March 14, 2005 UNKNOWN ROB FAHEY REVEALS HIMSELF AS THE WORLD'S REAL TENNIS CHAMP Seldom do I get a chance to stray from tennis as most of us know it, and dig into the living past by watching the parent game that is pretty much under cover. Over a weekend in Boston I had the good fortune to watch a wizard named Rob Fahey put on amazing shows with a racket, a peerless practicioner in his curious precinct, every bit as commanding as anyone on the ATP or WTA circuits. Where did tennis come from?  What was the origin of the sport in which such as Andre Agassi and Martina Navratilova have made millions? A strongarmed, little known Aussie, Rob Fahey could tell you.  In fact, he's still there, as though this were 1510 rather than 2005.  Not quite the reaper of  millions as a gamesplayer, Fahey walked out of the Tennis & Racquet Club in Boston (sister city to his current hometown, Melbourne) $ 3950 richer March 13, and looking quite pleased with himself.  Deservedly so, having won the U.S. Open singles and doubles championships in his more mature branch of the game. A commoner, Fahey nevertheless has a couple of things in common with perhaps the most famous of all tennis players, old “Hampton Court Fats” -- aka Henry VIII, a 16th century ruler of England.  Not only a love for tennis but the fact that Fahey is also a king, and one with a world-wide realm at that.  Modestly Rob wears no crown, and none in his luggage. He wouldn't be recognized at airports, and is never seen on TV. “US Open?” you say.  “But what about Flushing Meadow?” Fahey admits he has heard about that come-lately affair with its 23,000 seat Ashe Stadium and million-dollar first prize, the place where Roger Federer and Svetlana Kuznetsova most recently conquered.  But Rob was content to show his stupendous stuff for as many as 75 folks crammed into the gallery as he charged through the tournament on the loss of one set.  After dethroning the 2004 champ, Bostonian Tim Chisholm, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2, Rob coupled with his professional colleague at Royal Melbourne Tennis Club, Ruraidh Gunn, for a 6-4, 6-2, 6-2, victory over Limeys Nick Wood and Mike Gooding. At 36, with slate blue eyes very much on the ball, and powerful legs and aggressive approach intact, Robert Fahey was reared in Hobart, the charming capital of the Australian isle's remote island state, Tasmania. To zoologists, a Tasmanian devil is a small but fierce marsupial, found only there. To foes across the planet, Fahey is a two-legged Tasmanian devil, a predator.  Unfazed by wandering the globe for well over a decade -- “it's a good life, I'm lucky” -- he remains intent on keeping the world title that has been his since 1994. His game, called real, royal or court tennis, depending on who's doing the calling, is the great grand-daddy of what Marat Safin and the Williams Sisters are laboring at today.  Their pastime, merely 131-years-old, is an offshoot of real tennis that goes back to at least the 14th century. King Henry VIII, sturdy of belly, built his private tennis  playroom at Hampton Court, and cavorted there, winning and losing money while gambling on his skill.  One tale is that, while “Fats” was wielding his chop stroke on court, the royal executioner was practicing same on the ex-wife, Anne Boleyn. Fahey, sturdy of chest, built like a light-heavyweight pugilist, has been delighted to follow in one of Henry's paths.  “It's amazing, that court. Over 400 years old, and good as new.  They really knew how to build.  There's so much history there, thrilling to play where Henry played.”  So did another bon vivant King Charles II, and you wonder if his mistress, Nell Gwyn was in the gallery, yelling, “You're No. 1, Charlie!” Both those monarchs would have admired Fahey, who may well be the greatest ever to swing a racket.  Many old timers think so.  One of them, spectator John Sears, is the grandson of Dick Sears, the first US champ in lawn and real tennis. "Fats," a specialist in mixed doubles beyond the court, might, however, have thought Fahey slow in having five fewer wives than his half dozen. Charles might have enjoyed the naughty medieval poetry of Theophile de Viau, who was banned in his native France.  One of his ditties compared tennis scoring to a seductive route:  “If you kiss her, count 15…” It moved right along to “…win the game outright.” The game's literature, to which Shakespeare, Chaucer and Rabelais  also contributed, is rich in accounts of numerous kings and bishops who played in the middle ages when, Fahey concedes, it was a sport hotter than today across Europe and England.  There were McEnroevian hotheads, too.  One, the brilliant Italian painter, Caravaggio, took it a little far in 1606, killing his opponent after losing the match. “Gambling was big then,” Fahey says.  “Some historians believe tennis scoring stemmed from a French coin, a 60 sous piece.  Divide it by four and you have 15, 30, 45 - later shortened to 40 - and game.  You could bet on each point.”  Have the bookies considered that for the other Australian Open in January?  And shouldn't Tennis Australia and Royal Melbourne T.C. get together in the interest of both, moving the latter's Open from winter to January, to coincide with the Melbourne Park venture.  That way they could offer tennis, beginning-to-present, an obvious package for corporate types. With the Boston triumph, Fahey's fourth U.S. Open singles and 27th major, he has launched a bid for his third Grand Slam, on the heels of 2000-2001. Same idea as latter-day tennis except that the Australian, French and British majors follow the current U.S.  “Gunn and I hope to Slam in doubles, too.”     Final round victim Chisholm, the game's No. 2, has fallen to Fahey in the last two challenges for the world title, best-of-13 set matches over two days. He says, “Rob is so solid, so strong.  He hits the ball 10 miles faster than anybody else.  I've been trying to beat him for almost a decade, and I have on occasion.  But he kept the pressure on for almost two hours this time.”  It was non-stop.  No sit-down rests on changeovers  as in lawn tennis. Counting his club salary, Fahey can make around $ 100,000 annually.  “It's fortunate that  I love the game and travel, but it would be difficult financially if I didn't stay at the top.  It's a good life because those US dollars go farther at home.” A Tasmanian champ at lawn tennis, the good-natured Fahey “could see I wasn't going to go far in that.  I had to get a job, and went to work at the Hobart Tennis Club, learned the game and started to teach there.” Unlike his lawn tennis contemporaries, he strings his own rackets, and even makes cloth-covered balls used at Royal Melbourne.  “Hand-stitching them is hard, but good for the wrists,” he says. His mark as an uncommon sportsman was made in defying ancient tradition after taking the world title in 1994 from another Aussie, Wayne Davies.  That was at the New York Racquet Club, where Davies ran the show.  It was customary for the champion to have an edge by calling all the shots, selecting the challenger, the location and even the balls which he had made.  “I did that a couple of times, and we played on my court in Hobart.  But I thought it should be broader.”  Fahey suggested that an international panel should be in charge, and the venue open for bids. He defended successfully last year over Chisholm at Newport, Rhode Island.  No site has been chosen for the next challenge in 2006. “Experience is so important in this game, and I keep very fit in the gym, so I think I can win maybe two more times.” Though his playground is similar to Henry VIII's, there aren't many around: 8 in the US, about 32 others elsewhere.  They bear little resemblance to the present-day grounds tramped by Nos. 1 Federer and Lindsay Davenport. Descended from the cloisters of monasteries and cathedrals, where, it's believed, tennis sprang forth in the hands of monks batting balls within the confines, the courts are huge concrete chambers, about 1 1/2 times the size of a usual tennis court. Balls, as hard as baseballs, are played over a net, but also against the high walls, off roofs on three sides, sometimes a buttress, and pried from distant corners.  Sometimes they land in netted windows. Points can depend on where a ball settles if not returned. It is an arcane, mysterious skirmish of odd bounces and predicaments, a game more intricate, demanding and fascinating than its familiar descendant.  An umpire is a necessity, not just to announce the score but determine it.  Fahey, a husky volleyer from anywhere, quick to react to bizarre spins and angles, ricochets and caroms, is expert at digging balls from corners that may bounce only inches. At times too Machiavellian in its twistings and turnings, baffling in scoring, it is nonetheless a treat.  One shared by not very many.  It would make wonderful TV if a court were built with proper camera positions.  I wish more people could see it, and the tremendous athletic and shotmaking virtuosity of Fahey, but the game is hidden away in private clubs with minimal room for viewing. Whatever, it has its centuries-old niche, where the human Tasmanian devil is king. <<<Back