Ilie Nastase

Ilie Nastase (born July 19, 1946, in Bucharest, Romania) is a former Romanian professional tennis player and one of the top players of the 1970s. Nastase was the World No. 1 in 1973 according to the Association of Tennis Professionals computer rankings, which placed him first from August 23, 1973, to June 2, 1974.

Career

Among his 84 singles titles, only 53 of which are recorded on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) website, are the U.S. Open in 1972 (defeating Arthur Ashe in a five set final) and the French Open in 1973. In men's doubles, he won Wimbledon in 1973, the French Open in 1970, and the U.S. Open in 1975. He was the singles runner-up at Wimbledon in 1972, losing in five sets to Stan Smith, and in 1976, losing to Björn Borg.

Nastase won the Masters tournament four times, in 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1975. Only Pete Sampras and Ivan Lendl won more titles there.

At the beginning of his career in 1966, Nastase travelled around the world competing with his good friend Ion Tiriac. Together, they reached the Davis Cup challenge round in 1969 and 1971. In 1972, they reached the Davis Cup final, the challenge round having been abolished. However, they never won the trophy for Romania.

In singles, Nastase won his first minor tournament at Cannes on April 16, 1967. His first final at an important tournament was in 1969 in Stockholm, where he defeated Tony Roche and Smith.

Nastase became one of the best players in 1970, with many experts ranking him as the sixth best player in the world after the Australians Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, John Newcombe, and Roche and the American Ashe. Nastase's high ranking resulted from his success at the Italian Open in Rome and at the U.S. Indoor Open in Salisbury, Maryland. With Tiriac, N?stase won the men's doubles title at the French Open.

In 1971, Nastase was the runner-up at a depleted French Open with 16 of the 32 World Championship Tennis (WCT) players absent. Nastase lost in four sets to Jan Kodeš. In December, Nastase won the Grand Prix Masters, again without the WCT players.

The two following years saw Nastase's apogee.

In 1972, he became the second ranked player in the world (see World number one male tennis player rankings), owing to his winning the U.S. Open in a five set final over Ashe. This tournament was the only event of the year in which all the best players participated. Two months before in a depleted Wimbledon, N?stase lost to Smith in five sets. In the Davis Cup, in which WCT players were still not allowed to participate, Nastase was undefeated in singles until losing to Smith in the final tie. In December, Nastase won his first match of the year with Smith and his second consecutive Grand Prix Masters title. (The WCT players were again absent from the tournament.) Smith defeated Nastase four of the five times they played that year.

In 1973, Wimbledon and the Australian Open again had very depleted fields. Roughly 80 players boycotted Wimbledon because of a controversy involving Nikki Pilic. Only 4 of the 20 best players in the world entered (Nastase, Kodeš, Roger Taylor and Connors). As usual from 1972 through 1982, very few of the best players visited the Australian continent. Among the top 20 players, only Rosewall and Newcombe participated. Five events stood out that year: (1) the U.S. Open with only Roy Emerson missing; (2) the French Open (among the best claycourt players, only Rosewall, Laver, and Emerson were absent); (3) the Grand Prix Masters, this time accessible to all players; (4) the WCT finals, reserved for WCT players (not including Nastase, Newcombe, Connors, and Manuel Orantes); and (5) the Davis Cup, open to everyone for the first time in its history. By winning 17 tournaments in 1973 (the French Open, the Masters, the other 12 listed on the ATP website plus Washington D.C., Istanbul, and Kingston), Nastase was the undisputed World No. 1 that year. In the Davis Cup, he won 7 of 8 singles rubbers, including a victory over Tom Okker, the "Flying Dutchman." In matches against the other top players, Nastase was 1-0 against Newcombe and 1-1 against Smith. The Romanian won the French Open without dropping a set (a feat repeated twice by Borg in in 1978 and 1980), and he won the French Open (clay) - Rome (clay) - Queen's Club (grass) in succession, a feat never equalled in the open era.

In terms of public popularity, Nastase was then at the peak of his career, famous both for his technical and physical genius and for his good humour on court. But among referees and other players, his reputation for gamesmanship resulted in the nickname "Nasty" after several incidents where his temperament got the better of him. For one year, other players scorned him in locker rooms and did not speak to him.

Nastase's play began to decline in 1974 even though he was the only player to qualify for both the WCT Finals and the Grand Prix Masters. (Newcombe played both events, although he played the Masters at Kooyong as an invitee instead of a qualifier.) As usual, Nastase played well in the Masters, in particular against Newcombe in the semi-finals. (Nastase finished his career with a 4-1 record versus Newcombe, losing only their first match in 1969.) The Romanian, however, lost the final to Guillermo Vilas in five sets.

For the fifth consecutive year, Nastase reached the Masters final in 1975 (an event Connors did not enter even though he qualified for the second consecutive year), where he played perhaps the best match of his career to defeat Borg 6-2, 6-2, 6-1.

During the first half of 1976, Nastase won four tournaments (Atlanta WCT, Avis Challenge Cup WCT, U.S. Open Indoor, and La Costa), and head-to-head, he led Connors 2-1, Vilas 1-0, Ashe 1-0, and Borg 1-0. N?stase did not enter the Australian Open, which was again avoided by most of the top players. N?stase was prevented from entering the French Open because he participated in World Team Tennis. In the second half of the year, N?stase lost to Borg in the men's singles final of Wimbledon and in the semi-finals of the U.S. Open. N?stase won three other tournaments during the second half of the year, the Pepsi Grand Slam, South Orange, and the 4-man tournament of Caracas, Venezuela, in October (not to be confused with the Caracas WCT tournament in March), making seven tournament championships for the year. Nastase was generally considered to be the World No. 3 for the year, behind Connors and Borg.

In 1977, most tennis specialists considered N?stase to have finished the year just out of the top 10, although he finished ninth in the ATP rankings. He was a quarter-finalist at Wimbledon and the French Open and participated in the WCT Finals.

N?stase was still one of the 20 best players in 1978. At Wimbledon, he again reached the quarter-finals, losing to Okker after defeating Roscoe Tanner.

During the remainder of his career, Nastase steadily declined and only occasionally defeated a good player, such as Johan Kriek in the third round of the 1982 U.S. Open.

N?stase retired from the tour in October 1985 at the age of 39 after playing in the tournament in Toulouse, although he did play the challenger tournament at Dijon in June 1988.

Various facts

Nastase was able to play every tennis shot except that his volley was comparatively weak. When Nastase was playing well, his speed around the court and superb anticipation compensated for his lack of an excellent volley. He was one of the only players to have an effective offensive and defensive lob off both his forehand and backhand. His major weakness was a periodic loss of concentration, especially during high pressure matches such as: (1) the 1972 Davis Cup final singles match against Stan Smith; and (2) the 1976 Wimbledon final.

Nastase and Jimmy Connors were good friends, often playing doubles together. They refused to join the Association of Tennis Professionals, preferring to play in a parallel tour organised by their long-time manager Bill Riordan.

Nastase was the first professional sports figure to sign an endorsement contract with Nike in 1972.

Nastase wrote a couple of novels in French in the 1980s and entered politics in the 1990s, making an unsuccessful run for mayor of Bucharest in 1996.

In 2005, TENNIS Magazine put N?stase in 28th place in its list of 40 Greatest Players of the TENNIS era.

source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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