Taki: Wimbledon has changed since I played there

A first-round loser at Wimbledon this year will receive £23,000 for showing up. Back in 1957 I got £80 for losing in the singles qualifying draw and getting into the draws for the men’s doubles and mixed. Call it inflation, if you like, but today’s pros outside the top 100 need the moolah more than we did back then. I travelled with two Cubans, the Garrido brothers, and two Chileans, Pato Rodríguez and Potoko Aguirre. We lived at the Shelbourne Hotel in Earls Court, a grubby place that’s still around, and we paid £1 per week for a room without bath. On the Sunday before the championships started, I met a beautiful actress, Lisa G., who lived in Deanery Mews next to the Dorchester. I moved in for the duration and they were furious. When I brought her to the competitors’ section, my doubles partner, Wayne Van Voorhees, fell head over heels in love and threatened to pull out of the doubles if I remained possessive. All I can say, 56 years later, is he played his heart out for me.

Tennis was a wonderful sport when it was shamateur. We all travelled more or less together, and hung out in bunches. The top stars drank with the lowliest players, and the middle ranks did the same with their kind. Just like society, I guess. Mervyn Rose, who had won the Australian and was a perennial quarter finalist in all the majors, hit with me and drank with me. As did Ken Fletcher — we gambled everything we had and then some — as did the great Roy Emerson. All the girls were in love with Emmo but he only had eyes for Joy, his wife. That year Lew Hoad successfully defended his title by crushing Ashley Cooper, and I took him to the Milroy that night, using a friend’s name.