Yesterday's tennis: I find Bill Tilden overrated

[gzhpcu]

It may just be me, but I never found Bill Tilden's game particularly attractive and overrated.
Look here: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/bi...ry/bill+tilden
Where is the athletic stance?

He was great in an era where:

• the number of tennis players was small, the level was not particularly good - he had very little competition among the small number of players actively on the circuit - they were all mediocre
  
• very little emphasis was made on physical fitness
  
• the equipment was primitive
  
• the balls were probably bad too

I look at old clips and find his strokes not particularly aesthetic ("wooden" is the word I would use)... His movement not particularly athletic.

Reminds me of the old saying "in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"...

And if you look at "the great" Susan Lenglen, ditto. Just look here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnIGMUAkqcU

Tennis worth the word starts with the Jack Kramer/Pancho Gonzalez era.

[bottle]

Another Great Film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtu9W1AVZv4

[stotty]

It may just be me, but I never found Bill Tilden's game particularly attractive and overrated.
Look here: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/bi...ry/bill+tilden
Where is the athletic stance?

He was great in an era where:

• the number of tennis players was small, the level was not particularly good - he had very little competition among the small number of players actively on the circuit - they were all mediocre
  
• very little emphasis was made on physical fitness
  
• the equipment was primitive
  
• the balls were probably bad too

I look at old clips and find his strokes not particularly aesthetic ("wooden" is the word I would use)... His movement not particularly athletic.


Tennis worth the word starts with the Jack Kramer/Pancho Gonzalez era.

Consider this:

Tilden, when aged 48, beat Don Budge 7 times in their head-to-head tour. When Budge was at his zenith.

In 1954, Don Budge when his late 30's beat Pancho Gonzales, who by then was considered the best player in the world. They also had several other very close matches around that time.

So it's not as straightforward as you think.

I agree it's hard to place Tilden because the gap between him and the next great player is many years apart. There is little to compare him with. But his results against Budge cannot be discounted. And Budge doesn't compare unfavourably when considered alongside Gonzales.

When you think of it, there are no such things as eras, just a never ending stream of players coming and going whose careers intersect. It's this intersecting that throws up facts that cannot be disputed...or not easily.

Kramer (who had played Tilden) rated Tilden very highly, and he rated Budge as better than Gonzales. I am not sure how reliable Kramer's judgement was but around his era what he said was considered as solid as the bible....that's not to say the bible is that solid.

I suspect Tilden was a better player than many think. I wouldn't consider him overrated...more forgotten, dismissed. In his day he was as big as the game itself. He was as wealthy as today's players and earned huge sums of money. He was probably the first player to figure the game out really well. His life story is also somewhat fascinating.

[gzhpcu]

Yes, but just look at the videos: not at all impressive play, standing straight legged, funny looking groundstrokes, etc.

[stotty]

Yes, but just look at the videos: not at all impressive play, standing straight legged, funny looking groundstrokes, etc.

Yes, I understand all this, but as I suggest in post #3, he must have been better than you think.

It might also be incorrect to say credible tennis started with Kramer and Gonzales when irrefutably Budge could comfortably compete with both of them. We can say for sure great tennis started with Don Budge, but like I said, Bill Tilden had results against Budge and these cannot be easily explained away. They happened. So that man with straight legs and funny looking strokes couldn't have been all that bad.

[gzhpcu]

Stotty, Sorry but I find the argumentation erroneous IMHO. Sure you can go backwards in time and always find when a previous champion beat a subsequent champion. With that type of reasoning the Doherty brothers were even better than Tilden, and should be ranked way up... This incremental comparison is misleading. Compare Tilden directly to Federer, Nadal, Wawrinka, etc. and the gap is huge.

The pictures and videos speak for themselves. Top player in an era where the sport was elitist (looked upon as a pansy sport in the States), with virtually no competition worth mentioning.

[stotty]

Stotty, Sorry but I find the argumentation erroneous IMHO. Sure you can go backwards in time and always find when a previous champion beat a subsequent champion. With that type of reasoning the Doherty brothers were even better than Tilden, and should be ranked way up... This incremental comparison is misleading. Compare Tilden directly to Federer, Nadal, Wawrinka, etc. and the gap is huge.

The pictures and videos speak for themselves. Top player in an era where the sport was elitist (looked upon as a pansy sport in the States), with virtually no competition worth mentioning.

I understand your disbelief. I have eyes too! My point was not to make comparisons with the likes of Nadal. Tilden started playing in a time when rackets were made from a single piece of wood and had fishtail handles. The balls had a plug in them. Players wore plimsole type footwear not trainers. My point was to maintain he may not have been as flimsy as he looked.

I have a 1930's racket with a fishtail handle, which Tilden would have played with early on in his career. It's dreadful to play with, and to hit with other than a modicum of topspin is virtually impossible.

I have sat on both sides of the fence with this argument, and I have an interesting theory about the Don Budge thing, and about Tilden's dominance during his era. I haven't time now but I will come to it later. Thanks for listening....

don_budge, I haven't read Spin the Ball, but will do.

[gzhpcu]

Stotty, I am not talking about equipment. I am talking about physical fitness. To repeat again: the athletic stance, for example. He looks wooden in his movement. This can not be explained away by inferior equipment.

[gzhpcu]

...Match Play and the Spin of the Ball?

Don, yes I have read it. What does this have to do with Bill Tilden being over-rated? Lots of persons have written good books on tennis, without being a tennis champion.
He might write well, but theoretical knowledge but inferior to the instincts of a Pancho Gonzalez, for example, who wrote a couple of small books, which were nothing special, but he was the heck of a player...

[stotty]

Stotty, I am not talking about equipment. I am talking about physical fitness. To repeat again: the athletic stance, for example. He looks wooden in his movement. This can not be explained away by inferior equipment.

In the clip you posted, Tilden is moving as well as he needs to. He doesn't get beaten by the ball in any of the three rallies. Tilden is controlling all three rallies easily. Why run like mad when you don't have to? I take your point that his movement looks stiff but I doubt he was slow or a poor athlete. He's not tested enough in any of the three rallies to find out.

I like the last rally. It looks a decent standard.

With those rackets it's tough to play any different. Buy one on eBay and try for yourself. Moderate grips are the only way to go...slice and flat works best...power is very hard to come by.

Thanks for this great thread, Phil.

More to come...

[GeoffWilliams]

Once again, he was a child molester. What if it were your boy he went after? Why do we give ahtletes a pass on criminal behavior anyway? How often do they get away with: rape, ped abuse, etc.? Not just tennis, but every sport where there are legions of fans, protect their favorites over any victim or host of victims. It's down right narcissistic.

[stotty]

Tilden...Budge...how great?

One thing I always like to do is get to the bottom of things. To look at both sides of a coin. A bit like a detective...detective Stotty.

So how can Bill Tilden's seven wins against Don Budge be explained. Don Budge would have been near his pomp, while Tilden was 48? Sounds incredible, doesn't it?

One possible explanation could be match-rigging. The seven wins were achieved on a head-to-head tour. The success of a tour depended on close rivalries. The public wouldn't pay for a foregone conclusion. To make the tour financially viable, Tilden would HAVE to have some wins. So as detective I am forced to consider match-rigging. But having read quite a lot about Tilden and Budge this seems unlikely. Both had upstanding morals of fair play on a tennis court. I cannot see either man agreeing to rig matches.

The other possibility to consider is injury. Perhaps Budge was carrying an injury. Back in the days of the pro tour, the show went on whatever. Venues were booked in advance, so were tickets, obligations had to be met...money was at stake. Laver, Hoad and Gonzales were known to have played carrying notable injuries. Sometimes they lost as a result...just bad luck...those were the times. So as tennis detective I find injury a possible explanation.

Another thing to consider is Tilden's legendary status. Perhaps Budge found Tilden's legendary status a little overwhelming. Tilden was considered the best tennis player of the first half of the century, a phenomenal feat perhaps unmatched since. But I consider this the least viable explanation. By that time Budge was already a superstar himself, and Tilden had publicly rated Budge the most complete player to have ever played the game (as did Kramer). Budge surely wouldn't have been overawed by anyone, even Tilden.

A final thing to consider is maybe Tilden had a lot more in his tool bag than many doubters think...years of know-how and experience to bring to the table. Perhaps he was a far better player than his strokes in the clips reveal. His results may well have been well earned and justified. He was a master tactician, that is for certain. No one knew the geometry of a tennis court better.

I find the connection between Tilden and Budge compelling. In 1954 Budge, aged 38, had a win and several close matches with Gonzales. And we all know and accept Gonzales was an exceptional player. So Budge must surely have been an exceptional player too. Gonzales would not have wanted to lose to Budge under any circumstances. So if Tilden could get results against Budge...staggering.

As a tennis detective I concede taking results across overlapping generations can be misleading, but not where a 38 year-old beats the world number one, or where a 48 year-old beats a younger man near his peak. Results like these cannot be cast aside and ignored. They can't. Period.

My conclusion is that I must accept Tilden is harder to get to the bottom of and be certain about than most players because there is far less to measure him by. There is a tennis chasm around Tilden, with the next great being Vines who was 18 years younger. But whereas I cannot be certain that great tennis started with Tilden, I am absolutely certain about Budge.

Over and out....

[johnyandell]

Stotty,

Here is an first hand anecdote that backs up your Tilden conclusion. About 1980 when I was teaching at Golden Gate Park Alice Marble showed up one day. Yes that Alice Marble who won 5 Slam titles.

She wanted to play doubles and she and I played two other regulars, the 3 of us all being ranked 5.0 or 5.0 men players. First of all at the age of about 65 she held her own and I was very thankful she and I won and I made all my volleys, because it was clear she was not going to be happy with any other outcome.

Afterwards she was holding court and decided to tell us why Tilden was the greatest player of all time. Turns out she was on that same tour as the warmup act with Budge and Tilden. She claimed that before each and every match Tilden won, he came into her dressing room and announced: "Tonight I shall give the young man a lesson." I guess Tilden knew how much he had left and when.

[gzhpcu]

Ladies and Gentleman of the jury. You have heard the various arguments in the case. We have vastly differing opinions on the quality of Bill Tilden's tennis. His supporters provide anecdotes and argue the age factor in his beating younger world-class opponents.

I would say that a video is worth a thousand words, so therefore I submit the following videos for your consideration:

1) Tilden

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/big-bill-tilden

2) Budge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXcz4MKygAQ

3) Federer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJNbdNl6XUk

Compare Federer's movement with Tilden's...

Budge does seem to show that modern tennis originated with him...

I will, however concede that it is a mystery to me how Tilden at 48 kept up with Budge on the tour...

http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...g=5286,2514669

[gzhpcu]

If Tilden at 48 could keep up with Don Budge, then, I am sorry, but it is not Tilden being so great, but Budge's stamina and physical conditioning not up to today's standards. Why couldn't McEnroe do something similar in his late 40's? Today's tennis is a lot more athletic and physically demanding.

I have an anecdote as well. A friend of mine, Norbert Escher, years ago when he was a young man about a 5.0 - 5.5 ranked player here in Lugano, beat Maria Bueno handily, and she had the year before won Wimbledon.

Marble might have held her own playing doubles, but would have also been soundly defeated playing singles, John.

Yes, Don, I own and have read Tilden's book. Quite honestly, I have a number of better books on the game of tennis. I find it as overhyped as Tilden himself. (no offense meant, just my straightforward opinion...). I find "The Fundamentals of Tennis" by Stanley Plaegenhoef, for example, better.

Just think: it was claimed that Tilden hit a 163 mph serve with a wooden racket! Kind of fits into the general picture...

Gonzalez was a natural. Are you saying that Tilden knew him and gave him advice? Would be news to me...