Dennis Ralston Interview Part I

ATB Note: This weekend I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dennis Ralston, former #5 player in the world and a member of the International Tennis Hall of fame, for an interview. This is by far my favorite interview in the years I have been blogging, so I have not edited it much, and will be posting this interview in two parts. Special thanks to Bernardo Fernandez and Fernando Velasco for setting this interview up.

ATB: Dennis, can you tell us how you ended up in Austin ?

Ralston: Well about four years ago, Fernando Velasco, who is the general manager and director of tennis at The Circle C Tennis Club, asked me to do a clinic for his members and adaptive tennis players, the first volley group, it was for wheelchair and amputee tennis players, but then the clinic got postponed. Then Fernando called me again last year and said we’re going to have the clinic again, and I don’t know if he knew , but I had lost part of my leg as a result of an infection. I said I’d love to come, because now I could really empathize with these folks who are trying to play with a disability. At the time we were moving to Houston to live with my daughter and I was trying to adjust to getting around and learning how to walk again. Fernando and I knew each other in Dallas, we had a bible study group together, and we were really good friends. It was really at Fernando’s encouragement that we thought about coming to Austin. And another factor was that the prosthetic device for my leg was getting fitted here in Austin, Mr. Foreman- he’s the guy who does my leg, he does a lot of stuff for different athletes. As we came to visit Austin more and more and we stayed with the Velascos, we really came to like it, the city really has everything. It was sort of like we were being led to come here, mainly through the Velascos and the Foremans, who have been really great.

The last ten years have been a chaotic time for us, because I got addicted to pain meds and that was ruining my life and killing me, and I’m lucky I didn’t die. I had to go to The Betty Ford Clinic to get off the stuff and to learn about it, which was probably the best thing I’ve ever done. So, this stuff was slowly killing me, I gained a lot of weight, for two years I couldn’t do anything. Then I met a guy at Betty Ford who was head of the pain track program, an amazing guy, who played football at Boston College. He was an athlete and he found out I played tennis, and he said “Dude, we’re going to play ping-pong." At the time, my back was killing me and I didn’t want to play ping pong, I didn’t want to do anything, but I went out there and we played for 40 minutes and I didn’t think about anything that was hurting, I just played. This guy said, you see, your mind can take you places, so you have to learn to make your mind work for you. This guy was also a special ops guy in the Army, a Ranger, and he’d seen all kinds of serious stuff and he said you’ve got to get going, you have to start working out, you can do it. So, I kept hearing his voice in my head, and the first time I went to the gym, I couldn’t even press the 45 pound bar, that’s how weak I was. I made it through Betty Ford, I got off the stuff, it will be a year in December, and I learned a lot about how horrible that stuff is. I remember lying in bed, feeling really terrible and thinking if I make it out of here, I’m going to tell people about how bad this epidemic is that is going on in our country. Everyday, I read about somebody in the sports world that’s getting messed up with the pain meds. I learned that more people are dying from prescription drugs than from overdoses in America, and no one talks about it, so I vowed that if I made it out, I would.

I went back to Houston, and I started rehabbing and getting back in shape, then we moved to Austin. Now, I’m starting to hit balls and I’m teaching. again. So, I’ve come pretty far, but I’ve got a long way to go. I’m teaching, both adults and kids here at Circle C, which is fun. I’m enjoying people again, I’m enjoying food, I didn’t even like to eat when I was on the pain meds, so I’m just enjoying life, I’ve got a second chance.

ATB: After everything you went through, how did it change your outlook on coaching and life ?

Ralston: Well, I’m more appreciative of everything. I know I’ve always liked coaching and teaching and being involved in the game. When I played, I watched the players, guys like Gonzalez, Rosewall and Laver, to see what they did that made them good, and I tried to learn from everybody. When I was coming up, I got a lot of help from those guys, particularly Pancho. So I always felt it was our obligation to give back to the game, and to help. If it’s a 3.5 ladies team, I’m just as involved as if it were the Davis Cup, I’m playing every point with them. The reason I mention that is some ladies here asked me to watch their league match last week, so I watched all four lines and I wrote down things about every player and they loved it, and it was a lot of fun. That’s what I did as a coach. When I was a player, I wish I had had a coach, but I didn’t. When I turned pro, nobody had a coach, I mean Gozalez was our Davis Cup coach, but otherwise, you were out there on your own. So, I’ve learned a lot through my mistakes as a player, that has helped me be a coach. Because, I always felt if I played a match and lost, and didn’t learn anything, it was not productive.

For example at Wimbledon, when I went out there to play the finals of Wimbledon in 1966, I was playing Manuel Santana. I beat him two weeks earlier at Queens 64, 64, easily, and he was a really good player on clay, and a good player on grass, but I remember I beat Cliff Drysdale in the semis 12-10 in the fifth, and I had a day off and I walked out there and I was just flat. If I had a coach, someone who would have told me, you haven’t done anything yet, you’re in the finals, that’s great, so what, forget it , you’ve got to go out there and win this match, finish the job. But I went out there like “Ok, I’m in the finals” and my attitude wasn’t this is the most important match of your life, which it should have been, regardless, win or lose. I think I was comfortable, and I thought I was going to win, but I lost in straight sets, and that's a tough loss, but I learned something from it.

ATB: You won five grand slam doubles titles, and as you said, you were a Wimbledon finalist, who do you think was the greatest player you ever faced or played with ?

Ralston: Pancho Gonzales. What made him great was he had the most unbelievable serve, and he was fast, really fast for a big guy, he was 6’3”. He could hit the serve anywhere he wanted at 120 miles an hour with a wooden racket, and he was the fiercest competitor that I ever saw. When I turned pro, it was a series of matches, Gonzales and I played Laver, Rosewall and Stolle in Australia and New Zealand. He had always been my hero, and I remember my first match was in Toowoomba, it was US vs. Australia, Ralston and Gonzalez. I remember thinking, this is the cat’s meow, playing doubles with my idol, even though he was past his prime, he was still so good. I remember watching him when he was younger, I watched him play Lew Hoad in one of those 100 match deals, in Bakersfield, and I mean, I had never seen tennis like that.

That’s the hardest question, people say well how can you compare Federer with these guys, well, you can’t compare eras, I mean you can, but you’re never going to know. Like Laver winning two grand slams, I mean how do you not count that as one of the greatest efforts in the game ? Winning one grand slam is ridiculous. So I always say, Gonzalez was the world champion for 12 years, he beat everybody, Federer was the world champion for three years. So to me, that mark stands alone, for the guys I saw play, and I never saw Kramer play, or Tilden or Budge, I saw them hit balls, but not really play. I say Gonzalez was the best, Federer is awesome…there’s so many... Laver... I’d put Nadal in there, and Djokovic, his record this year is unbelievable. You’ve got to hand it to that guy, he’s changed his diet, he’s stronger, fitter, he’s unbeatable this year.

The guy I had the toughest time with, personally, was Roy Emerson. I played him a lot. He was an attacking player, and really fast, I think he still holds the long jump record in Australia for high school athletes. He was the mark, we all said we wanted to be as fit as Roy Emerson, because he never got tired.

ATB: Did you play Lew Hoad ?

Ralston: I played Hoad once as a pro, and he was way past his prime. Gonzalez said to me, if I had to have a guy to play a match for my life, it would be Lew Hoad, one match, at his best. Hoad was scary, scary good.

In part 2 of his interview, Ralston gives ATB his thoughts on the State of US tennis, and tells us the one thing that most Junior players and their parents do wrong. Look for part 2 later this week.