The Unknown Janitor Invited to Play the 1976 Australian Open

BACKGROUND from The Sports Time Traveler

Last month The Sports Time Traveler headed down under, and 50 years into the past (virtually, of course) to follow an emerging story in the world of tennis.

A virtual unknown, 21-year-old Mark Edmondson, the #212-ranked player in the world, who had been taking odd jobs to support his dream of playing pro tennis, including work as a janitor, was invited to round out the field for the 1976 Australian Open.

This is not just any tennis tournament. This is one of the four Grand Slam tennis events, that along with Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and the French Open comprise the quartet of the 4 most important events around the globe annually.

Here are my reports from Australia.

Melbourne’s Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club - Late December, 1975

I’ve been here at Kooyong following Mark Edmondson, the janitor who received an invitation to play in the 64 man field of the singles competition at the 1976 Australian Open.

Edmondson has been trying to make a go of it as a tennis professional for 2 years. To pay for his trips overseas he has worked in a hardware store, painted fences, lifted bricks, worked in a nursery… and as a janitor.

He earned his spot based on his recent play. At the end of November, he won the Tasmanian tennis title.

Then on December 12th, he pulled off an upset as he defeated the #1 seed, Geoff Masters, in the Queensland Open semi-finals. Masters was ranked #42 in the world this year.

The story of the match in the December 13th Melbourne New Age featured a headline that didn’t even mention Edmondson by name. They simply called him ‘unknown.’

Take a look below at the full article, ‘Unknown’s’ name, Mark Edmondson, is not even revealed until the 2nd paragraph.

Edmondson was at least described favorably as having a “big booming serve.”

In the finals of that tournament, 2 days later, Edmondson won the 1st set, but then lost 3 straight sets to 40-year-old Mal Anderson.

However it was a good enough showing to get what may have been the last spot awarded for the Australian Open.

How a Janitor Got Invited to a Grand Slam Event

Edmondson, the ‘unknown,’ benefited from the fact that many of the world’s top players passed up the Australian Open this year leaving spots available for Australian players.

American Jimmy Connors, the world’s #1 ranked player, who won this tournament in 1974, and lost the final here this past January to Aussie John Newcombe, decided to forego the long, expensive trip to maximize his earnings elsewhere.

The winner’s purse for the 1976 Australian Open will be just $7,500. Whereas the team of Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert recently won $100,000 for a televised match in the U.S. against Marty Riessen and Billie Jean King.

Connors official reason for skipping this Grand Slam event was not money related, rather he insisted that it conflicted with his Davis Cup travel schedule.

Also passing on the Australian Open this year are several other big names including Guillermo Vilas, Bjorn Borg, Ilie Nastase and Arthur Ashe. The lack of prize money is the issue.

The Field

Even without Connors and the other top players, the Australian Open still has a highly competitive field.

Here’s a look at some of the top seeds:

#1 Ken Rosewall - Rosewall is playing quite remarkable given he is 41 years old. He won 5 ATP tournaments this year. Last year, in 1974, he reached the finals in both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. He has won 8 Grand Slam events including the Australian Open in 1971 and 1972.

#2 John Newcombe - Newcombe was the World #1 ranked player prior to Connors taking the top spot in July, 1974. He has won 9 Grand Slam event and is the Australian Open defending champion.

#4 Stan Smith - Another former world #1 in 1971, the year he won the U.S. Open and lost the Wimbledon final to John Newcombe. Smith came back to win Wimbledon in 1972.

#5 Phil Dent - Dent won the doubles here last year and was a singles finalist in 1974.

#12 Brian Fairlie - Brian reached the quarter-finals of the U.S. Open in 1970. He was ranked #24 in the world in 1973.

#13 Dick Crealy - Crealy lost the Australian Open Finals to Arthur Ashe in 1970. He was ranked #21 in the world that year.

Edmondson comes into the tournament unseeded. He is in the same bracket as #4 Smith, #5 Dent, #12 Fairlie and #13 Crealy.

Despite being possibly the last man in the tournament, Edmondson received a lucky draw for the 1st round. He would not have to play one of the seeded players. He was paired against Peter Feigl of Austria, who has a very thin resume.

Round 1 - December 27th

The Feigl-Edmondson match was played on one of the outer courts, “court A,” on the 2nd day of competition on December 26th. The match was out of the limelight of centre court where Ken Rosewall won his 1st round match over Greg Braun in straight sets.

Feigl won the 1st set in a breeze 6 - 1. It appeared the janitor might be swept out of the tournament in no time. But Edmondson took 2nd set 6 - 4 and he forced a tiebreaker for the 3rd set.

When he lost the tiebreaker to fall behind 2 sets to 1, it once more appeared as though Edmondson would soon be mopped up. But yet again, he came back and won the 4th set 6 - 4 to tie the match.

In the 5th and deciding set, Edmondson’s play was nearly completely clean as he won it 6 - 1 to capture his 1st Australian Open match.

15 of the 16 seeded players also won their 1st round matches. The only one to lose in the 1st round was 35-year-old Bob “Nails” Carmichael who lost to the up-and-coming 21-year-old John Lloyd.

The Sydney Morning Herald made no mention of Edmondson’s exciting 5 set come front behind victory.

Round 2 - December 29th

Edmondson had to play one of the top seeded players in the 2nd round, #5 Phil Dent. Dent was a finalist in 1974, only losing to World #1 Jimmy Connors.

Edmondson swept every game in the 1st set, winning in a clean score of 6 - 0.

And he captured the 2nd set 6 - 4.

Dent took the 3rd set 6 - 4. But Edmondson won the 4th set fairly easily in 6 - 3 to oust the #5 seed in the tournament.

This was the big time for Mark Edmondson. And he had done it in stunning fashion winning a total of 22 games to just 13 for Dent.

But Edmondson got no headlines, not even a mention in the Sydney Morning Herald.

The two big story of the day was the announcement that Australian tennis authorities had devised a plan for John Newcombe to try and “convince the world’s top players to come to Australia,” next year by creating a 3 tournament series that would have nearly $300,000 in prize money.

Here was the article by Rod Humprhies in the December 30, 1975 Sydney Morning Herald:

In the USA, Edmondson did get the briefest of mentions in an AP article about the Australian Open 2nd round competition:

The 2 top seeds in the tournament, Ken Rosewall #1, and John Newcombe #2, both won their 2nd round matches in straight sets.

Round 3 - December 31, 1975

On the final day of 1975, Edmondson was still playing tennis, long after most people would have thought the janitor would be finished. He was in the last match of the day on court C against #12 seed Brian Fairlie.

One advantage Edmondson had was that none of his matches were on Centre Court. The outer courts were subject to bad bounces which might be more likely to unnerve the higher seeded players accustomed to smoother courts.

Something else Edmondson had going for him against the top seeded players he recalled later, “I had the advantage that I knew how they played – but they had no idea how I played.”

Despite these theoretical advantages, the match against Fairlie started poorly for Edmondson as he lost the opening set 6 - 3. But after that it was a wipe out by the janitor. Edmondson won 3 straight sets, only dropping 8 games the rest of the match.

A more modest upset also took place in round 3 as #13 seed Dick Crealy defeated #4 seed Stan Smith in 4 sets. Crealy lost the first set and nearly went down 2 sets to love when the 2nd set went to a tie breaker. But Crealy won the tiebreaker to tie the match at 1 set all. Then Crealy breezed through the 3rd set 6 - 1 and finished off Smith 6 - 4 in the final set.

Of course the newspapers didn’t focus on Edmondson. They gave the headlines to Crealy’s victory, and a surprising 17-year-old Brad Drewett, who beat unseeded Mal Anderson to advance to the quarterfinals.

Edmondson’s victory was not even mentioned in the article. His name was only referenced as Crealy’s next opponent.

From the outer courts to centre court

Mark Edmondson had cleaned up on the outer courts in the first 3 rounds, neatly disposing of 2 highly seeded players and was now moving on to centre court to play in the quarterfinals!

Unfortunately for Edmondson though, excitement about his accomplishments and prospects for his continued success had to be tempered by an article Humprhies wrote in the December 31st Sydney Morning Herald:

Even if Dent was damaged when Edmondson defeated him, Edmondson had still beaten another seeded player, #12 Brian Fairlie, in the 3rd round.

And Edmondson had earned a spot in the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam event.

By reaching the quarterfinals, Edmondson has guaranteed he will earn at least $2,450. That’s more than he earned in his first 2 full years as a professional tennis player.

It was a truly astonishing, yet wholly uncelebrated achievement.

This writer however is taking notice. And I will bring you coverage of the quarterfinals of the 1976 Australian Open in my next article.

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