June 25, 1969: The best you've never heard of

WIMBLEDON, England - Ask knowledgeable modern tennis fans to name the best players of all time, and the lists produced would be pretty similar; names like Federer, Nadal, Sampras, Agassi, McEnroe, Borg, Ashe, and Laver would show up time and again. But what about the name of Pancho Gonzalez? Unlikely.

Gonzalez, perhaps more than any other great tennis player, was a victim of timing. When he was in the prime of his career, in the 1950s and 60s, professionals weren't allowed to compete in the Grand Slam events. So despite being considered the best player in the world - in fact, being ranked number 1 for eight consecutive years - Gonzalez only won two Grand Slam events before turning pro, depriving himself of scores of others. Roger Federer holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles with 16, but Gonzalez likely would have approached that record; he won seven straight U.S. Pro championships and 12 overall Professional Grand Slam events. But again, they weren't the Open events that we know today, so he doesn't get credit in the history books.

Once the Grand Slam events opened up to professionals in 1968, Gonzalez was 40 and well past his prime. He still put his name in the Grand Slam history books in 1969 when he played what was at that point the longest tennis match in history, coming from behind to beat Puerto Rican Charlie Pasarell 22-24, 1-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9 in the first round at Wimbledon.

That match seems like nothing now compared to the just-completed match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, but at the time, it was grueling. Gonzalez showed a bit of his famous fiery personality when he complained after the first set that the match should be postponed because of darkness. Upset at having to continue, Gonzalez virtually threw the second set before the match was finally postponed, forcing the two to come back the next day. On June 25, Gonazalez won three straight sets from Pasarell, saving nine match points in the process, to advance.

Gonzalez was knocked out by Arthur Ashe in the fourth round of that tournament, never to advance that far again. But his first-round match had wide-ranging implications. The length of the match helped bring about the tie-break rule in tennis, where a tie-breaking game is played rather than forcing players to continue until somebody leads by two (although Wimbledon still has a final-set tiebreak, as Isner and Mahut well know).

Pancho Gonzalez may be the best tennis player nobody's heard of. In the minds of some people he played against, he was the best player ever, period. But while most of his career successes have been buried in the record books, his one epic match at Wimbledon still serves as his lasting legacy.