‘Have you ever seen this fucking guy play?’asked the Spanish Davis Cup captain.
My next stop after Paris was to the unknown shores of England. I had heard so much over the years about Wimbledon and its famous grass that I had no idea what to expect. I had also been told how bad the food was, how traditional the tournament was, and how you had to bow to all members of the royal family. Such a big deal was made of this last thing that I was really scared I might come face to face with the Queen one day, not recognize her, and forget to bow.
For many tournaments, Tiriac and I had to write to the tournament referee, or director, hoping that he would give us an invitation. There were no official rankings—not like now, when it’s very clear which players can get into the draw of a tournament. At my level, I had to send what was, in effect, my CV, making a case for why I should be asked to play their tournament. It was like applying for a job except that, instead of being interviewed, my past performance in recent events, or in their event the previous year, would be examined. Of course, if you knew the tournament referee personally, or if you had sent a nice note to the tournament director’s wife, thanking her for everything she had done for you that week (you hoped she could remember who you were), then you might be looked at more favourably next time around. Similarly, if you were put up at the home of a tournament volunteer, as often happened in some countries such as India, it was important to thank them for their hospitality. We soon got used to sending off these notes in broken English and hoping that they led to something the following year. One way or the other, a lot of invitations to young players such as myself worked by personal recommendations.
Luckily, by 1966, Tiriac’s status in tennis was such that he was starting to get invited to tournaments without having to ask. At one stage, he was one of the top players in Europe, so they would even offer him a small financial guarantee, in the region of $200 (although it was illegal at the time), to come and play their event. He would then say: ‘You give Ilie $100 as well. If not, I’m not coming.’ Never one to beat about the bush, was Ion. And because tournaments began to notice that we often got better crowds watching us play than watching others play singles, they paid up and we started to get invited a bit more often.
When it came to Wimbledon, though, it was another matter. Captain Mike Gibson ruled the roost, in those days. A typical, buttoned-up Englishman, whose career had been in an army quite different from the one I knew in Romania, he was known to be fond of whisky. When players asked me, in the months before the tournament, whether I was playing Wimbledon, I’d say: ‘Yes, I hope so,’ and they’d reply: ‘Don’t forget to buy Captain Gibson a bottle of whisky.’ I got the impression that, every year, he must have received dozens of bottles and that they always went down well—and quickly.
England was totally bewildering to me, although I didn’t stay long, because my Wimbledon, both in singles and doubles, was over in a few days. Tiriac and I shared a small room in a £1 a night bed & breakfast on the Cromwell Road, in West London. The road is a noisy four-lane highway, with lorries and buses thundering past our window day and night, and our accommodation was near the British Airways terminal (now a big supermarket), just before Earls Court Road and the flyover that takes you out to Heathrow. The following year, 1967, we moved up-market and splashed out on separate rooms in a B&B near Gloucester Road, a bit further into town, though still on that terrible Cromwell Road. I didn’t make it to a proper hotel in London until 1969.
I remember finding the whole business of driving on the left very scary and had to be really careful crossing the road. As for Wimbledon itself, the first time I saw the grass I was totally confused. It looked like a carpet. I didn’t think it was possible to play on it and I couldn’t work out what was the real tennis, the one on clay or the one on grass. My 1st round opponent was the Brazilian Thomas Koch, a useful player but one who only ever managed to beat me on this one occasion, losing to me eight times in total in later years.
I was scheduled on an outside court, number 9, one of those where there are just a couple of benches for spectators to sit on and a constant movement of people walking around. Unfortunately, the chair umpire was a guy who had been a line judge during my doubles final at Roland Garros a couple of weeks before. I think I had thrown a ball at him or something during that match. Whatever it was I had done, he didn’t say anything at the time, but when it came to my match against Koch he went for it. He gave me a grand total of forty-two foot faults. That was it. I lost every service game and lost the match 6-2, 6-0, 6-0. He had upset me very much, but that first year I had decided to say nothing and do what I was told, so I did not complain. Once I got good, though, I would never stand for that sort of treatment again. In any event, I wanted to disappear fast after that match, and I left the tournament without once having bowed to anyone royal.
After that, the Romanian Tennis Federation thought it would be good for me to learn a bit more how to play on grass, so they sent Tiriac and me to India for couple of months at the beginning of 1967. The trouble was, the official surface there wasn’t grass—it was cow shit. Literally. They’d get the cow shit, spread it out over the court, and wait for it to dry. So it was more like dried earth than anything that grew in south London. We didn’t care, though. We played on anything, anywhere. Over the next three years, we visited the length and breadth of India, from Amritsar, with its beautiful golden temple, to Bombay, from Calcutta to New Delhi. It was so hot that matches would be played early in the morning. Despite this, and because tennis was very popular in India at the time, fans would turn out in their thousands to cheer and encourage their top players, Premjit Lall and Jaidip Mukerjea, who were two good players. So there was always a great atmosphere at these tournaments.
We would often stay with families who were keen on tennis. They could be from any nationality, it did not matter to us. Mainly, they were either local Indian families or expatriate English ones, though we did once stay in a police station. The rooms were above the actual station and we could not hear what was going on below, but it still meant we had to walk through the police station itself, past strangelooking people, every time we left our rooms. The English families led a typically colonial lifestyle: afternoon tea was served by the Indian servant, and English-style, well-cooked roast beef was often on the menu at dinner. The Indian families were also nice to stay with, although we avoided eating the curries. This sometimes made things difficult at dinner time, and I remember once having nothing but fried eggs and Coca-Cola for about two weeks, in an effort not to catch anything terrible.
One evening, in Calcutta, we went to a party and I was very shocked, because they came round with plates and food and everyone ate with their hands, something I certainly was not used to doing. I realized it was a tradition there to eat like that, and, as I did not want to offend my hosts, I just got on with it and dug in with my fingers too. I had learnt, early on, that when in Rome…
It reminds me of the story told me by the French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin, who I know well. President Chirac, on some foreign trip to an African country, finds himself at the traditional banquet where finger bowls are placed to the side of each guest, because the food that evening is rather messy to eat. So far, so good. Everyone dips their fingers daintily and regularly into the finger bowls. It is only at the end of the meal, when Chirac’s African host drinks the contents of his finger bowl, that Chirac realizes with alarm that he is going to have to do the same, because the rest of the African delegation have in the meantime followed suit. So down the President’s throat the dirty liquid goes, like a bitter medicine, while the President tries hard to pretend he is sipping his country’s best Bordeaux.
On the whole, we managed to avoid stomach disasters: in the first year Tiriac did fall ill, and in the second I did, but luckily not too badly in either case. Over the years, my stomach has managed to become immune to most bugs, but I am also very careful and avoid eating salads and drinking the local water unless I am absolutely sure it is safe to do so.