ABSTRACT
Great classics are often written at the end of heroic ages. It is highly appropriate that at the end of the amateur age, in 1968, Al Laney published his great history of amateur tennis, covering the Court: A 50-Year Love Affair with the Game of Tennis, a book in which Tilden was often the protagonist. Both Big Bill and Mac were driven by a rage for perfection, not in order to make money but to satisfy deep elemental urges. They were both possessed by genius, one in a gentlemanly age and the other in an age of incivility and bad manners. It would be hard to find a more enlightening analysis of the relationship between genius and temperament than in Laney's thoughts on Tilden's tennis game. Genius is a rare quality of mind, while talent is a far more prevalent gift of God. A few comments on Sam Hardy's perceptive insights into Tilden's genius are in order here.
