KEY POINTS:
The game Ken Rosewall and his mates like Lew Hoad, Rod Laver, Tony Roche and Roy Emerson played is a distant memory.
Wooden racquets, grass courts, serve and volley, not to mention the days of Aussie domination.
Sure the basics are the same but the game is vastly
different in other ways.
And Rosewall, eight times a Grand Slam champion, admits he doesn't like aspects of it as much as the old days. The 72-year-old great was in Auckland as guest speaker at the Remuera club's centenary. And he drew a large crowd when he had a hit on Saturday, proving the pulling power of the big names survives the test of time.
Rosewall, born in Sydney in 1934, was part of four Australian teams to win the Davis Cup. His singles record is 17 wins from 19 matches.
Right now, Australian tennis is in a trough. They've just been tipped out of this year's world group in the first round by Belgium. Lleyton Hewitt is the only men's name of note at No 20. Chris Guccione is next best at No 109. Samantha Stosur is the best-ranked woman at No 28. Only two others are in the top 100.
A far cry from the days when Rosewall and his chums bestrode the men's game, or Margaret Court and Evonne Goolagong were the darlings of the women's circuit.
"We've had a bad trot compared to some years ago," Rosewall said. "There's a lot of players coming from other countries you'd never have expected. It's just the way the game has expanded. But we've got good people coaching and I'm looking forward to it improving."
In a career which ran from 1952-77, through amateur and professional years, Rosewall was a constant in the top 20, including several as the best player on the planet.
Nicknamed "Muscles" because his mates reckoned the slightly-built, 1.70m, 61kg Rosewall didn't have any, he did have a peach of a backhand and he could volley in his sleep, en route to his Grand Slam titles - four Australian, two US and two French - over a remarkable 18 years.
Yet there are those who still remember him best as the Greatest Player Never to Win Wimbledon. Four times over 20 years he lost the final, most (un)memorably to the brash 22-year-old American Jimmy Connors, a three-set whipping in 1974.
Last week, Wimbledon announced equal prizemoney for men and women from this year. Rosewall is diplomatic, but you sense he's not fully in favour.
"It is contentious. Men generally are playing more tennis, and it's safe to say there's a lot more depth in the men's game," he said. "They have longer, closer matches. It seems like the women have easier matches in the earlier rounds. But when you get to the last four or eight at the Grand Slams, they are the players who draw the sponsors and the crowds, so there is an argument they should be playing for something near equal prizemoney."
But Rosewall is a big fan of the modern game's most dominant figure, Swiss Roger Federer, perhaps because in part he is a throwback to days when you needed variety to prosper.
"I'm not sure how much higher Roger can go. It would be nice if he won the French Open (the one Grand Slam to elude Federer so far). He deserves to win it. He's playing this game at another level. Everything in his book is the way the game should be played."
What about a dream matchup? Rosewall demurs, talking of technology advances, different eras where skill and dexterity has often been replaced by bulging biceps and ferocious forehands.
"The players are so much stronger ... I'd be too small to be competing the way the game is played today." Pardon us Muscles, but you suspect he'd have found a way.