Friday, March 19 2004
LIFE AND TIMES OF THE TIE-BREAKER

Hell hath no fury like a guy whose cocktail hour is scorned.

Jimmy Van Alen was that guy a half-century ago, his hackles raised like storm-stirred waters of nearby Narragansett Bay where Australia seized America’s Cup from the U.S. in 1983. His ire developed into more than a tempest in a gin-and-tonic glass. James Henry Van Alen, the cherubic patrician overseer of the Newport (Rhode Island) Casino, the world’s oldest tennis parlor, was so perturbed by what he deemed an atrocity on his lawn that he lashed out at the game he loved -- and altered it radically.

It was a long gestation period, 11 years, but Jimmy’s brainchild (a bastard in some eyes) finally arrived, to be baptized by himself: the tie-breaker.

Nobody playing these days – well, maybe Martina Navratilova -- can remember a time without breakers because the set-settling method with 7-6 scores – looking like typographical errors at the beginning -- is entering a 35th year. Practically the only significant departure from 127-year-old rules, it was sanctioned by the U.S. Tennis Association in 1970, at just about the time of Andre Agassi’s April birth.

Believing there’s no fate worse than deuce, Van Alen began tinkering with the scoring system, trying to simplify it and eliminate such “abominations” as the 21-19 set concluding Andy Roddick’s quarter-final victory over Younes El Aynaoui in last year’s Australian Open. Labeling those all-too-commonplace long day’s journeys into night as “urological torture for players and spectators.” he was regarded as a heretic, intent on smashing the commandments of a game in which change has been glacial.

The match that radicalized him was the 1954 final of the Newport Invitational, a fixture on the American circuit, in those days confined to amateurs. It took Ham Richardson 4 hours to defeat a fellow Yank, Straight Clark, 6-3, 9-7, 12-14, 6-8, 10-8. That 83 game journey would have lasted 65 games if the future tie-breaker had been in force.

Van Alen was seething. “The match everybody wanted to see,” he would recall, “was the doubles final with the great Aussies – Neale Fraser and Rex Hartwig against Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall. But that atrocious singles kept going on and on , and eventually we had to put the doubles on an outside court.”

The pleasant, obligatory early evening cocktail hour had been violated.

There had to be a better way, he figured, perhaps thirstily. His figuring produced a way to keep score that Jimmy called VASSS: Van Alen Streamlined Scoring System. Essentially a re-do of ping-pong scoring, requiring 31 points to win a match (or set), it went nowhere. He tried to sell it to the poobahs of the game, some of whom listened only because Jimmy was wealthy and operated the oldest of American tournaments. But nothing came of it in the unchanging sport.

Nevertheless, he was a dauntless lobbyist. In 1965 he decided to follow an example of his grandfather, who had gone to war (the U.S. Civil War) in rich guy style of the time, hiring, equipping and leading his own regiment. Jimmy bought the services of the world’s best, the handful of outcast pros of the pre-open era – Rod Laver, Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall, Pancho Gonzalez plus six others – and staged his own tournament with his own VASSS rules.

Since pro tourneys and prize money were scarce, and he was putting up $ 10,000, a huge sum then, the pros would have played barefoot on broken glass, although Pancho Segura said, “Senor Vassseline’s method is half-VASSS to me.”

One of the articles of Jimmy’s new faith was the tie-breaker, to be used at 30-points-all. It was primitive: best of 8 points. Mike Davies beat Rosewall, 5-3 in the original. Neither remembers the occasion. It was also unsatisfactory. If tied at 4-4, the umpire ordered a replay.

However, with help from referee Mike Blanchard and sports historian Frank Phelps, Van Alen reformed the breaker as “Sudden Death” – best of 9 points. Startlingly it was accepted by the U.S. for use at 6-games-all. This was the third year of open tennis, 1970, the experiment coming about at the urging of Bill Talbert, director of the U.S. Open, who saw schedule-making relief in the elimination of elongated deuce sets.

Van Alen was elated, but now it was the players’ turn to be furious. They hated tie-breakers, a nerve-frazzling departure from their upbringing. They had been alarmed by a vignette at the U.S. Pro Championships in Boston. In an early round Cliff Drysdale [now the ESPN commentator] won the first set from Rosewall, and they reached 6-6 in games, then 4-4 in the tie-breaker – simultaneously match point for Drysdale, set point for Rosewall.

“Never been in anything like that in my life,” said Drysdale, who won the vital point. Whereupon all the leading names signed a petition demanding that Talbert junk the perceived gimmick for the major championship in New York.

Talbert laughed it off. “Of course they’ll be nervous but the fans will love it. Did you ever know a player who bought a ticket?”

Although he was right, it was a contradiction to “what we had taken as the gospel all our lives,” said Tom Gorman, a U.S. Davis Cupper. “If you don’t lose serve, you can’t lose. But…”

Gorman didn’t lose serve at the Pennsylvania Grass Championships. But neither did his foe, Haroon Rahim, the winner by one point of the closest match ever played, 6-7 (3-5), 7-6 (5-1), 7-6 (5-4), determined on match point for both.

Ivo Karlovic knew the feeling at the recent Australian Open, even though he held his devastating serve throughout two matches. The “Croat Croaker” lost to Todd Martin, 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (9-7).

The rest of the world liked the idea, but refused to follow the U.S. to “Sudden Death.” Australia in 1971, Wimbledon in 1972 and France in 1973 adopted Jimmy’s offspring, but with the now familiar variation on his theme – he disparagingly called it “Lingering Death” -- reinstating the deuce principal with a winning margin of at least 2-points necessary. After five years of 9 points max, and simultaneous set and match points, the U.S. went along with the majority, though standing alone in the insistence that all sets are created equal. No 21-19 fifth sets at Flushing Meadow.

Only two U.S. singles championships have been decided by a breaker in the ultimate set. Martina Navratilova lost both: 1981 to Tracy Austin, 1-6, 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-1), and 1985 to Hana Mandlikova, 7-6 (7-3), 1-6, 7-6 (7-2). She had better luck in the 1987 mixed final with Emilio Sanchez, edging Betsy Nagelsen and Paul Annacone, 6-4, 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (14-12).

The game’s tabernacle, Centre Court, Wimbledon, and Bjorn Borg played parts in two of the most dramatic breakers. Bjorn’s debut on the celebrated sod as a 17-year-old in 1973 wouldn’t have been much noticed, opposing an Indian, Premjit Lall, except that they weaved through the Big W’s longest singles breaker, 38 points: 20-18 to Borg, ending the 3-set match. The system was so new that the two players, court officials and spectators had trouble keeping up, and much laughter was heard.

Seven years later, by now the master of Centre, the icy-nerved Swede was embroiled in the most intense of situations, reaching for his fifth straight title time and time again in the 22-minute overtime somehow kept alive on the brink by John McEnroe. It became known as the Battle of 18-16, although Borg won the championship war, 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-7 (16-18), 8-6. But the feisty McEnroe, who had squelched 2 championship points in the 10th game of the set, kept dodging through the 34 point trap, saving five more before winning it on his 7th set point.

Borg was also a combatant, the loser to Jimmy Connors, in the most excrutiating U.S. breaker. It ended the pivotal third set of the 1976 championship bout. Connors won, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (11-9), 6-4, prying out of 4 set points.

An Aussie, John Frawley, was involved in the most lingering of all the extra innings deaths, 50 points worth – 41 points too long, Van Alen would have said -- Wimbledon in 1985. He and Paraguayan Victor Pecci were beaten by the Danish-Swedish amalgam of Michael Mortensen and Jan Gunnarson, 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (26-24).

As for the longest TBs in the other majors:

Australian -- German Silke Meier beat Aussie. Jane Taylor, 7-6 (15-13), 2-6, 6-2, in 1995. Italian, Omar Camporese, beat Swede Lars Wahlgren, 6-4, 6-2, 7-6 (17-15), in 1992.

French --Natalie Dechy beat Stephanie Foretz, both French, 6-7 (14-16), 7-6 (7-1), 6-1, in 1999. Aussie Wayne Arthurs beat American Andy Roddick, 4-6, 7-6 (16-14), 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, in 2002

U.S. -- Czech Hana Mandlikova beat Frenchwoman Nathalie Herreman,6-3, 6-7 (11-13), 6-2, in 1987. Croat Goran Ivanisevic beat Canadian Daniel Nestor, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (20-18), in 1993.

The overall female record is 40 points, American Tara Snyder topping Swiss Emmanuelle Gagliardi, 6-7 (19-21), 6-1, 6-1, at Madrid five years ago. “I thought it would never end, but it did – the wrong way,” says Snyder. “But it must have been too much for Emmanuelle.”

But the most compelling probably cost Mrs. Andre Agassi (aka Steffi Graf) the 1986 U.S. title by an inch. A 17-year on the rise, she held a match point against champ-to-be Navratilova in the semis at 8-points-to-7. Her backhand passer down the line seemed a sure winner – but the tape interfered. After winning, 6-1, 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (10-8), Martina won the title over Helena Sukova, whom Steffi would have likely beaten.

Jimmy Van Alen’s own death was sudden at age 88 in 1991. He struck his head in a fall at his Newport home.

That day, in a Wimbledon semifinal, defender Stefan Edberg lost his title to eventual champ Michael Stich, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-2). Edberg didn’t lose serve. Afterwards, learning of Van Alen’s death, Stefan said, not disrespectfully, “If he hadn’t lived, Michael and I might still be out there playing.”

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