Aussie tennis legend Tony Roche craved fame in rugby league
Although “earning more money than the prime minister” by his mid-20s, left-handed tennis star Tony Roche’s secret ambition was to win fame as a rugby league great.
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Lleyton Hewitt goes into his 20th consecutive Australian Open this week carrying the hopes of a nation. Despite an illustrious career which earned him Wimbledon and US Open crowns, he has never won the Australian grand slam and while form and a star-studded draw would suggest it will remain out of reach, fans can only hope.
Thirty-seven years ago it was his former mentor Tony Roche who retired having never claimed the ultimate prize in Australian tennis.
Roche won acclaim as the eighth Australian to win the French Open. But his 1966 victory in Paris was Roche’s only grand slam win.
Like Hewitt, Roche came to the attention of the tennis world as a youngster. And like Hewitt he left Australia to travel the glittering international tennis circuit where he enjoyed fame and considerable success.
But although “earning more money than the prime minister” by his mid-20s, the left-handed star once revealed his secret ambition was to win fame as a rugby league great.
Known as “the young man in a hurry” and hailed as a Wimbledon prospect by 1967, Roche first stepped on court as a five-year-old.
The son of country butcher and league coach Andy and his wife Eugean, he was born at Wagga Wagga on May 17, 1945.
He grew up at nearby Tarcutta, where he had a bloody introduction to tennis in about 1950. A newspaper report described how a larger opponent boasted he was about to deliver an ace to young Roche, but missed the ball and lost hold of his racquet, which went flying across the court. Roche ducked too late: the racquet hit him in the mouth, knocking out two teeth.
Undeterred, at 13 Roche attended a NSW Lawn Tennis Association talent spotting tournament at Narrandera, along with Albury junior Margaret Smith. Roche lost 6-0 6-0 in the first round, but the next year won the NSW Under 15 championship. Finishing school at Tarcutta in 1960, he took a promotions job with Dunlop in Sydney to train with Harry Hopman, whose line-up included champions Frank Sedgman, Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall and Rod Laver, while Sydney teen John Newcombe also showed promise.
Then regarded as the best player of his age, in 1963 Roche joined a six-month trip with the Australian men’s touring team. The “glamour trip” took the four-man team to Singapore, Penang, the Middle East, Rome, Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, Japan, Hong Kong and Manila.
With his lethal left-hand serve and crisp volleys, at 16 and 17 Roche represented Australia in the Miami Orange Bowl, winning the singles in 1964, when he also debuted with Newcombe as a doubles team.
Roche used weightlifting and “a lot of running” to stay in shape, playing golf when tennis schedules allowed, but within a month of his selection with Newcombe in Australia’s 1964 Davis Cup team he was plagued by the first of a string of injuries. A strained back muscle requiring cortisone injections forced him out of a match at Queens Club in London and put him in doubt for Wimbledon.
Back in form a year later, he and Newcombe took their first Wimbledon doubles title. In June 1966 an ankle injury forced him out of Queens. Roche lost to Laver in the 1968 Wimbledon singles final, but had two Wimbledon doubles wins behind him by 1969 when he and Newcombe signed with New Orleans promoter Dave Dixon for a new professional tour, World Championship Tennis.
Backed financially by Texas oilman Lamar Hunt, the Australians joined Yugoslav Niki Pilic, Americans Earl “Butch” Buchholz and Dennis Ralston, Frenchman Pierre Barthes, South African Cliff Drysdale and Brit Roger Taylor to form “the Handsome Eight”.
Identified as “the most eligible bachelor in world tennis” as he earned $2000 a week travelling between Paris, Rome, Monte Carlo and New York, injury-prone Roche commented in mid-1971 that if he could have one wish, it was “to become a football star”.
Plagued by persistent tennis elbow, in September 1971 he underwent surgery on his left arm. Within months Roche was again relying on cortisone injections to get through a match.
He had married Sue, also from Sydney, by the time he underwent another elbow operation in America in September 1972. Even after an enforced four-month break, largely spent coaching at Newcombe’s T Bar M tennis ranch in Texas, he was a television commentator for the 1973 Davis Cup.
Told in England of Filipino faith healer Placido Palitayan, he stopped in Manila on a trip to Australia. Reluctant to discuss the treatment, telling journalists “you wouldn’t believe it anyway”, he said the three-minute procedure removed two blood clots using no anaesthetic.
Roche joined Newcombe to take out their fifth Wimbledon doubles in 1974, adding the Australian Open doubles in 1976 and 77, before officially retiring in 1979 to take up professional coaching. His proteges have included top world players Ivan Lendl, Patrick Rafter, Hewitt, Roger Federer and most recently, Bernard Tomic.
Originally published as Aussie tennis legend Tony Roche craved fame in rugby league
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