Tennis: Calling the shots

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Bud Collins' tennis career didn't have the greatest start.

Growing up in small-town Ohio, he cried the day the diggers turned up and converted the three dirt courts into a swimming pool.

He tossed his racket into a cupboard, where it stayed for a few years before "two terrible bitumen courts were put down."

Later, he moved to Boston where his love affair with sport, which was to take him to the world's great sporting arenas, blossomed.

In Auckland for the fourth time as a commentator at the Heineken Open, the 73-year-old rates his time here each year as a highlight. He loves the ASB Tennis Centre and the atmosphere it creates.

"You don't see places like this any more," Collins said. "This stadium reminds me of Newport, Rhode Island."

The yachting venue made famous by the America's Cup?

"No," Collins said. "The oldest active tennis venue in the world. It held its first tournament in 1880 and remains on the ATP Tour schedule to this day.

"It has a great atmosphere," he says. "But in many ways this is even nicer."

It was a journey he had long promised himself after hearing "so many good things" from tennis greats such as Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall.

While he has rubbed shoulders with and interviewed the best tennis has seen, it is a little surprising none rate as his sporting great.

"Muhammad Ali rates No 1. He comes in ahead of all others," says Collins, who started in journalism as a copy boy on the Boston Herald.

"My first beat was boxing. It is the best sport to write about - there is no way you can be libelled."

Apart from the "Thriller in Manilla," Collins covered all Ali's big fights.

He rates Billie Jean King next.

"She is a great person who did so much for tennis." says Collins, who joined the Boston Globe in 1963 and has worked with it since.

These days he turns in around 70 columns a year on a variety of sports, including a piece on the America's Cup.

He supplements that with work for television for "anybody who will hire me."

With such a long association with the sport, Collins tells some great stories, including the tale of the tiebreaker.

Again, back to Newport.

"The chairman, Jimmy Van Alen, was a rich eccentric who ran things his way. Long matches were the bane of his life. They spoiled his cocktail hour.

"He devised the tiebreaker as the means of getting matches done."

While a crude version of today's tiebreakers, Van Alen can lay claim to changing the face of the game.

So, too, have the over-sized rackets which Collins says have done nothing for the game.

"They are killing the men's game. I don't like them or the exaggerated top-spin they produce. Get back to the old-size racket and you get the finesse back."

He also worries about the doubles game.

"Doubles have been pushed further into the closet. In the old days the top people played everything just to get a free lunch," says Collins, whose one claim to (modest) tennis fame came in 1961 when he won a "long gone" US indoor mixed doubles title.

"I was lucky to turn out with a good player. I certainly don't dine out on it. It was a weak year. I'm just a hacker."

These days, with a couple of hip operations behind him, Collins plays on grass at the Longwood Cricket Club - they last played cricket there in 1933 - or on the indoor clay.

"I never play on this stuff," he says, casting his eye over the Rebound Ace courts.

The greatest match he has seen?

"The 1980 final at Wimbledon when Borg beat McEnroe in five sets after McEnroe won the fourth-set tiebreak 18-16, saving five match points along the way," Collins recalls as if it was yesterday. "The grass was in terrible shape, but it was great tennis."

McEnroe was an enigma.

"You had to be there every minute. You never knew when the explosion would come. With him and Connors you cringed at the awful performances at times other than when they were playing tennis.

"Off the court, Connors was a good guy."

Like many, Collins has seen a change - for the better - in Andre Agassi.

"He was a terrible brat at first. Now he is an incredible guy.

"He is uneducated, but has built a school in a poor area of Las Vegas. He built a club for youngsters to play tennis.

"He and Steffi are a radiant couple."

Collins still holds the Davis Cup dear to his heart.

"I love it. It is very important. It [the rivalry] is still tennis at his best."