Each year on the first Friday of Wimbledon, an increasingly large crowd flocks to a house near the All England Club for a very special party. Hosted by Tennis Australia, the “Aussie Barbecue” has become a fixture in the calendar, a celebration of tennis for current players, former stars, coaches, administrators and journalists.
The food and drinks are outstanding and even when the weather doesn’t play ball, a huge marquee protects the guests. But in addition to the fun, the evening also plays an important role, maintaining a link between generations of Australian tennis.
Australia is, of course, blessed with a rich heritage of champions. In the 1950s and 1960s, Australian men won 53 of 80 majors; in the 1960s, Australian women, led by Margaret Court, won 18 of the 40. From Frank Sedgman and Ken McGregor, to Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Tony Roche, John Newcombe and many more, Australians ran the roost, at home and abroad.
That golden generation will surely never be repeated. It’s half a century since the last home men’s champion at the Australian Open, Mark Edmondson. It’s 24 years since Lleyton Hewitt won Wimbledon, the most recent Australian men’s champion. With the exception of Sam Stosur and Ash Barty, the cupboard has been bare of late.
But heritage matters to Australian tennis and anyone attending one of the Wimbledon barbecue evenings will see generations of greats mingling, sharing stories and laughs. Many of those stories surround the Davis Cup, an institution for Australian tennis, an event they won 15 times in the 1950s and 1960s.
“I think it’s very important,” Roche says. “It probably started with Frank Sedgman and Kenny McGregor, really, of course, Harry Hopman. It was sort of, I guess, easier to do in those days, to pass the history down the line, because you were brought into Davis Cup squads and travelled in teams at a very young age, and you had these great players there to learn from.
“That was a very strong tradition in Australia. We lost our way a little bit there for a while but John Newcombe and myself took over the Davis Cup. We sort of reintroduced that. And, you know, a classic example was Lleyton Hewitt, who we took to maybe five or six Davis Cup ties as an “orange boy” [young players brought along for experience and practice]. That was a very important part of our culture.”
Todd Woodbridge won 16 grand slam doubles titles, including 11 with fellow Australian Mark Woodforde. Growing up, like many top Australian juniors, Woodbridge was compared to the greats, a pressure but also a privilege. He is keen to pass on his knowledge.
“I’ve tried to be able to do that and be that mentor, if it was appropriate for someone to come up and ask me,” he says. “I think that we’ve still got that in Australian tennis, and that’s really, really important to me and I think it’s important to young people, because even though, and I was like this, you think you’re invincible when you’re out there and nothing else matters, I’ve now got that experience and understand that.”
Allan Stone, who won the Australian Open doubles title in 1977, recalls when he was a ballboy in a Davis Cup tie at Kooyong, the club that staged the grand slam from 1972 to 1987. “When we finished, Ashley Cooper, who was the Wimbledon champ, said: ‘son, do you play?’” Stone says. “I said, yeah – I was playing in the under-12s at that point – and he says, ‘do you want to hit?’ His racket was a bit too big and heavy for me, but he hit with me for about 10 minutes. I have never forgotten it. And when I got older, Laver and Rosewell, Emerson and [Fred] Stolle, they’d hit with us and look after us.”
Roche coached Hewitt and Pat Rafter, another two-time grand slam champion. The thread continues down through Hewitt, now Australia’s Davis Cup captain, and the mentor for the country’s No 1, Alex de Minaur. “We had a good attitude but we enjoyed it,” Roche says. “You worked hard, you played hard, and you knew how to enjoy yourselves. I think that has sort of probably gone out of the game a little bit.”
With Sedgman and Rosewall in their 90s, and Laver and Roche into their 80s, the older generations will soon pass the baton on to the likes of Hewitt and Rafter. Roche is confident it will continue.
“With Lleyton, it’s in very good hands,” Roche says. “I mean, you couldn’t get a more passionate leader, somebody that leads by example. The players all look up to him. I think it’s very important that he continues in that role.”
