At Roland Garros in 1970, I found myself seeded number 1 in both the singles and the doubles. I was really proud about that, and I guess it was the reward for having had such a good spring. I reached the quarterfinals in the singles, where I was beaten by the tough American Cliff Richey, despite Richey suffering from cramp in his hand at one stage.
In doubles, Ion and I landed our first major title—it turned out to be Ion’s one and only—when we beat two more Americans, Arthur Ashe and Charlie Pasarell in the final. This was great for both of us, and for me it was yet another step up the ladder. People sometimes think that winning this sort of title brings total happiness, and that sportsmen should be able to express the depth of their emotion at such moments. Actually, at that time, what I really thought was: ‘Yes, this is good but it doesn’t blow my mind. I need to keep going.’ Of course I was happy, but that’s quite a hard feeling to describe. As winning was something that I was getting used to, winning the doubles title at Roland Garros gave me more the feeling that it was a step in the right direction.
I saw that I was finally catching up all the time I had lost by not playing junior tennis and not joining the circuit properly until I was nearly twenty. The idea, though, that I might one day become number 1 in the world, or that I might win a grand slam title, was not something I was consciously working up to. As for the majors, I thought I could maybe win one, Roland Garros being the most obvious one, because the other three were on grass and I did not think I could win one of those. But I didn’t know for sure that it was going to happen. After all, so many guys have that ambition too, and yet they never manage to win a major. So I feel lucky that I did.
I was always happy just to play tennis. Tennis for me was like the theatre, a performance. ‘Ce n’est pas du cinéma’, as the French say, meaning that something is not superficial but has to be taken more seriously. Even if I lose, I’m happy if I feel I have given a performance. Of course, I want to win. It’s not that I’m content to be second; I’m not. But winning has never been the highest priority. Life is more important, and it was also more important to be myself. Probably if I had been different—although I don’t think of myself as different, I’m just me—I might have won more titles. But I never thought like that and I really don’t think I could ever have changed, because for me it was very important to play the way I was feeling. Maybe it made for ugly scenes sometimes, but for me it was the only way I could play.
Speaking of temper, why have I not yet talked about it? In truth, although I had a temper as a child, it was not getting me into trouble at this stage of my career, maybe because I was doing better and better, and there was not yet any pressure on me. Also, I was not yet a big name. Although I was winning titles, until Rome they had not been in big tournaments, so nobody was paying any attention to me. If I lost unseeded, 1st or 2nd round, they might say there’s some guy on court 9 complaining, but that’s it. When I was number 1 seed, playing in a quarterfinal on Centre Court, then they noticed. Finally, there were no rules then about fines. It was up to the tournament what they decided to do with any player who misbehaved. The Code of Conduct that was drawn up to fix penalties for bad behaviour did not come in until the end of 1975, so I still had a few clear years of freedom ahead of me. That’s why I wasn’t yet hitting the headlines for my temper.
Wimbledon was also a good tournament for me that year. Seeded number 8, I had victories over Pasarell and Richey (avenging my Roland Garros defeat of a few weeks earlier). The American Clark Graebner—who I used to call Superman because of his first name and his Clark Kent-like glasses—finally saw me off in the 4th round. Meanwhile, Ion and I, despite being unseeded, made it through to the semis of the doubles, where the Aussies Rosewall and Stolle beat us in five close sets.
It was in the mixed doubles, however, that I won my second title in a major. Having played with a few different partners over the years, I finally settled on the tiny but powerful American Rosie Casals. Of Hispanic origin, she was a niece of the famous cellist Pablo Casals, and she, too, used her strings to great effect. I immediately got on well with her, and we had great fun that first year together, cutting through the draw, beating the number 2 seeds Bob Hewitt and Billie-Jean King along the way.
I remember the mixed doubles final, because, as is often the case at Wimbledon, the rain had caused delays in the doubles and mixed doubles programme. So, on finals day, we found ourselves playing our semi and final back-to-back on Centre Court, after the men’s singles final, which had been an emotional match, because Ken Rosewall had for the third time failed to win the title. He had gone down this time in five sets to the holder, John Newcombe. What was more incredible was that Rosewall’s previous two attempts had been in 1954, against the Czech Drobny and 1956 against Hoad—sixteen and fourteen years before!
After Rosie and I had beaten Judy Dalton and Frew McMillan, the number 3 seeds, in the semifinals, we were told to stay on Centre Court and await our opponents for the final, the Russian pair Alexander Metreveli and Olga Morozova. I knew them both well, of course: Alex I had known ever since I had first played him in a junior tournament in Estonia, and Olga I used to tease the whole time, because she’s got a good sense of humour: ‘Hey, Olga, it’s OK, I spoke to your government, and they give you permission to smile’, I used to joke to her. Anyway, that day my Russian comrades didn’t have too much to laugh about because Rosie and I beat them in three sets 6-3, 4-6, 9-7.
When it was our turn to climb up into the Royal Box to be presented with our trophy by the Duke and Duchess of Kent, I didn’t really know who exactly they were. I did know they were royal, so I dutifully bowed to them, but what I was really happy about was having one more important title. The mixed doubles may seem unimportant to the public, but for those of us who played them—and in those days most of the top players did—it mattered very much, and we were really pleased to have won.
I earned £250 for winning the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon that summer in 1970, £200 for being a semifinalist in the doubles, and £220 for getting to the 4th round of the singles, £670 in total. My prize to myself for doing so well was to buy myself my second car—a beautiful black and silver Ford Capri. Because my driving licence did not yet permit me to drive abroad, I had to get Tiriac to drive it all the way back to Bucharest from Wimbledon after the tournament. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t too pleased. Actually, it may have looked beautiful, but it was not a good car and kept breaking down.
Once, though, I was coming home at two in the morning from a party and found myself speeding round the Arc of Triumph that we have in Bucharest (an almost identical version of the one in Paris) when I suddenly saw this little group of people flagging me down. So I stopped, because I could tell they were dressed like Westerners, and I figured they needed help. Sure enough, they explained they’d come from a party but couldn’t find their way home. ‘Get in’, I said and in they clambered, pushing to one side all my tennis rackets and shoes that were lying on the back. ‘Tennis player?’ asked one of them. ‘Yes, and you?’ ‘Actors’. It turned out I had just picked up the French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo and two other well-known French actors, Pierre Brasseur (the father of Claude) and Marlène Jobert, who were in Romania shooting a film. They, meanwhile, hadn’t a clue who I was. ‘Where do you want me to take you?’ ‘Another bar?’ said Belmondo hopefully. I laughed: ‘No, no, they’re all closed now.’ ‘Then back to the Athenée Palace’ (it’s now the Hilton). So that’s where I left them. At that time, Belmondo was going out with Ursula Andress, and I remember she was coming out to Bucharest every week to see him. A few nights later, a friend of mine who knew him quite well invited me to a party where all the actors would be. They instantly recognized me: ‘Ah, the guy who gave us a lift!’ So that’s how I first met Belmondo who became a good friend. He is a huge tennis fan, and for years he attended Roland Garros every day in his private courtside box. One year, during a doubles match, I ran so hard to retrieve a ball that I ended up in his box. He always brought his little dog with him, so I took the dog back onto court with me, tied him to the umpire’s chair and played a couple of points with this dog jumping and yapping away like crazy. Everybody thought that was very funny except, obviously, the dog. That