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In once recounting the harrowing story of his family's flight across the desert from Chihuahua, Mexico, to California, Gonzalez spoke with pride of their ability to survive - father, mother and seven children - under stressful circumstances. Richard Alonzo Gonzalez was born on in Los Angeles, one of seven children of Mexican immigrants, Manuel and Carmen. In his later years on the tour, Gonzalez's indomitable spirit and feel for the game allowed him to compete successfully against younger players and also become a Davis Cup coach and confidant of future champions. I don't like Rod Laver because he's such a vicious competitor, but I don't dislike him."Īs for Laver, he once said of Gonzalez, "He gets meaner every time you play him."Īlways considered moody, volatile, contentious, Gonzalez snarled at opponents, sometimes drilled balls at line judges and once rushed into the seats after a heckler. You never lose respect for a man who is a vicious competitor, and you never hate a man you respect. "Pancho gets 50 points on his serve and 50 points on terror," Kramer once said, and Gonzalez himself said: "The great champions were always vicious competitors. He considered them an extension of the discrimination he faced as a Mexican-American youngster growing up on the streets of Los Angeles. A scar across his left cheek, from a childhood car crash, only heightened his aura, especially when he launched into a verbal assault on umpires and linesmen. Gonzalez, 6 feet 3 inches tall, moved about the court with lithe quickness, his coal-black hair and coppery complexion often creating a menacing presence. At the net, Gonzalez's volleys were punched yet effectively angled, a style emulated successfully by McEnroe decades later.
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His ground strokes had touch, precision and versatility, and his overhead combined the benefits of his size, agility and an intuitive court sense. His right-handed serve, with its natural action, epitomized power, control and placement. Gonzalez's style was the envy of his peers. He never showed up at Wimbledon and Forest Hills until 1968, just as I did." The records of Richard Gonzalez are obscured because of that. He would have won several Wimbledons if he hadn't turned professional.
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Kramer, who signed Gonzalez to his first pro contract in 1949, added: "He was a great competitor. championships, but from 1954 to 1962, he was the best player that walked on the court." "He had no Wimbledons, one doubles title there and a couple of U.S. "Pancho's passing will give the modern-day tennis player a chance to look at how wonderful he was," Kramer said yesterday. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1968. In any discussion of the "best tennis player of all time," Gonzalez is named among a group that includes Bill Tilden, Ellsworth Vines, Rod Laver, Jack Kramer, Budge, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe.
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"He was the best player who never won Wimbledon."īut Gonzalez won his share of titles, including the 19 United States singles championships at Forest Hills (he was the second-youngest champion ever - at age 20), and a spate of world professional crowns. "He was a marvelous player, a great competitor," Don Budge, the 1938 Grand Slam champion, said yesterday. The match numbered 112 games, took 5 hours 12 minutes and spanned two days, or what Gonzalez later would call "my lifetime." In an era before tie breakers were adopted on the tour, the score was 22-24, 1-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9. Two months past his 41st birthday, a grandfather in the twilight of his career, Gonzalez outlasted the 25-year-old Pasarell in the longest match in Wimbledon history. He never won the Wimbledon singles title, but his epic opening-round match there with Charlie Pasarell at the 1969 championships symbolized Gonzalez's persistent struggle for recognition and respect. That Gonzalez's death occurred during the Wimbledon championships was only one of the many ironies in a career filled with numerous athletic achievements as well as personal frustrations. "Pancho deteriorated very quickly," said Agassi Gonzalez, who is Andre Agassi's older sister. He seemed to be improving and was watching Wimbledon every day, she said, but then he developed pneumonia and doctors found that the cancer had spread. The cause of death was stomach cancer, said Gonzalez's former wife, Rita Agassi Gonzalez, who said that Gonzalez had entered Sunrise Hospital two weeks ago with a fever. Richard (Pancho) Gonzalez, a two-time national champion whose pride and passion on a tennis court were as compelling as his natural talent, died Monday night in Las Vegas, Nev.