Abdication of a Pro

For years, whenever anybody asked why amateur tennis was floundering, the sport's white-flanneled bigwigs have had the same answer: Jack Kramer--king of the professionals, enemy of amateurism, exploiter of the sport. As boss of a touring troupe of play-for-pay pros, Kramer was luring away top amateurs with fat contracts and destroying the game's appeal.

Last week Kramer announced that he will abdicate his throne and turn control of his pro tour over to the players themselves.

Kramer's decision to quit was good business: he is busy building a plush racquet club in Rolling Hills, Calif., and his pro tour has lost its spectator appeal since the retirement of the former perennial professional World Champion Pancho Gonzales. But there was another motive, said Kramer: his love for the game of tennis. "I suddenly realized," he wrote in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, "that my presence is actually retarding the development not only of pro tennis but of tennis as a whole." Today's amateurs, said Kramer, simply play bad tennis: the quality of the competition is so poor that even the best players are not worth the price of a pro contract. "The public will no longer pay to see the amateur champions when I add them to my troupe. Without the benefit of years of toughening competition, they are no match for the established pros, and each year's new crop looks weaker and weaker." Kramer's answer: give amateurs the kind of seasoning they need, in open tournament competition against the pros.

"Professionals devoting their whole time to a game can reach a level of skill impossible to amateurs under the present setup.

The professional game provides the kind of competition and heroes a sport needs to excite youngsters and make them want to participate themselves." When the International Lawn Tennis Federation turned thumbs down on open tournaments in 1960, Kramer was shocked--or says he was. "Amateur officials used me for their excuse. 'How can you be for open tennis?' they asked each other, 'when you know it will fall into the hands of Kramer?'" At first, Kramer tried to build up the pro game, signed new players: Denmark's Kurt Nielsen, Chile's Luis Ayala, the U.S.'s Barry MacKay and Butch Buchholz. "But it soon became clear," wrote Kramer, "that my pro tour could not thrive on its own without open championships." So he decided to get out completely--in hopes that the I.L.T.F. would reconsider. Will it work? "That's up to the people in control of the amateur game," wrote Kramer.

"They've told me that I am the stumbling block because I control the pros. O.K., now I don't control the pros. So let's give the fans and players what they want."

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