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Berkeley Tennis Club Memories by Eugene Cantin (written November 2017) I began being around the Berkeley Tennis Club in 1953, at the age of nine. I had begun to take tennis lessons that summer from family friend Fran Smart at the old Tahoe Tavern pair of courts at Lake Tahoe. Fran was an interesting man. He taught law during the week at the San Mateo Junior College, tennis at Tahoe during the summers, and gave lessons at the Berkeley Tennis Club on Saturdays during the winter for manager Tom Stow. The other club pro at the time was Dick Stevens. (Fran's best junior students were Ann Kiyomura, who won the Wimbledon juniors over Martina Navratilova and the Wimbledon doubles, and Erik van Dillen, who played Davis Cup for the U.S. Fran taught them on the Peninsula, not at the BTC). So every Saturday morning during that winter and several more to come, my mother dropped me off at the front gate of the Berkeley Tennis Club so that I could take a group lesson on Court One from Fran. Something about thick and sometimes scratchy tennis sweaters, racket presses and how tennis balls smelled when they first came out of the can had caught my attention. In those early years of my experience there the Berkeley Tennis Club was fairly different from today's club. There was no pool, no walkway between courts four and five, smaller porches both downstairs and upstairs to watch matches from, no lights, and no color to the court surfaces. The actual shape of the clubhouse was a bit different, as over the years since then the wall of the clubhouse facing the courts has grown forward towards the courts, to accommodate a larger main room, card room and women's locker room. There was a “drying room” in the men's locker room, which I loved, both that room and the men's locker room itself being rather funky back then. There was even a hidden apartment of sorts under the eaves upstairs, for the use of a night watchman or janitor I guess. And Court One sported quite extensive stadium seating on its east and south boundaries. In those years at the club you reached the back courts by going around on Domingo to the train-tracks that ran through the club to deliver people to the Claremont Hotel—the proper route—or by running across court four or five to the sound of shouting. And when the train was in you could also get shouted at when you ran through it to reach the back courts. Parking at the tennis club was easy in those years. We simply parked in the Claremont Hotel. What could be simpler? And then one day the hotel got uppity and built an entry gate and that fence right behind our gate at the head of the then unused space for the train. Spoil sports. During the fifties the Berkeley Tennis Club was run by Tom Stow, with the almost equally formidable Barbara Dunn manning the office. Tom would have been in his early fifties then, but he seemed much older to a young junior, with his raspy voice and fierce no-nonsense demeanor. When I was fourteen, in 1958, he reluctantly agreed to Fran's request that I be allowed to become a junior member, and thus began my now fifty-nine year official club membership. I do remember that when the pool finally did get installed about this time Jim McManus and Peter Herb went to Stow Lake in San Francisco and “borrowed” several official vests or life jackets, emblazoned with the name “Stow Lake”. They then stood around in them when our pool was officially opened by Tom Stow. Great visual! During my mid-teen years something began which seemed perfectly normal to me, since I knew no other tennis club to compare things to, but which I now think was absolutely extraordinary. By now I was actually playing rather than just taking group lessons, hitting with other juniors such as Bob Harper, Bob McGuire and Steve Morgan. But one day an older man named Cliff Hildebrand said “Come on, kid, let's play.” (I believe Cliff was a California lawyer famous for suing the Southern Pacific Railroad over personal injury issues.) So for a few months I played against him as well as the other juniors. When I could beat Cliff a better adult player named Don Laurie asked me to play. And when I could deal with him Don Jacobus stepped in to thrash me. In effect I was afforded a tennis learning ladder by increasingly skilled players at the club, something which I very much doubt ever happens today. I am very grateful that such a thing existed. Playing Don Jacobus was quite an experience for any junior he decided to torment. Don attacked behind an array of feathered drop-shots and pin-point lobs, his shots always within reach if you cared to work too hard. Don never ended points, letting them go on as long as you cared to run. Matches with him were brutal, but very educational. He even had one shot he hit with so much backspin you had to learn to run ahead of where it bounced on your court to have any chance of returning it as it backtracked toward the net. Often he hit this shot near the net so that it simply returned to his side, preventing any return shot being made whatsoever. (For years, playing Don was an unwritten requirement for any junior trying to join the club. Much of a youngster's character was revealed during these matches.) Once you proved able to stay with Don on the court to some degree, the tennis doors at the club opened up to the promised land. With luck you would find yourself playing with and against such luminaries as Jim McManus and Bill Hoogs Jr., Clif Mayne and Hugh Ditzler, Rupe and John Rickson, perhaps even Bill Crosby. Usually you filled in for doubles, but sometimes you were allowed a few sets of singles. And these were some of the best players not just in Northern California but in the country. Magic. Each Saturday morning the front four courts at the Berkeley Tennis Club offered some of the best tennis in Northern California. And these were not arranged and scheduled matches. Rather, players simply showed up, grouped into foursomes, and played. Strong club players were often joined by various other skilled locals from around the area. If these weekends offered the best tennis in Northern California, the week of the Pacific Coast tournament, held for years each September at the BTC, served up world class tennis for the delight of the club members. Again, it always seemed perfectly normal for my tennis club to host the fourth or fifth largest tournament in the country each year. Didn't every club do this? The tournament not only brought in the best players in the world for our viewing enjoyment, but it also gave competitive club members a chance to compete against those players on our home courts. One of the greatest matches ever for member entertainment came in 1960 when Bill Crosby and Whitney Reed destroyed that year's Wimbledon ​ ​ doubles titleholders Rafael Osuna and Dennis Ralson on court four in a fantastic match in the semis. At the end, as he walked forward to shake hands, Osuna neatly turned his Dunlop Maxply racket into a half racket with a single hammer-blow to the court. Wonderful. A huge crowd enjoyed that match. World Tennis for that year reports the score as 6-1,6-2, an even more severe thrashing than I now recall. Another great match I remember came in 1967 when member Bill Hoogs Jr., with very little help from partner Jackie Saul of South Africa, beat Cliff Ritchey and Charlie Pasarell in a very long match—9-11,6-4,6-4—again on court four. Somehow, almost single-handedly, Bill simply would not let the opponents win. Half the club filled the steps to watch and cheer. The greatest match I ever saw was the 1970 semis of the Pacific Coast between Cliff Richey and Stan Smith where they were playing for the number one ranking in the U.S. The match went five sets, and famously came down to the ninth point of the tie-breaker, match-point for both players. During an extended point Smith had control—and apparently the match—at least twice, but Richey simply refused to lose. What made the match great for me, however, came earlier. At the start of the match, all the people in the stands were for handsome, clean-cut Stan Smith. He would hit a winner. Loud applause. Bull-dog like Richey would hit a winner. Nothing. Finally, Richey hit yet another ridiculous winner, heard silence, and began sarcastically clapping for himself. And the audience, realizing that Cliff really was playing a sensational match against the better-equipped Smith, and feeling a bit embarrassed about how things had been going, grudgingly began clapping along with him. And Richey began conducting the applause, which grew louder and louder. From then on that match was the greatest I've ever seen. My own play at Berkeley never reached these heights, but there were moments, many involving Court Four, which court I came to love: In 1963 I played Rafael Osuna in the first round on Court One with perhaps five hundred people watching because a week or two earlier Osuna had won the U.S.

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