‘Hey, what happened, I know it’s your birthday but I cannot be that nice.’
He looks me straight in the eyes and replies: ‘Nastase, that just shows how stupid you are.’
I was shocked: ‘You’re right, I am stupid because I let you win.’
‘That’s a lesson I’m teaching you now,’ he continues. ‘Not to be nice to anyone, not your friends, your brother, your sister, your parents.’
‘Yes, but why are you telling me that now, after the defeat? Why don’t you tell me that before the match? Then I could learn the lesson and win as well?’
‘Yes, but this way, that will teach you,’ he says.
And he was right. I had paid a high price for the week. I might have won $10,000 or whatever for playing the tournament, more than the winner’s cheque actually was, but I hadn’t won the title. And I hadn’t played in Rome either, which is where I had really wanted to play. I never let him influence me like that again.
Fortunately, this did not affect my form, and a month later I began a run of results that took me all the way to my first major singles final, at the 1971 French Open. On the basis of having won the big clay-court tournaments of Monte Carlo and Nice in April, I was seeded 3, behind Ashe at 2, and Kodes, the holder of the title, at 1.
The tournament began well. I was winning easily and having fun, helping to judge the Miss Roland Garros contest, along with fellow player and friend Pierre Barthès, and going to the players’ party that was held that year at the Paris Lido.
Then, in the quarterfinals, I came up against Stan Smith, the number 6 seed. Stan might not count clay as his best surface, but he was such a determined competitor that I knew I had to play well to beat him. The match started in fading daylight at 7.40 p.m., and by 8.30, the floodlights, which they used at Roland Garros in those days, were on. Within fifteen minutes, though, having adapted to them, we were taken off court. Smith must have been relieved, because, after just an hour’s play, I was already leading 6-1, 6-3.
The next morning, under sunny skies, he woke up, won the 3rd set 6-3 and went a break up in the 4th. It’s getting a bit tight for comfort, I thought. There’s no way I want this to go into a 5th set, with him having won two sets that day. I got the break back with three winning shots, including a backhand topspin lob that landed plum on the line. At 4-4, and serving, Stan had a point to go up 5-4. Instead, I hit a cross-court passing shot that helped me to break him again and, one game later, I won the set 6-4 and the match.
This win gave me a lot of confidence in the semis against another American, Frank Froehling, who played with a big topspin forehand, because of his unorthodox grip for the time. This style was very unusual for an American. Still, Froehling had managed to beat his compatriots Arthur Ashe and Marty Riessen on the way, so he was having a good run. Our semifinal was a strange match in which I won the first eight games very easily, to lead 6-0, 2-0, then Froehling had a spell when he won seven straight games to equalise at one set all. I don’t remember playing less well during the 2nd set, but Froehling, who was a player who blew hot and cold, was just making every shot. Sometimes that happens, and there’s not much you can do other than hope things change before you lose the match. In my case, they did, but I had to play really well, chase lots of drop shots, which Froehling liked to hit, and make lots of running passing shots to win in four sets. I was now through to the biggest match of my career so far and had a chance to win my first major.
The night before the final, I just had room service with Tiriac. We tried not to talk too much about the match—I’d played Jan Kodes, my opponent, so many times, there was no point trying to talk tactics—and I went to bed. I tried not to think too much about the importance of the day ahead. This was my routine before big matches, and it never really changed over the years. The only thing I liked to do was wash my socks out and wear the same pair as I had used in the semis. It wasn’t so much superstition as knowing that they were comfortable and, psychologically, that was always important. I never used the same shirt or shorts but, for some reason, I used to like to use the same socks and—even more inexplicably—the same sweat band. Don’t ask me why.
On the day of the final it was raining off and on. I had woken up with swollen eyes, and it was the first time I started to have an allergic reaction to pollen. I felt good, though, and arrived at the club about an hour before the match. I managed to practise for ten minutes, just enough to warm up, then went back to the dressing room to get a quick massage, to keep the muscles warm.
The final itself was close and tense right up to the end, 2 hours 40 minutes later. Both of us were playing well, which always makes for a good match, and I went a break up in the 1st set, after a wrong-footed Kodes was sent sprawling to the ground. I helped wipe him down with a towel, which made the spectators laugh. Jan never gave up though—that’s one of his strengths—and he broke, saving two set points at 4-5. At 6-7, I was serving to stay in the set when, on the first point, I contested a line call against me. This was enough to break my concentration and lose me the game and the set.
Of course, it’s easy to say that I should have stopped muttering about the line call, but I really felt it was an error. I did not want to disrupt Kodes so I did play on quite quickly, but my rhythm was broken and I lost the 2nd set 6-2 in half an hour.
The score and length of the 3rd set was an exact replica of the second, except that it was me who won it this time. In those days, players went off for a fifteen-minute break between the 3rd and 4th sets, and it was always psychologically important whether you were leading or losing by two sets to one. The break could also interrupt the impetus of a player who was playing well in the 3rd, so it was a big part of the mental battle that is always played out on a tennis court.
When we came back on for the 4th, I immediately went 2-0 and 3-1 up. We were both playing some really classic clay-court tennis, with lots of drop shots, passing shots, angled volleys, and, especially, lots of running. I remember we were playing with Tretorn balls, which were very soft, and because of the dampness of the weather they were very heavy and difficult to play with. The crowd were loving the match, and I was not so wrapped up in it that I did not notice some points where we got standing ovations. Kodes, though, stuck at his task and, after breaking me back to level at 3-3, he reached 6-5. I then had to serve to stay in the match. I reached 40-15 easily enough, but the game slipped away as Kodes strung together a series of winning shots. The match was over, and Kodes’s coach, Pavel Korda, jumped onto court to plant a kiss full on his mouth, just as Gheorghe Cobzuc had done to me two years earlier in the Davis Cup.
Of course, I was disappointed that I had not won. I certainly thought I could beat Kodes after my good results that spring. But I also knew I had played well, I had given a lot of pleasure to the crowd, and I felt for a first major final it had gone well and that I had other chances ahead of me. You can never be sure, but I was sufficiently confident of myself, by this stage in my career, to think that I would not be one of those players who only ever reached one big final, never to be heard of again.
I was therefore surprised not to do better at Wimbledon, where I was beaten in the 2nd round by Frenchman Georges Goven, who could at best be described as a bit of a journeyman pro. That night, in an attempt to drown my sorrows, I picked up a girl and was just fixing up to take her back to my hotel when she admitted that she had a dog with her, and the dog had to come too. ‘OK, the dog can come,’ I said, dubiously. I just wanted him to stay quietly in the bathroom. No chance. He was in the bathroom all right but he barked through the whole thing, because I’d insisted on closing the door to stop him jumping onto the bed. Eventually, he went to sleep, so I couldn’t use the bathroom. Not good but it was only when he decided to do his business at three in the morning that things really became a nightmare. There I was, mopping up the smelly mess in the middle of the night, half naked, wondering whether I had paid a rather high price for getting laid. All I can say is that I didn’t spend long with the woman the next morning.
In early October