Fighting Lion

In the golden days of amateur tennis, the road to a pro contract was paved with silverware from Wimbledon and Forest Hills. No longer. Stripped of nearly all its top-rank players, amateur tennis is in the doldrums, and Pro Promoter Jack Kramer has been forced to develop his own stars. Best of Kramer's new proteges is Spain's Andres Gimeno, an agile 23-year-old who never won a major amateur tournament.

At home, where he ran up six Spanish doubles and two Spanish singles championships, handsome Andres Gimeno (pronounced Hee-may-no) is a national hero. In athletic Australia, where he beat Neale Fraser and Roy Emerson in late '58, Gimeno is regarded as an undesirable alien. In the U.S. he is only faintly remembered as the harder-hitting half of the unpronounceable Spanish team that won the 1960 National Indoor doubles championship by default (the other half: Manuel Santana).* But when Promoter Kramer offered Gimeno a pro contract last year, many tennis fans thought that Kramer's racquet had come permanently unstrung.

Long & Patient. They quickly learned otherwise--and so did Gimeno's fellow pros. In his first professional match, the lanky (6 ft. 2 in., 160 Ibs.) Spaniard defeated Peru's Alex Olmedo. He then won 16 of his next 24 matches, earned the right to meet Pancho Gonzales in a 29-match, head-to-head contest for the professional championship of the world. On court, Gimeno bears a startling resemblance to the young Bill Tilden. His ground strokes are long, faultless and patient. His big serve darts and leaps. His apparent lethargy masks lightning-quick reflexes. Says Australia's Frank Sedgman: "If was obvious from the start that this kid was good. As an amateur, he simply didn't get enough opportunity to show what he had. There wasn't enough rugged competition."

A superbly conditioned athlete, Gimeno is unruffled by the rigors of the professional tour. He invariably falls asleep as soon as he sinks into an airplane seat, voraciously gobbles steaks and vitamin pills. He is also hungry to improve his game. "From Pancho Gonzales," says Gimeno, "I learn to throw the ball further in front of me when I serve, so I get more power. From Lew Hoad I learn to hit the ball harder. But always from myself I learn to fight like a lion." Gimeno is assured of a lion's share of the kitty: Promoter Kramer is paying him $50,000 for his first three years on the tour, plus 15% of the gate for each match he plays on the regular tour, 7 1/2% for each one he wins. He is assured of an extra $25,000 in prize money for his special contest with Gonzales.

Toward the Peak. Kramer should have no trouble keeping his part of the bargain. The current U.S. tour started out as a box-office bomb; in a crowded Augusta, Ga., during the week of the Masters Golf Tournament, only a handful of spectators turned out. But attendance is now picking up, largely because perennial Champion Gonzales is finding Newcomer Gimeno a tough man to beat. As the tour swung into the Midwest last week, Gimeno trailed Gonzales by seven matches (12 to 5) and he was growing more confident daily. "In two more years," said Gimeno, "I hit my--how do you say it--peak. My ambition, it is to be the best in the world. Probably I can, too."

* With the score tied, 16-16, in a blistering first set, Australia's Fraser and Emerson forfeited the final match to Gimeno and Santana when Fraser injured his back and was unable to continue.

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