rod laver pics and biography

Rodney George "Rod" Laver MBE (born 9 August 1938, in Rockhampton, Australia) is a former tennis player from Australia who was the World No. 1 player for seven consecutive years, from 1964 to 1970. He is the only tennis player (and the only Australian) to have twice won all four Grand Slam singles titles in the same year — first as an amateur in 1962 and second as a professional in 1969. He is the only male player and first player, male or female, during the open era to have won a calendar year Grand Slam. He is the 3rd male player to win all four Grand Slams in his career after Fred Perry and Don Budge. Laver was ranked as the best professional player in the world during the five-year period he was excluded from the Grand Slams.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Rod Laver is second and last male player to win each major title twice in his career. Only Roy Emerson and Margaret Court had won all four Grand Slam tournaments twice before Laver in the history of tennis. Laver is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time.[9]
Playing style
Although of a slightly short and medium build (1.72 m), Laver developed a technically complete serve-and-volley game, with aggressive groundstrokes to back it up. As Dan Maskell put it, he was "technically faultless, from his richly varied serve to his feather-light touch on drop volleys plus a backhand drive carrying destructive topspin when needed or controlling slice when the situation demanded it." His left-handed serve was well disguised and wide swinging. His wristy groundstrokes on both flanks were hit with topspin, an innovation in the 1960s, as was the attacking topspin lob, which Laver developed into a weapon. His stroke technique was based on quick shoulder turns, true swings, and exquisite timing. His backhand, often hit on the run, was a point-ender that gave him an advantage. Laver was very quick and mobile and had a gigantic left forearm. Rex Bellamy wrote, "The strength of that wrist and forearm gave him blazing power without loss of control, even when he was on the run and at full stretch. The combination of speed and strength, especially wrist strength, enabled him to hit ferocious winners when way out of court." At the net, he had forcing volleys, often hit as stroke volleys. Especially on the backhand, he could hit sharp underspin angles as well. Julius Heldman pointed out, "He is competent on low balls, handling them with underspin for control, but he will cream any ball at waist level or higher." He was difficult to lob, because of his springing agility, and when forced to retreat, he could come up with a vicious counterpunch.

As an amateur, Laver was a somewhat flashy player, often a late starter. He had to learn to control his adventurous shotmaking and integrate percentage tennis into his game when he turned professional. In his prime, he could adapt his style to all surfaces and to all conditions. Laver had a great record in five-set-matches, often turning things around with subtle changes of tactics or by simply hitting his way out of danger. When he got into the "zone", he went for broke. Then he would, as Heldman explains, "literally jump and throw his racket at the ball with all the force he could muster, wrist and arm snapping over at the hit."

[edit] Career
Main article: Rod Laver career statistics
[edit] Amateur career
Laver was a young boy when he left school to pursue a tennis career that lasted 24 years. He was coached in Queensland by Charlie Hollis and later by the Australian Davis Cup team captain Harry Hopman, who gave Laver the nickname "Rocket".

Laver was the U.S. junior champion in 1957 and the Australian junior champion in 1957. He had his breakthrough on the world stage in 1959, when he reached all three finals at Wimbledon, winning the mixed doubles title with Darlene Hard. As an unseeded player, he lost the singles final to Peruvian Alex Olmedo after surviving an 87-game semifinal against American Barry MacKay. His first major singles title was the Australian Championships in 1960, where he defeated fellow Australian Neale Fraser in a five-set final. He then captured his first Wimbledon singles crown in 1961.

In 1962, Laver became only the second male player after Don Budge in 1938 to win all four Grand Slam singles titles in the same year and won an additional 17 titles. Among those titles were the Italian Championships and the German Championships, giving Laver the "clay court triple" of Paris, Rome, and Hamburg that had been achieved previously only by Lew Hoad in 1956. The biggest hurdle to Laver's winning the Grand Slam was the French Championships on slow clay, where Laver won three consecutive five-setters beginning with the quarterfinals. In his quarterfinal with Martin Mulligan, Laver saved a matchpoint in the fourth set with a backhand volley after coming to the net behind a second serve. In the final, Laver lost the first two sets and was down 0–3 in the fourth set before coming back to defeat Roy Emerson. At Wimbledon, his progress was much easier. Laver lost only one set the whole tournament, to Manuel Santana in a quarterfinal, who held a set point for a two set lead. At the U.S. Championships, Laver lost only two sets during the tournament and defeated Emerson again in the final.
rod laver pics and biography
rod laver pics and biography
rod laver pics and biography
rod laver pics and biography
rod laver pics and biography
rod laver pics and biography
rod laver
rod laver