Manolo Orantes has always been a ghost in my tennis-watching memories. I started to understand tennis just as the Spaniard was disappearing from the top of the sport, or at least from the finals of Grand Slams. My earliest memory of hearing his name came during the 1977 U.S. Open final, a match that itself exists at the far edge of my conscious past, on a 10-inch black-and-white TV in my family’s kitchen.
That afternoon Guillermo Vilas was building a fourth-set lead over Jimmy Connors, a fact that caused CBS's commentators, Tony Trabert and Pat Summerall, to begin mentioning Orantes’ name in ominous tones. I didn’t know it at the time, but two years earlier, in the semifinals of the same tournament, Vilas had been up two sets to one and 5-0 in the fourth on Orantes before falling apart, squandering five match points, and losing it in the fifth. It’s still right at the top of the list of all-time comebacks, or, depending on your point of view, all-time chokes. For now we’ll go with comebacks, because yesterday Orantes was belatedly but deservedly inducted into the tennis Hall of Fame.
The night after the Vilas match, Orantes got back to his hotel room late, only to find that there was a leak in the bathroom. The plumber came and went, and Orantes finally went to sleep sometime in the wee hours. This being the U.S. Open, he had to go out and play the final against Jimmy Connors the next afternoon. Exhausted but nerve-free, he cruised past the defending champ in straight sets for the only Grand Slam title of his career.
I remember watching Orantes just once, a couple of years later, when he again beat Jimbo in a smaller event. His lefty feel seemed to be perfect for the softball style that was in vogue against Connors in those days. Orantes was an inheritor, from another Manolo—Santana—of Spain’s touch-game tradition, and as you can see above, he knew his way around the net. He won 33 tournaments and reached the French Open final in 1974. There he was an early victim of the soon-to-be-patented Bjorn Borg comeback. Orantes won the first two sets against the 18-year-old Swede; over the last three, he won just two games.
For me, Orantes will always be the guy who pulled off one of the most unlikely doubles in history, when he beat Vilas and Connors at the 1975 Open—even in the brief highlights from that match above, he looks appropriately ghostly. And how about some of the shots he hit to save those match points? An overhead on the line, a defensive lob near the line, and a lob approach that he placed an inch from the baseline. I'm surprised that Vilas was able to play tennis again after that match.
Only one day between the semi and final at a major? No sweat, Manolo might tell today’s spoiled pros, just stay up all night.
A day after Orantes’ induction, we received confirmation that Jose Acasuso of Argentina has retired. A wiry, live-armed talent and a fun player to watch when his head and his heart were in it, I remember Acasuso first for his on-court semi-resemblance, in my eyes at least, to Pete Sampras. Second for his elegantly and elaborately whipped one-handed backhand, a beautiful shot. And third, unfortunately, for his two heart-breaking defeats in Davis Cup-clinching ties, first to Marat Safin and Russia in 2006, and then to Fernando Verdasco and Spain, at home, in 2008. Acasuso played valiantly for long stretches in both matches, but came away with nothing each time. In my write-ups at the time, I made a special note of Acasuso in defeat.
