (later Roland Garros champion).
And it was in that tournament, when a very young Vilas – just turned 16 – contested what would be considered the first tournaments of his campaign on a rented field. Vilas appeared as a promising player in Argentina even though his full entry into the circuit took place from 1972, with the European tour.
Vilas went straight into the second round of the Republic Open e he beat Brazilian Carlos Alberto Fernandes in five difficult sets: 6-0, 2-6, 6-3, 4-6 and 7-5.
Fernandes was a talented tennis player, even if not the most relevant in his country (a condition enjoyed by Thomas Koch, the very idol of Vilas, the same Koch who would rise to the semifinals in that Open to fall to Laver). Fernandes has competed in major tournaments for a decade, highlighting his access to the quarter-finals of Roland Garros in 1961. By the time he landed in Buenos Aires, already 32, he was preparing to retire to devote himself to teaching.
More by Guillermo Vilas. A year later, already in 1969, in his second appearance at the Open of the Argentine Republic. Photo: IG @guillermovilasok
And the first loss …
The victory over Fernandes allowed Vilas to compete in the round of 16 where another experienced player, the American Herbal Fitzgibbonwho beat him in four sets: 6-1, 8-10, 7-5 and 6-0.
Weeks earlier, Fitzgibbon had won the bronze medal in singles at the Mexico Olympics, where he also won the gold medal in mixed doubles with Julie Heldman. But tennis was an exhibition sport there (only in Seoul, two decades later, did it regain its status as a full-fledged sport at the Olympics).
But Fitzgibbon, a native of New York and a student at Princeton, had his piece of history that season: in the opening round of Wimbledon. beat the Yugoslavian Niki Pilic (semifinalist of the previous year) e He thus became the first “amateur” to beat an All England professional on the pitch. The distinctions between amateurs and professionals were diluted soon after.
During his campaign, Fitzgibbon won a few singles and doubles titles at home (most notably Cincinnati) but retired from the tour in the early 1970s: he was much more successful as a financier on Wall Street until he retired to a community in Vero Beach, Florida to devote himself to teaching tennis and supporting charities.
Vilas, that same year, at the Orange Bowl.
Meeting with Laver
That first experience among professionals gave Vilas the confidence to face the youth season, where he quickly became one of the best in the world: the following month he won the Orange Bowl for the under 16, beating the Mexican Emilio Montaño in the final, after beating in the started in front of another name that would make history, a certain Jimmy Connors … Later, Vilas would build his own story in the República Open, which he won six times (1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1979) and where he also played the finals of 72 and 81.
That precursor tournament of 1968 distributed $ 17,500 in prizes, a figure appreciated for the time, of which three thousand corresponded to the champion Emerson: he defeated Laver in the decisive match 9-7, 6-4, 6-4. Laver had just won Wimbledon and was, of course, a true idol of tennis at all latitudes: Vilas always remembered that day when, being just a young dreamer, he could gather and train for a while with Laver in a Buenos Aires court.
The women’s title (and a check for a thousand dollars, a third of the men’s) went to an English woman, Ann Haydon-Jones. Her favorite was Nancy Richey, an American, but her injury prevented her from playing in the final.
Source: Clarin
