Even Rod Laver has one that got away: 1972 WCT Finals loss to Rosewall

It’s said that the great players cannot accept losing, but maybe the opposite is true. After all, they lose on tennis’ grandest stages, amid high-stakes occasions, in front of millions of viewers around the world. Then they come back yet again. Surely, to compete repeatedly, some form of acceptance must occur.

But even then, when it comes to losses, everyone has one best defined as the one that got away. This is the defeat that wakes you up in the middle of the night. It might be an occasion when success seemed so close, versus an extremely formidable and familiar foe, at a prominent venue, when victory might well have propelled one exceptionally skyward.

On the other hand, if victory is exclusive, pain is democratic. Those losses happen at all levels, from high school challenge matches to NTRP league play, college tennis—and even to the greatest players of them all.

Just ask the one and only Rod Laver. Nearly 50 years later, Laver vividly recalls a potential victory that eluded him.

“You can second-guess your way all through life, but you really don’t want to dwell on it,” Laver recently told me about his most painful defeat.

But even if banished to a deep corner of Laver’s mind, what happened on May 14, 1972 endures. On that Sunday afternoon, Laver took on his greatest rival, Ken Rosewall, in Dallas in the championship match of the WCT Finals, a season-ending, eight-man event that at the time was the equivalent of today’s ATP Finals. During these years, the Australian Open and even Roland Garros were far less important than the other two majors. The case could be made that the only events more significant then than WCT Dallas were Wimbledon and the US Open. Added to the mix was national TV coverage on NBC and an unprecedented first prize check of $50,000. For comparison’s sake, just three years earlier, when Laver had won all four majors, his total earnings for the year added up to $124,000.

“It was just fantastic how the game had grown and there was many more opportunities for all of us,” says Laver.

Rosewall defeated Laver at the 1968 French Open, a year before The Rocket would win all four majors. (Getty Images)

Most of all, though, Laver relished the chance to play such a significant match versus his fellow Australian genius in what always a test of skill and will.

“Ken and I had played each other so many times, knew each other’s games inside and out,” says Laver. “Neither of us was going to knock the other over.”

Evidence for this came vividly when Laver sprint off to a 5-1 first set lead, only to see Rosewall claw his way back and win the next three games. Though Laver won the first set 6-4, Rosewall snapped up the next two, 6-0, 6-3, and went up 3-1 in the fourth. But Laver fought back and won the set in tiebreaker.

“I was getting very tired,” wrote Rosewall.

The fifth was a seesaw of its own, Laver down 1-4, then rallying. “We were going backwards and forwards, all match long,” he says. “I was playing some of my best tennis.”

At 4-5, ad out, Laver faced match point—and surprised Rosewall with a daring serve down the middle that proved untouchable. Laver soon took the fourth set in a tiebreaker.

Well past the three-hour mark, it came down to a decisive tiebreaker—first player to seven. And this is where for Laver, that day in Dallas went from the gloriously possible to the eternally elusive.

Up 3-1 in the tiebreak, Laver hit a missile of a forehand passing shot that just ticked the tape. As any player knows, the difference between 3-2 and 4-1 in a tiebreaker is massive.

“That would have given me a big lead,” he says. “Instead I thought, ‘Oh God.’” There followed a Laver double-fault.

Laver and Rosewall. (Getty Images)

But several points later, Laver held the match in his hands, serving to Rosewall in the ad court at 5-4. For a lefty at this stage, the default mode is the wide serve. Well aware as Laver was of Rosewall’s brilliant backhand, he says, “I’d got to a wining position. I was playing well, not about to change my game.”

At this point, Rosewall struck a backhand crosscourt at such a sharp angle Laver could barely touch it. Serving now at 5-all, Laver again went to the Rosewall backhand. Says Laver, “What you do when you’ve been on the court that long and are playing well becomes automatic.” Rosewall once more struck a perfect backhand, down-the-line for a winner. With Rosewall now serving at match point, Laver’s backhand return went into the net.

“Ken came up with big shots on those points,” says Laver. “He earned that win. He wasn’t going to give it to me. I was disappointed when I came off the court that day. It was nice to hear everyone say how great that match was. People said that tennis was the winner that day.”

Afterwards, Laver was consoled by his wife, Mary. “Not that we talked about the match. So we agreed to go have a beer and forget this for a while. You don’t think about the forehand or that smash or that pass or where you may have lost the match. That doesn’t mean anything, does it?”