Call it the tale of two Aussies.

Charles Dickens would have liked it because the two cities of his tale - London and Paris - were involved, and these Aussies, as Mr. D. put it, went through the worst of times and the best of times.

Nobody got guillotined, as in the Dickensian yarn. But a lot of people felt like it because these two - Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall - were as sharp as they come, their rackets flashing as blades that cut through the opposition. Including each other as they roamed the planet's tennis playpens, often unnoticed and neglected, but never less than consumed by going for the other guy's jugular.

"We don't know how many times we played," says Laver, the "Rockhampton Rocket," whose greatness was saluted in the naming of the Australian Open's principal ballroom in Melbourne, Rod Laver Arena. "Nobody was counting."

It wasn't like the celebrated 16 year rivalry of Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, closely monitored, often televised, led by Martina, 43-37.

But somebody has counted. Somebody has done it years later following the far-flung movements of Laver and Rosewall, as though shadowing secret agents by haunting libraries and digging through aging newspapers. That somebody was meticulous Austrian tennis historian Robert Geist. He will soon publish his research, hailing Laver the victor, narrowly, 75-66. He tracked down results in such outposts as Nairobi, Kenya; Harare, Zimbabwe; East London, South Africa; Knokke le Zoute, Belgium; Lake Tahoe, Nevada; Perth, Australia, places where Evert and Navratilova would never have ventured.

But like Evert and Navratilova, country boy Rod and Sydneysider Ken developed a bond of friendship and mutual respect despite the intensity of their clashes.

"I thought the number was close, but had no idea," says Rosewall, 71, whose admiring biography has been written by Geist. Rosewall, for one, will never read it, since the tome is in German. Laver, 66, currently hounded by Roger Federer and the talk enveloping the Swiss maestro of a possible Grand Slam, made not one but two of the Quintessential Quadrilateral journeys to a Slam in 1962 and 1969. He won 11 major singles, Rosewall 8. Both undoubtedly would have taken more if their lives hadn't been fragmented by the absurd regulations of their time. You see, they are among the few whose careers spanned three acts: I, the amateur era that ended in 1968.

II, the era of gypsy pros, outcasts really, to whom little attention was paid. Barred from the four majors and the conventional circuit traveled by so-called amateurs, they were in limbo. III, the open era of today, prize money tennis dawning in 1968.

Professional tennis, until 1968, offered a living to but a handful of the world's best players. Carrying the canvas court with them, they played anywhere - high school gyms, ice rinks, large and small arenas, usually poorly lit.

Laver recalls a night of the "bug curfew" in Khartoum. "We played until the swarms of bugs blotted out the lights, and that was good night."

After helping Australia win three Davis Cups, Rosewall turned pro in 1956 to challenge the king, Pancho Gonzalez, as Melburnian Frank Sedgman had done vainly before him. Then another Aussie, Lew Hoad, did the same in 1957 but couldn't dislodge Pancho, the fiery Latino from Los Angeles.

Nor could Aussies Ashley Cooper and Mal Anderson who followed. At last Rosewall and Laver did as Gonzalez subsided. Ken won 14 of an 18 match playoff across the U.S, to determine Pancho's successor. "By 1962 we were getting a little ancient," remembers Rosewall, the "Doomsday Stroking Machine," although never showing signs of deterioration. "We needed new blood. We needed Rod, who had just made his first Grand Slam as an amateur."

The need was desperate because pro tennis was just about dead. Rosewall and Hoad applied a band-aid by pooling their own funds to lure Laver as an attraction into professionalism - a $ 110,000 guarantee over three years - and this may have rescued their ailing trade.

"I admired Ken," says Laver, "but I was younger and never played him as an amateur. My first match as a pro was against him in Sydney. He was too good for me."

Hoad and Rosewall took turns beating up on him for a while, a "welcome to the big league, kid," initiation. Ken won 11 of their first 13 engagements, Hoad 7 of the first 7. Laver, exposed to American winter, was discouraged, wondering what he was doing driving between one-nighters on icy roads when he could have been playing the amateur Caribbean circuit for inflated expense money. But he had pride - "I wanted to play against the best" -- and pulled himself together, though getting a shock in the U.S. Pro Championships at Forest Hills where he had ruled the U.S. as an amateur a year before. Rosewall beat him in the final but all they got was a warm handshake. From each other. The promoter stiffed them, pleading that the tournament was bankrupt. This was all a part of the worst of times, constant uncertainty.

Nevertheless the best of times lay ahead. Adding such as Aussies Fred Stolle, Tony Roche, John Newcombe, Americans Dennis Ralston and Butch Buchholz, Spaniard Andres Gimeno, the pro tour grew stronger, and agitation for open tennis increased.

Astoundingly in 1967 Wimbledon invited the pros to perform there in a small tournament a month following the traditional Big W. Laver's 6-2, 6-2, 12-10, victory in the final capped a well-received week. Wimbledon officials, seeing what they'd been missing, defied the International Tennis Federation by declaring that all players would be welcome in 1968. Seconded by the U.S., opens became a reality.

By that time Laver and Rosewall were in their 30s, but it proved to be prime time. Ken won the first major open, the French, over Rod. Rod reversed that result 12 months later as the second leg of his second Slam.

Both remember their 1972 collision in Dallas, the WCT (World Championship Tennis) final as an Everestian summit. They went at each other furiously, point-and-counter-point for five sets, 3 1/2 hours, a televised struggle that wowed and turned on the U.S. In the concluding tie-breaker Laver led 5-points-to-4 with two serves to come. He southpawed two vicious hooks. But Rosewall - he of the peerless backhand - smacked both for winners, then served the last point of the closest finish of an important championship.

First prize, $ 50,000, was unheard of in that day. Rosewall, drained, slumped in the dressing room, said, "I never dreamed that at 37 I'd be doing something like this for money like this. I thought I'd be selling insurance or something."

Instead he and Laver were selling tennis to the public, and they did it for a long time. Ken won his last title at 43, Hong Kong in 1977; Rod at 37, Orlando, Fla., in 1975. They locked horns for 14 years during their brilliant careers - 141 matches.

"There could have been a few more. I'm still looking," says the stats miner, Geist. "Some people said those one-nighters were nothing but exhibitions, which annoyed us," says Frank Sedgman, "but I'll tell you "Rocket' and Kenny gave everything every time they played. Both great competitors."

Laver held a 22-9 edge during the open era, but Rosewall won their farewell joust at Houston. The tale of two Aussies left us with great expectations (to steal from Dickens again), which are being fulfilled daily on the professional tour. Laver and Rosewall, and their comrades such as Gonzalez and Hoad of the financially shaky one-night stand days, were the intrepid pioneers who kept the pro game alive until open tennis became a reality.