It is the 50th anniversary of the most complicated men’s edition in the centenary history of the men’s event at the Wimbledon tournament. In 1973, a sanction by the International Federation (ITF) to Yugoslav Nikola Pilic triggered a boycott of Wimbledon promoted by the ATP, which had been formed a year earlier. Suddenly, the seeding list had to be redone, and 32 players who had won two games in the previous phase entered, plus another 49 lucky losers to complete the competition draw.
Until then, and for six decades, player registration forms for Grand Slam tournaments were sent by the national federations. With the beginning of the Open era, something changed substantially because a good number of the best tennis players had signed contracts with professional promoters, especially with Lamar Hunt’s WCT. Nicola Pilic was one of them. Pilic was requested by his federation to play a Davis Cup tie against New Zealand, but the Yugoslav did not attend because he had a signed commitment to play in Las Vegas.
Pilic’s uncle, General Dusan Kovac, president of the Yugoslav federation, sanctioned the player with not being able to compete for 9 months in tournaments that depended on the ITF, such as the Davis Cup and the Grand Slams. Pilic was able to play Roland Garros because he was already registered, reaching the final. Despite the fact that Cliff Drysdale, president of the ATP, managed to reduce the sanction to one month, this new measure did not give the Yugoslavian the option to compete at Wimbledon.
Cliff Drysdale and the ATP Board of Directors, consisting of Stan Smith, Arthur Ashe, Jim McManus, Mark Cox, John Barrett and CEO Jack Kramer, believed it was time to show the strength of the players. On June 14, two weeks before the start of the tournament, they already notified Mike Gibson, director of Wimbledon, that they were considering a boycott. Wimbledon had already suffered a setback the previous year, when, in 1972, the ITF, trying to show its strength, prohibited tennis players under contract to the WCT from playing in the tournament.
The meetings between the ATP, Wimbledon and the ITF were the order of the day during the following days, and intensified when the previous phase began. The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), which had been formed a few dates earlier, showed its support for the ATP, but did not support the boycott.
The ITF asked their national federations to put pressure on their tennis players. Four Spaniards, Andrés Gimeno, Manuel Orantes, Juan Gisbert and Antonio Muñoz were registered and awaiting a final decision. The BBC, which was scheduled to cover seven hours a day, was demanding a solution from Wimbledon, as it did not want second-rate matches on the schedule. Nor was the powerful British yellow press immune to the moment, accusing the players of not loving the sport and moving only for monetary interests.
The British Sports Minister held meetings with Drysdale and Kramer to seek a last-minute solution, although in the British Parliament the leader of the House of Commons, James Prior, declared that the minister’s interventions did not mean that the Government was meddling in an internal problem of players and federations, being only a desire to seek a conciliation to a problem that affected the public.
Everything was going to be decided in a meeting in which the ATP summoned the players at the Westbury Hotel in London. Mike Gibson demanded from the ATP the act signed by the tennis players who decided to boycott the tournament to delete them from the table in case that was the decision made. After three tense hours, Arthur Ashe, who served as secretary, had a list of 81 players, 12 of them seeded, who supported the boycott.
A few hours before the start of the first day, Gibson received the phone call from Ashe and was forced to change both the order of play and the draw. He reduced the seeding list from 16 to 8, and 79 tennis players from the previous phase entered the new draw, including the Spanish José Moreno, who was re-fished after losing in the second round of the preliminary phase with the Australian Allan McDonald.
“It was a key moment and the strength of the ATP was demonstrated. Those days, more than winning a battle, an important future war was won by the players”, Drysdale acknowledged years later. The final victory went to Jan Kodes, who defeated Alex Metreveli in three sets. Despite the boycott, that year Wimbledon had more spectators than in the previous edition.
