Rehe Captures Florida Federal Open, 11/10/85

Organizers of the Florida Federal Tennis Open knew they were going to have a challenge marketing the event in 1985.

Some of the biggest names in women’s tennis had all politely declined to enter the tournament. Martina Navratilova – winner of the 1983 Florida Federal – skipped the 1984 event and had no intention of returning in 1985. Other top-ranked women skipping the tournament were Pam Shriver, Hana Mandlikova, Claudia Kohde-Kilsch, Zina Garrison, Helena Sukova, and Manuela Maleeva.

A rising star on the women’s tour, 16-year-old German Steffi Graf, likewise withdrew prior to the start of the tournament.

Then, just a week before the tournament began, the last of the dominoes fell: Chris Evert Lloyd. The winner of 18 Grand Slam events withdrew from the tournament in Largo due to a knee injury and the demands of a heavy travel schedule.

“I’m disappointed,” tournament co-director Barry Siegel said. “I certainly won’t lie about it.”

Still, Siegel and others had reasons to be enthusiastic about the upcoming tournament. Being held for the first time at the Bardmoor Country Club in Largo, the tournament lineup may not have been big on star-power, but it was loaded with fresh talent.

“It’s a good field,” Siegel said. “The best way to describe the field is that these are the top players of the future of women’s tennis.”

Among these in the field were Largo’s own Bonnie Gadusek, the tournament’s top seed and the 10th ranked player in the world. Michelle Torres, the winner of the 1984 Florida Federal Open, returned to defend her title, and Kathy Rinaldi, who in August beat Graf to capture the A&P Tennis Classic championship in Mahawh, New Jersey, was the 11th ranked player in the world and one of the top young players in the game.

Carling Bassett, a finalist the previous year, returned to the tournament, and a promising pair of 14-year-olds -- Gabriela Sabatini and Mary Jo Fernandez – were each considered rising stars.

First-round play opened on November 4, as the top-seeded Gadusek earned a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Caroline Kuhlman. Seventh-seeded Terry Phelps ousted Gabriella Mosca, a 15-year-old Argentinian who took Chris Evert Lloyd’s place in the draw. It took Phelps only 38 minutes to overwhelm Mosca, who only won two points the entire second set. Pam Casale, one of the fiercest competitors on the tour, made quick work of the up-and-coming Fernandez, 6-2, 6-3.
While Bassett and Sabatini both won their first round matches, two other top seeds were not so lucky.

Gadusek, the No. 1 seed, suffered a humiliating defeat to Lisa Bonder, 3-6, 6-1, 6-1. Gadusek credited her problems to effect of the damp weather on her strings.

“My strings were getting loose because of the dampness and humidity,” she said. “I lost feeling in the ball and I didn’t get it back.”

Bonder, for her part, almost didn’t finish the match.

“I was nervous and cold, and I think I ate too many raisins," she said. “I almost died right there on the court.”

Rinaldi, the No. 2 seed, never even set foot on the court, as she withdrew due to a severe case of tonsillitis. Her last-minute replacement, Amy Holton of Sarasota, went down 6-1, 6-1 to the defending champion Torres.

Sabatini, Bassett, Torres and Casale all breezed through the second round to set up some interesting quarterfinals match-ups.

Casale fell to the No. 3 seed Sabatini 6-0, 6-1, in a 52-minute match, and Bassett took care of unseeded Grace Kim, 6-2, 7-5. The Lisa Bonder-Ann White match, however, proved to be one of the more interesting matches in the tournament.

Bonder accused White, who won the match 6-2, 6-4, of using intimidation tactics during a let-call at 2-2 of the first set. White argued for two minutes that there was no let on her serve. The delay seemingly zapped Bonder’s focus.

“Anne’s very intimidating,” she said. “She gave me some mean stares and she growled. The whole thing was intimidating.”

An exhausted Michelle Torres – who the day before needed three hours to get past her opponent – fell meekly to Stephanie Rehe, 6-1, 6-2.

In the semis, Rehe continued her winning ways with a gutsy 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Bassett. The 16-year-old Rehe, who turned pro just two months earlier, wrestled the match away from Bassett by overcoming nine game-points trailing 2-1 in the third set. The game lasted 22 minutes and took 32 points to settle, ending when Bassett pushed a volley long.
Sabatini cruised into the finals with a 6-1, 6-2 dismantling of White.

“I was embarrassingly bad today,” White said. “When things go bad, they go really bad.”

Although the crowd may have preferred seeing Sabatini play her doubles partner Bassett in the finals, Rehe’s victory set up an extremely compelling final between two players who had just turned pro in 1985. The two delivered a thrilling finale to the tournament in front of a crowd of 5,176.

Trailing the 12th ranked player in the world by a score of 4-2 in the third set, Rehe rallied to win three straight games and held on to capture the match 6-4, 6-7, 7-5. Sabatini admitted to playing nervous, and it showed, as she sprayed an uncharacteristic 48 unforced errors.

Despite the lack of “big name” talent, the tournament proved to be a resounding success. Nearly 26,000 people attended the tournament, 5,000 more than had attended the previous year at the Innisbrook Resort.

As for Rehe and Sabatini, what could have been the start of a great rivalry never materialized. Although Rehe climbed to as high as No. 10 in the world by 1989, a serious back injury put her on the shelf for a year, and just eight years after her victory in Largo, she would be out of the game permanently.

Sabatini, on the other hand, became one of the best players of her generation. The winner of the 1990 U.S. Open, Sabatini earned induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2006.

Roy Emerson Defies Australia, 3/1/64

When tennis star Roy Emerson arrived in Tampa 45 years ago this week to compete in the Dixie International Tennis Tournament, officials in his native country of Australia were not pleased. The world’s top-ranked man, Emerson came to Tampa in defiance of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia.

The LTAA, upset about Australia’s loss to the United States in Davis Cup competition, ordered players such as Emerson, Fred Stolle, Ken Fletcher, and Bob Hewitt cease their international travels and return home. Officially, the LTAA claimed these players must return to Australia and compete in local tournaments only until March 31, 1964.

The players had to cease playing in any overseas tournaments by Feb. 28. Furthermore, the players were forbidden to accept expense money for playing international tournaments until that after that date. By appearing at the Dixie International in Tampa, Emerson risked a one-year ban from representing Australia in international competitions like the Davis Cup.

While Stolle and Hewitt ultimately decided to skip the tournament, Emerson and Fletcher defied the order by the LTAA. Emerson appealed to the organization by claiming he was traveling at his own expense and thus not violating any rules. Tournament officials rewarded him with a top seed, ahead of two-time defending Dixie International champion Manuel Santana, who beat Stolle in the finals of the 1963 Dixie tournament.

While Fletcher made an early exit in the second round of the Dixie, falling to unseeded Ecuadorian Eduardo Zuleta in three sets, Emerson rolled over the competition on his way to the semifinals. Prior to his match against Jose Arilla of Spain, Emerson found out the LTAA had denied his request to continue playing in America. Fortunately for Emerson, an amateur, he received a $50,000 offer a few days earlier from the International Professional Tennis Players Association to turn pro.

“If (Fletcher and I) are suspended, this makes the offer more tempting,” Emerson said. “I would certainly hate to sit out a year.”

Emerson took down Arilla in four hard-fought sets to earn a berth in the finals against the defending champion Santana. Officials in Australia were not impressed.

The LTAA announced Emerson and Fletcher would be banned from Davis Cup competitions for a year. The announcement mentioned nothing, however, of suspensions from other tournaments. Fletcher, predictably, reacted to the news with disbelief.

“Most players play tennis so you can represent your country in the Davis Cup,” he said. “When you don’t have that, well, it just becomes a way of living, doesn’t it? You sort of lose interest.”

Fletcher’s ban became official when he paired with Emerson in a Dixie doubles semifinal match, a victory over Yugoslavians Nicola Pilic and Boro Jovanovic. Emerson earned his ban by playing against Arilla in the Dixie singles semifinal.

As if to prove the LTAA made a mistake in barring him from representing Australia, Emerson made the most of his showdown in the Dixie finals against Santana on March 1. In front of a capacity crowd of 1,000 at the Davis Islands Tennis Center, Emerson put on an impressive display of power and precision.

Using a punishing serve-and-volley attack, Emerson kept the defending champion off-balance. The two played a thrilling first set, as each took turns matching each other volley for volley, return for return and winner for winner. Emerson ultimately prevailed, 9-7, to capture the 50-minute set and the momentum for the rest of the match.

Emerson raced to a 5-1 lead in the second set by dictating play from the net. Santana went out meekly without a point in the final game of the set, which ended 6-2 in favor of Emerson. The Aussie then cruised to a 5-0 advantage in the third, but had to withstand a furious comeback by the proud Spaniard, who won four straight games to make things interesting. On serve with a chance to even up the set, Santana could produce just one more hold and thus relinquished his title to Emerson.

It would by no means be Emerson’s final title of the year. He went on to have one of the finest years of his career, winning three Grand Slams – including his first Wimbledon title – and at one point won 55 consecutive matches while losing only six times in 115 tries.

And in spite of all the hubbub, the LTAA relented and Emerson competed for Australia in the Davis Cup. It paid off for the Aussies, as Emerson won the deciding match of the Cup finals over Chuck McKinley of the United States.

McEnroe Plays at Bayfront, 1/20/84

In the days leading up to Super Bowl XVIII twenty-five years ago, some of the biggest names in sports came to the Tampa Bay area. One athlete in particular had nothing to do with football, but was more well-known than game participants Joe Theismann, John Riggins, or Marcus Allen combined.

Known just as much for his on-court temper tantrums as his serve-and-volley prowess, John McEnroe had no equal in all of tennis in terms of star power. McEnroe brought his larger-than-life personality to the Bayfront Center in St. Petersburg as part of the “Tennis over America” tour for a match against Guillermo Villas on the evening of January 20, 1984.

Although he only captured six singles titles in 1983 -- including one Grand Slam (Wimbledon) -- McEnroe stormed into 1984 with a major victory over one of his biggest rivals. Earlier in the week, McEnroe officially claimed the No. 1 ranking in men’s tennis with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Ivan Lendl in the final of the Volvo Masters championship at Madison Square Garden.

Vilas, in the meantime, spent the days prior to the event appealing his suspension by the Men’s International Professional Tennis Council. The first South American male to win a Grand Slam title (the 1977 French Open), Vilas was charged with accepting an illegal $60,000 guarantee to play a tournament in the Netherlands. The council slapped Vilas with a $20,000 fine and a one-year suspension from the tour.

Vilas lost his appeal as the council review board found him guilty of soliciting and accepting guarantee money to play in the tournament, a violation of rules which only allowed players to compete for prize money. The council lifted his suspension, however, citing a career of “exemplary” conduct as part of their decision.

The words “exemplary” and “conduct” were two words rarely used together in any sentence written about McEnroe. As he neared his 25th birthday, the star sometimes known as the “Super Brat” hoped to shed his rambunctious reputation.

“My 1984 resolution is to get away from that (controversy) a little bit,” McEnroe said. “I have a hot temper and I know it. It’s really pretty difficult to turn it off and on at will, but I’m trying.”

McEnroe seemed to try pretty hard to control his temper and concentrate on his tennis during the match against Vilas. The two players had participated in the on-and-off traveling show together since 1981 and had faced off in over 40 such events. The evening, after all, was just as much about putting on a show for the crowd nearly 5,500-strong than anything else. To that end, disco lights and a fog machine provided the special effects as McEnroe and Vilas took the court to the song “Eye of the Tiger.”

Perhaps in a relaxed mood early on in the match, McEnroe played to the crowd throughout the first set. Ever the showman, he mixed an assortment of pantomimes and facial expressions with feigned outrage at line calls that went against him.

After jumping out to an early 3-1 lead, Vilas rallied to take five of the next six games to capture the first set. As if realizing he needed to shift to another gear, McEnroe broke Vilas’s serve twice in the second set en route to winning the set 6-2.

The third set proved to be a repeat as McEnroe held serve and again broke a worn-down Vilas twice to capture the set and win the match 4-6, 6-2, 6-2.

The evening continued with a special celebrity doubles match with Tom Cousineau of the Cleveland Browns and, a slightly lesser known celebrity in Phil Scott, the manager of the Bayfront Center. Scott filled in at the last minute for Hugh Green of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In the end, the crowd enjoyed the exhibition, got three quality sets from two of tennis’s best players, and saw McEnroe receive a wristwatch for winning the match.

After leaving St. Petersburg, McEnroe went on to have the most successful year of his career, compiling an 82-3 record. McEnroe won a career-high 13 singles titles in 1984, including Wimbledon and U.S. Open championships.

Towards the end of the year at a tournament in Stockholm, Sweden, McEnroe uttered the now infamous line directed at the chair umpire, “Answer my question, jerk!” before dramatically slamming his racket into a courtside juice cart. Despite an unprecedented run of success in 1984, alas, McEnroe could not keep his New Year’s resolution to shy away from controversy.

Martina Wins at Innisbrook, 10/16/83

In 1983, Martina Navratilova had one of the greatest single seasons in any sport. That year, she dominated women's tennis with an astonishing record of 86-1, winning 16 of 17 tournaments.

Near the end of that record season, Navratilova played at the Florida Federal Tennis Open, seeking her second tournament championship there in three years. The tournament was from Oct. 10-16, 1983, and held for the first time at the Innisbrook Resort in Tarpon Springs after seven years at East Lake Woodlands in Oldsmar.

While singer Bonnie Tyler owned the October airwaves with her hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart," Navratilova totally eclipsed all others in her sport. To say she arrived in the Tampa Bay area on a roll is an understatement.

Navratilova entered the tournament having won 67 of 68 matches and capturing every tournament she entered except the French Open, where she lost in the fourth round to Kathy Horvath. The Florida Federal was her first tournament since early September, when she won the U.S. Open for the first time, finally completing her Grand Slam resume.

Navratilova had such an air of invincibility that many opponents admitted nobody on the tour could even challenge her. She didn't seem to disagree, saying, "If I don't beat myself, I don't think anyone else can beat me."

Prior to the U.S. Open final against Chris Evert, Pam Shriver said, "Chris is the only one who hasn't conceded to Martina's invincibility. If she gets blown out (in the final), all hope is gone." Navratilova routed Evert, 6-1, 6-3.

Winning the U.S. Open was a career turning-point for Navratilova, who finally shed the stigma of never winning in New York. "There was no monkey on my back," she said. "It was an orangutan."

Navratilova's week in Florida got off to a slow start, however, as her first round match against Peanut Louie was delayed by rain. The postponement was the tournament's first since a quarterfinal match in 1980 featuring Tracy Austin. In this case, the delay must have only served to make Louie feel like a prisoner on death row awaiting a stay of execution that would never come.

Navratilova toyed with Louie in a 6-1, 6-1 blowout that took only 43 minutes. Most cruelly of all, Navratilova decided to unleash her newest weapon – a kick serve -- against the severely overmatched Louie. "It's like a pitcher with new pitch," Navratilova said.

Her next opponent was Wendy White, who had made her mark as a collegiate champion at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. White played admirably and fared significantly better than Louie, keeping Navratilova on the court for 85 minutes. Along the way, she managed to register three service breaks in a 6-3, 6-2 loss. After the match, Navratilova praised her opponents' performance. "

That's one of the best matches anyone's played against me in a long time," she said.

Another rain delay postponed Navratilova's quarterfinal match against Bonnie Gadusek by a day. The seventh-seeded Gadusek -- a resident of nearby Largo -- put up a strong fight early, battling to even up the score at 5-5 in the first set by applying pressure on Navratilova. "

She had a plan and she knew what she wanted to do," Navratilova said. "She came in (to the net) when I didn't expect her to."

As expected, however, Navratilova regained control, winning the first set 7-5, and put away the match, 6-3, in the second set.

Yet another rain delay forced Navratilova into double-duty Saturday with a semifinal showdown against Zina Garrison. Showing no signs of fatigue, she easily handled Garrison, 6-3, 6-2. Waiting for her in the finals was friend and doubles partner Pam Shriver, who had lost 16 of 19 career matches against Navratilova.

Despite their close relationship, Shriver struggled to find an edge against her opponent. Her strategy featured a serve-and-volley attack, which seemed to play into Navratilova's hands. Taking advantage of the slow clay surface, Navratilova had ample time to send top-spin backhand winners past the charging Shriver. Her service game didn't fare much better in the second set, as she dropped all but one point over the course of four service games.

Shriver's best move of the day came after the 6-3, 6-2 defeat, when she jokingly dumped ice cubes down the back of Navratilova's shirt during the trophy presentation. Fittingly, the friends teamed up later in the day to win the doubles title with a 6-0, 6-1 pasting of Gadusek and White to wrap up the tournament.

These titles would be Navratilova's last at the Florida Federal Open, as 1983 marked the final appearance of her Hall of Fame career at the tournament.

The Great Judy Alvarez, 7/18/63

In the spring of 1963, American Darlene Hard captured the women’s singles title at the Dixie International Tournament held on Davis Islands. The top-ranked tennis player in the U.S. – and second in the world only to Margaret Court – Hard captured the title in the backyard of one of Tampa’s own up-and-coming court stars: Judy Alvarez.

On July 18, 1963, the 20-year-old Alvarez geared up to face Hard in the quarterfinals of the National Clay Court Tennis Championship in River Forest, Ill. The match represented a chance for the eighth-ranked Alvarez to atone for the 6-0, 6-0 beating Hard administered to her earlier in the year at the Dixie, and a 1-6, 6-2, 6-3 loss a week later in Miami.

By the summer of 1963, Hard boasted one of the strongest resumes of anyone on the women’s circuit. As a singles player, Hard won three Grand Slam events -- back-to-back U.S. championships in 1960-61 and a French championship in 1960. Even more impressive, Hard won 12 Grand Slam doubles events. Hard was the standard of excellence to be measured against, and if Alvarez wanted to be the best, she would have to beat the best.

While comedian Jerry Lewis had summer movie audiences in stitches at his performance in “The Nutty Professor,” Darlene Hard certainly found nothing funny about playing the crafty Alvarez. Buoyed by some success on an early-summer swing through Europe with appearances at Wimbledon and the Italian championships, Alvarez felt prepared for her third shot at Hard.

“I’d just gotten back from Europe, and it sure made a difference in my level of play and in my confidence,” Alvarez recalls. “I think I was better prepared because of the tournaments I played on clay and just wanted the chance to show I could beat her on that surface. It was my best surface.”

Their playing styles on the court could not have been more different. Appropriately, Hard thrived on hard court and grass surfaces, which suited her aggressive serve-and-volley style. Alvarez, reared on the clay surface of the Davis Islands Tennis Club, played the quintessential soft court style of consistent, baseline tennis designed to force an opponent into making mistakes. Alvarez wound grind out rallies using a mix of top spin, slice, and flat shots to keep her opponents off balance.

Right out of the gate against Hard, Alvarez played her style to perfection. Using her patented mix of slices and lobs, she quickly raced to a 5-2 lead. With a chance to close out the opening set, Alvarez fell victim to a comeback that featured four unanswered games in a row by Hard. Having once been in a position to close out the set, Alvarez now found herself one game away from blowing a golden opportunity against Hard.

Then, through a combination of self-confidence and stamina, Alvarez rallied to win the next three games and capture the opening set, 8-6. On a steamy day when temperatures on the court reached the high 90s, Alvarez found herself unfazed by the conditions while her opponent seemed to wilt by the point.

“Heat was my cup of tea,” Alvarez says. “When it’s hot up north, it’s not hot enough for me because I’m used to it. I had a darker complexion, too, so I could take it a lot better than a blonde like her.”

As Alvarez recalls, the first set could have gone either way. There was never any doubt, however, about the outcome of the second set. Alvarez’s mix of shots denied Hard easy passage to the net and threw her game out of whack. Alvarez tossed in a few service aces to punctuate the 6-2 second-set triumph.

“If she stayed back, I could rally with her,” Alvarez says. “If I gave her pace, she liked it so I moved her side-to-side. I used lobs, I used slice. Basically, I sliced and diced her.”

Beating the top-ranked American player at the time was the greatest victory of Alvarez’s career. An emotional post-match call to her mother highlighted the significance of the moment. Prior to leaving for the tournament, Alvarez’s mother asked her daughter to call her immediately if she happened to defeat either Maria Bueno or Darlene Hard, saying “those are the two fishes I want.”

“Well, right after the match I told the reporters that I can’t stop to talk to them because I had to call my mother,” Alvarez recalls. “So, one of the reporters overheard me talking to my mother on the phone when I happened to say, ‘Mom, I caught the fish.’ We were both crying because it was such a proud moment.”

The following day in the semifinals, an emotionally spent Alvarez ran into the worst possible opponent in Nancy Richey, who six years later would rise to as high as No. 2 in the world. Richey controlled the match by keeping Alvarez on the run and forcing her into defensive, rather than aggressive, shots.

“She completely out-steadied me,” Alvarez says. “She didn’t allow me to bring her in or pass her. I probably didn’t realize at the time how good Nancy was, even though I knew she had a game that could match mine.”

Despite the 6-2, 6-1 loss, Alvarez left Illinois with the confidence that she could hang with anyone on the tour on any given day. The list of foes vanquished by Alvarez during her career features several Grand Slam event winners and future Hall of Famers, such as Hard, Maria Bueno, Virginia Wade, and Billy Jean King. Still, Alvarez’s victory over Hard remains to this day one of the most meaningful of all.

“That win put me over the top,” Alvarez says, “and told me that I could beat any of those girls in the top five.”

Dixie International Tennis Championship, 4/68

The 41st Dixie International Tennis Tournament open play 40 years ago this week under somber circumstances. On April 4, 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, setting off several days of both rioting and mourning throughout the country. Here in Tampa, tournament organizers scheduled matches around the national day of observance for King.

The tournament also took on a different look in 1968 because this was the first Dixie International played in the so-called “Open Era” of tennis. The “Open Era” at last allowed professionals and amateurs to compete together in the same events. In prior years, only amateurs were permitted to play in the most prestigious events such as Wimbledon. As a result, some of the top players of all-time were not eligible to compete in Grand Slam events. For the first time in many years, standout amateurs turned professionals such as Roy Emerson and John Newcombe would not be on hand for the Dixie International, an amateur-only event.

As usual though, the Dixie featured an array of international stars mixed together with the best local talent. This included a 36-year-old Harry Lee Coe III, who had starred on the mound as a pitcher for the Tampa Tarpons before beginning his rise in the Hillsborough County legal community. The future-judge, who would earn the nickname “Hangin’ Harry,” hung a surprising first-round upset on Israel’s Joseph Stobblitz, 6-8, 6-3, 7-5.

Several other locals were not so fortunate in their first round match-ups.

Second seeded Istvan Gulyas, a 37-year-old from Hungary, dispatched of Tampa’s Bill Cantrell, 6-1-, 6-1. Cantrell, then just a 16-year-old high school student, today recalls the thrill of playing in the tournament.

“I remember being a ball boy for the tournament as a kid, so to play in the event was just a great experience,” Cantrell says. “I even got to play my match on Court One. The players like Guylas and Santana were such gentlemen, too.”

Australian Ray Ruffels likewise made quick work of Tampa city high school champion Mike Strickland, 6-2, 6-1.

In his second round match, Coe would feel the wrath of the Hungarian nicknamed the “Road Runner.” The defending Dixie International champion Gulyas simply outmatched Coe, dominating from start to finish in a 6-0, 6-2 rout.

Manuel “Manolo” Santana of Spain, who dominated the Dixie International by winning the title three times from 1962-64, arrived in Tampa at 11 a.m. on the day of his first match. The tournament’s top seed, Santana earned an automatic berth into the quarterfinals. By 2 p.m., Santana was on the court to face his doubles partner, Tampa’s own Andy Garcia. Despite playing his best tennis of the tournament, Garcia proved no match for one of the top amateurs in the world, going down in defeat 6-3, 6-2.

“I thought I played as well as I ever played,” Garcia said. “He even got points on some of the best returns I’ve ever made.”

A 6-4, 7-5 upset in the quarters by Mark Cox of England over Yugoslavian Zelko Franulovic set up a date in the semifinals with Guylas. The lefty from London took the defending champion to the brink, and nearly pulled off another upset.

After taking the first two sets by the shocking scores of 6-2, 6-0, Guylas humbled Cox in the third by posting a 6-0 score of his own. In the fourth set, Cox had a chance to finish off Guylas, leading 5-2 with a match point. Guylas would rally, however, taking the set 9-7, before closing out the fifth by a score of 6-2 to take the match in five grueling sets. Guylas overcame five match points by Cox en route to the victory.

Santana ran into a determined opponent in New Yorker Herb Fitzgibbon, whose booming serve helped keep the semifinal match close. Ultimately Santana’s experience and shot-making abilities helped him prevail 6-4, 8-6, 6-4, to set the stage for a clash of champions in the men’s final.

The 29-year-old Santana would find himself in a dogfight against the exceptionally conditioned Guylas, almost eight years his senior. Santana outlasted Guylas, however, 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 to capture his fourth Dixie title.

“Open Era” or not, Santana expressed at the time a lack of interest in turning professional.

“I’ve got a good position,” he said, “and I’ll just keep on playing amateur tennis and playing for my country.”

That summer Santana would go on to win a gold medal in men’s singles – a demonstration event -- during the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. One of the great champions in the history of the Dixie International, the Spaniard’s career would forever be immortalized in 1984 with his enshrinement into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Dixie International Tournament, 1963

Australian tennis star Roy Emerson had already cemented his status as one of the top players in the world when in February 1963 he arrived in Tampa with many of the world’s best players for the 36th Dixie International Tennis Championships. Ranked No. 2 in the world behind only the legendary Rod Laver, Emerson highlighted a field that tournament chairman E.C. Smith called “by far the greatest in the history of the tournament. None has been able to compare any others with this one.”

Defending tournament champion Manuel Santana of Spain, one of the top clay court players in the world and the 1961 French Open champion, figured to once again have a decided advantage on the Davis Islands clay. Bob Hewitt and Fred Stolle, both Australian and both future Hall of Famers, added even more depth to the field.

Darlene Hard, America’s best female player, and Brazilian Maria Bueno highlighted the women’s field, along with Leslie Turner of England and Helga Schultze of Germany. Adding some local flavor were Judy Alvarez, a former tournament finalist, and Sandy Warshaw, a former Dixie tournament winner, who under the name Sandra W. Freedman, would become Tampa’s first female mayor in 1987.

Rain and brisk gusts of wind on the first day of the tournament proved symbolic for what turned out to be a tumultuous and unpredictable week of tennis. Thomas Koch, a 17-year-old Brazilian, netted the tournament’s first upset by disposing of fourth-seeded Hewitt, 6-2, 1-6, 6-2, in the opening round. Just a few hours later, Koch defeated University of Miami star Rod Mandelstamm 6-3, 8-6 to reach the quarterfinals.

Armi Neely, Florida’s third-ranked junior player but only a sophomore at Plant High School, had the misfortune of drawing Santana in the first round and took a 6-2, 6-2 defeat.

The quarterfinals produced by far the most surprising upset of the entire tournament, when Fred Stolle earned his first career victory over fellow Aussie Roy Emerson, in a 7-9, 6-1, 7-5 decision. Using a devastating backhand passing shot, Stolle kept Emerson, a natural serve-and-volley player, off balance and unable to make himself comfortable at the net. In a back-and-forth third set, it looked as if Emerson might pull away when he took a 3-2 lead. Stolle quickly regained the upper hand, however, and never looked back on his way to the surprise victory.

Gracious in defeat, Emerson refused to blame the loss on a bout of the flu that plagued him coming into the tournament. “It was just a matter of one point here and there that made the difference,” he said. “Fred just played very well.”

Meanwhile, on the women’s side, Sandy Warshaw lost a professional match for the first time in more than two and a half years. Warshaw, who first won the Dixie Tournament as a 17-year-old, dropped her match in straight sets to Elizabeth Starkie of England, 6-2, 6-2.

Physical ailments had derailed Warshaw’s promising junior career in 1961. Following the Dixie match, she seemed resigned to the fact that she might never return to championship form. Warshaw laughed at the thought and said, "I'm a has-been and only going on 20."

Hardly a has-been, Darlene Hard obliterated Judy Alvarez 6-0, 6-0, to earn a berth in the finals. Alvarez, the 10th-ranked woman in the U.S., managed to win only 23 points throughout the short two-set match. In the meantime, a dream finals matchup between Hard and Maria Bueno never had a chance to materialize because of Australia's Lesley Turner. The fifth seed in the women's draw upset top-seeded Bueno, 6-2, 5-7, 8-6. Bueno failed to convert a match point at 6-5 in the third set, opening the door for Turner to pull off the upset. After the match, a visibly upset Bueno lamented, "I thought I played well, but (Turner) played better."

On the men's side, nobody was playing better than Spaniard Manuel Santana as he entered his semifinal against Thomas Koch of Brazil. Manuel captured the first set in just 15 minutes, 6-1, and seemed on his way to an easy victory. But the rest of the match turned into a nearly three-hour slugfest that delighted those in attendance. Koch rallied to win the second set 6-4, evening the match at one set apiece. The third set went back and forth, with Koch breaking Santana's serve to even it up at 3-3. Santana then took control and captured the set 6-4. The fourth and final set featured Santana rallying from a 3-0 deficit en route to a 10-8 victory. Santana admitted the easy first set gave him a false sense of security. "I thought it would be easy. I lost concentration, then he started playing very well. He's very much improved since I played him last year," he said.

Inclement weather forced the men's and women's finals indoors to the comforts of the University of Tampa gymnasium. This placed Santana, a clay court specialist, in a precarious position. To win the championship, he had to play the final match on a hardcourt surface. His opponent, Fred Stolle, clearly favored the indoor surface. Already full of momentum from knocking off Emerson and then the third-seeded Marty Mulligan, Stolle still had his hands full with Santana. On the strength of his serve, Santana won the first set, 6-3. The second set, however, turned into the longest in the history of the Dixie tournament. The two-hour-plus set concluded with Santana on top, 21-19, to win the title.

Darlene Hard used her power game to topple upstart Lesley Turner, 9-7, 1-6, 7-5, in the women's final. Turner's lack of hardcourt experience, coupled with Hard's service game, spelled doom for the Aussie.

Local tennis enthusiasts agreed at the tournament's conclusion that the quality of players made the 36th Dixie tournament one of the finest ever. Tournament chairman E.C. Smith said he "didn't know how it could have been any better. My only regret is that the rain forced us inside."

Even with that blemish, 45 years later the 1963 edition of the Dixie tournament -- which featured Grand Slam winners, Olympic medalists, Hall of Famers, and even a future mayor -- remains one of the most talent-laden and upset-filled tennis events ever held in the city of Tampa.

Dixie International Tournament, 1940

The scene is the International Dixie Tournament. The place is the Davis Islands Tennis Club in January 1940. Participating in the finals of the tournament were Bobby Riggs and Bitsy Grant. Riggs, the world's amateur singles and doubles champion, won the tournament in 1938 and sought his second Dixie championship. Grant, dubbed "126 pound of tennis dynamite" by Tampa Tribune writer Pete Norton, had already won two Dixie titles.

The match began on Sunday afternoon in front of a tournament-record 2,000 fans, but was postponed by rain until the following day with Riggs leading by a set. Grant would storm back when play resumed, winning a five-set thriller 1-6, 6-2, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 to capture his third Dixie title in five years. He then delighted the crowd during the trophy presentation by accepting the D.P Davis Trophy and then handing it right back to the presenter, Tampa’s mayor R.E.L. Chancey.

"Tampa has always been one of my favorite places," Grant said. "I want this cup to stay right here so when I get too old to play for it, some of you good people will remember me."

The crowd then rewarded Grant, the Dixie Tournament's greatest and most gracious champion, with a five minute standing ovation.