Bill Tilden - Personal life, Influence on tennis, Greatness as a player, Tilden the intellectual, Professional tennis career
Tennis player, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. One of the greatest players of his time, renowned for the ferocity of his serve, he was Wimbledon singles champion three times (1920, 1921, 1930) and doubles champion in 1927. He was also six times US singles champion, and four times doubles champion in the 1920s. In 1931 he turned professional, and was one of the first players to go on circuit. Publisher and editor of Racquet Magazine, he also wrote several books on tennis, and a novel.
William Tatem Tilden II (February 10, 1893 – June 5, 1953), often called "Big Bill", was an American tennis player who was the World No.
Personal life
Born to wealth, Tilden lost his semi-invalid mother when he was 15 and, even though his father was still alive and maintained a large house staffed with servants, was sent a few houses away to live with a maiden aunt. In spite of his world-wide travels, Tilden lived at his aunt's house until 1941 when he was 48 years old. Tilden had no sexual relationships with women at all and apparently very few sexual encounters with members of his own sex until he was well into his 40s and becoming increasingly effeminate in his mannerisms, particularly in the more liberal atmosphere of 1930s Europe.
Although Tilden almost never drank, he smoked heavily and disdained what today would be considered a healthy life style for an athlete;
Influence on tennis
Tilden was a champion player of the 1920s and 1930s who was the single most influential person in the history of tennis.
In the United States' sports-mad decade of the "Roaring Twenties", Tilden was one of the five dominant figures, along with Babe Ruth, Red Grange, Bobby Jones, and Jack Dempsey.
Greatness as a player
Except for an extended period in the 1950s when Pancho Gonzales completely ruled the men's professional tour, there has never been an era in tennis more dominated by a single player. During a 7-year period in the 1920s it was said that Tilden never lost a single important match, particularly in the Davis Cup matches, which in those days had far more importance than they do today. 1 Tennis Player Pre-ATP Rankings with its unofficial but sourced rankings, Tilden is the world's best player for 7 years, second only to Gonzales's 9 No.
Unique among tennis players, Tilden became a great player only at the relatively advanced age of 27.
Tall, lean, and gangly, with long arms, enormous hands, and exceptionally broad shoulders, Tilden possessed what was called at the time a "cannonball" service. Allison Danzig, the main tennis writer for The New York Times from 1923 through 1968 and the editor of "The Fireside Book of Tennis", called Tilden the greatest tennis player he had ever seen.
It was little known at the time, but mid-way through the 20s the tip of Tilden's middle finger on his hand that gripped the racquet became infected and had to be amputated.
In spite of his powerful serve, Tilden preferred to play mostly from the backcourt, where he dazzled opponents with his ever-changing tactics: a mixture of guile, of chopped and sliced shots, of dropshots and lobs, and of sudden powerful ground strokes deep to the corners. He hit superbly angled shots on nearly impossible returns and liked nothing better than to face an opponent who threw powerful serves and ground strokes at him and who rushed the net -- one way or another Tilden would find a way to hit the ball past him.
In 1941, when Bill Tilden was 48 years old, he toured the United States playing head-to-head matches with Don Budge, who at that time was incontestably the greatest player in the world. Tilden lost 51 matches to the 25-year-old Budge — but somehow found the means to beat him 7 times. In the whole history of tennis, only Pancho Gonzales and Ken Rosewall have ever approached the sustained level of Tilden's greatness after reaching the age of 40.
An iconic photograph of Tilden shows him leaping high into the air to hit an overhead smash with classic footwork, form, and power.
Tilden the intellectual
Tilden may have spent more time analyzing the game of tennis than anyone before or since. He always tried to give his paying audience its money's worth and it was frequently written, though never confirmed by Tilden himself, that he would deliberately lose the opening sets of a match in order to prolong the battle and to make it more interesting for both himself and the spectators. (This ploy was confirmed in 1963 by William Lufler, who played on Tilden's pro tour for several years. Lufler, who had become a highly regarded teaching pro — he was instrumental in forming the USPTA, and served as its president 1963-1966 — claimed that Tilden threw the early sets in most matches.) In spite of his occasional overly colorful behavior he was a devout believer in sportsmanship at all costs and above all other aspects of the game, including the final score;
Tilden the consummate showman on the court was also a ham and showman in the larger world.
Professional tennis career
In the late 1920s the great French players known as the "Four Musketeers" finally wrested the Davis Cup away from Tilden and the United States, as well as his domination of the singles titles at Wimbledon and Forest Hills. Tilden had long been at odds with the draconianly rigid amateur directors of the United States Lawn Tennis Association about his income derived from newspaper articles about tennis. For the next 15 years he and a handful of other professionals such as Hans Nusslein and Karel Koželuh barnstormed across the United States and Europe in a series of one-night stands, with Tilden still the player that people primarily paid to see. 1 players, it was often Tilden who ensured the box-office receipts -- and who could still hold his own against the much younger players for a first set or even an occasional match. And in 1945 the 52-year old Tilden and his long-time doubles partner Vinnie Richards won the professional doubles championship -- they had won the United States amateur title 27 years earlier in 1918.
Place in sports history
For approximately 35 years, from about 1920 to 1955, Tilden was generally considered the greatest player who had ever lived, his only rivals being Vines, Budge, and Jack Kramer. In his 1979 autobiography Jack Kramer, the long-time tennis promoter and great player himself, included Tilden in his list of the 6 greatest players of all time.
Tilden, who was one of the most famous athletes in the world for many years, today is not widely remembered despite his former renown. In 1950, in spite of his legal record, which caused him to be shunned by much of the tennis world, an Associated Press poll named Bill Tilden the greatest tennis player of the half-century by a wider margin than that given to any athlete in any other sport.
Prison terms
Tilden was first arrested on Nov. 23, 1946 on Sunset Boulevard when he was caught placing his hand in a teenage boy's pants (the boy was a prostitute whose services Tilden had solicited). The new charge could have been prosecuted as a felony, but the judge merely sentenced Tilden to a year on his probation violation and let the punishment for the new molesting charge run concurrently.
In both cases, apparently, Tilden sincerely believed that his celebrity and his longtime friendship with Hollywood names such as Charlie Chaplin were enough to keep him from paying the consequences of his acts.
After his second incarceration Tilden was increasingly shunned by the tennis world.
Death
Although Tilden had been born to wealth, and earned large sums of money during his long career, particularly in his early years on the pro tour, he spent it lavishly, with much of it going to Broadway shows that he wrote, produced, and starred in.
Tilden was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1959.
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