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April 20
Where was Hilton Head Island? What was the Family Circle Cup? Why would anybody pay women more to play tennis than any previous employer?
Those were questions bugging the NBC tennis crew in 1973 when we learned that the tournament had been added to our schedule. How were we supposed to get there?
In that time you flew to Savanna, Georgia, rented a car and proceeded cautiously into South Carolina, hoping to get through some infamous rural speed traps along the way without being nailed by a local sheriff for breaking the 10 MPH speed limit. Numerous unsuspecting strangers paid the price.
Once on the island, even finding Sea Pines Plantation wasn’t easy then. Impossible at night – but you could hear the alligators snoring. However, everybody concerned made it. The courts and the small grandstand were ready, the TV cameras in position and that was the exhilarating South Carolina beginning as women’s professional tennis was starting to catch our eye.
Jim Simpson and I did the telecast, along with guest Grace Lichtenstein, a New York Times reporter whose book on the young tour, “A Long Way Baby,” was attracting much favorable attention. Since the women hadn’t been getting national TV coverage, it was exciting to have that tiny and brilliant little shotmaker, Rosie Casals, at center stage, on screen, winning the breakthrough championship. I was elated to be part of it for 25 years, watching new champions from across the planet show their scintillating stuff.
All who played it will look back to the Family Circle Cup as a gem in their resumes. So will I. To keep me warm, I’ve got the marvelous memories of extraordinary women raising the game to the clouds.
Now a new country is heard from: tiny Serbia. Launching the Serbian Surge, charming, combative Jelena “Jelly” Jankovic won the Cup a year ago, 6-2, 6-2, over Russian Dinara Safina.
Please raise a 35th anniversary glass with me to those shorties, champ Rosie Casals and founding promote Jack Jones, who thought long, and got it all started.
BUD COLLINS
Boston Globe/ ESPN/ Tennis Channel, www.BudCollinsTennis.com
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April 19
 A Soviet version of “Mother Freedom” was Natasha Zvereva in 1994, runnerup to the crafty Spaniard Conchita Martinez, (Martinez also captured the Family Circle Cup in 1995). At the presentation, Natasha, who came from Minsk, startled spectators and an international TV audience by demanding, “I want my money!” Few realized that the prize money for Soviet players at each tournament went directly to their national federation that doled out meager expenses.
Zvereva tired of being short-changed, intent on receiving just treatment as the professional she was, had an excellent platform for voicing her grievance. Hers was a brave stand that met with initial disapproval at home. But she wanted what she’d earned, also emboldening her discontented comrades, and soon the federation capitulated.
No doubt Natasha will enter the International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island, alongside her American doubles partner, Gigi Fernandez. As a team they won 14 major championships, and X here (if it applies)
Seven Family Circle Cup singles victors are already in the Hall: Americans Rosie Casals, Chrissie Evert, Tracy Austin, Martina Navratilova, as welll as German Steffi Graf, Argentine Gabriela Sabatini, Spaniard Arantxa Sanchez Vicario.
For seven others – Swiss Martina Hingis, French Mary Pierce, Belgian Justine Henin, Americans Jennifer Capriati and Venus Williams (plus Sister Serena and Monica Seles) the credentials are there. It’s only a matter of time.
BUD COLLINS
Boston Globe/ ESPN/ Tennis Channel/ www.BudCollinsTennis.com
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Friday, April 18
 A number of teen-agers have made excellent showings at the Family Circle Cup, but none so young went so far as Floridian Jennifer Capriati. As a freshly declared professional at barely age 14, she came to town in 1990, having already made the final of her debut tournament, Boca Raton, losing that to Gabriela Sabatini.
Jenny was a bubbly sensation, a slugger who mowed down everybody in her path on the way to the final. In between matches she worked on her homework, and faxed it to the school. She was looking forward to playing “The Lege,” as she admiringly called legend Martina Navratilova. The kid didn’t do too badly, a 6-2, 6-4, victim as Martina, the valiant and voracious volleyer seized her fourth Cup.
But it was still a long way for Jenny until she had the Cup for her own – 11 years. At last, in 2001, she knocked off the 1999 champ, clever Swiss Martina Hingis, 6-0, 4-6, 6-4, a repeat of their Australian Open final three months before.
BUD COLLINS
Boston Globe/ ESPN/ Tennis Channel/ www.BudCollinsTennis.com
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Thursday, April 17
 Her name rolled along your tongue like a fine wine: Gabriela Sabatini.
She spoke no English but her smile was so expressive, and she was so lovely that it didn’t matter. Gaby was only 14 when she checked into the Family Circle Cup in 1985, and somehow battled her way to the last day, the tournament’s greenest finalist up to that point.
Inclement weather had ruffled the schedule, and the Divine Argentine became involved in a gritty drama with four Top Ten players. After she beat Zina Garrison, rain backed up the tournament, presenting her with a three match trial for the closing Sunday. Gaby needed to finish a quarter-final over Pam Shriver. Then she beat Manuela Maleeva, 6-1, 7-6 (11-9) to attain the final against the champ, Chrissie Evert. It was explained to the overworked kid that the rules allowed a postponement of the title match until the following day.
But she didn’t say, “No mas.” She wanted that shot at Evert on national TV, decided to play and she did so extremely well for a set, before her tank ran dry, 6-4, 6-0.
Nevertheless, Gaby returned with topspinning groundies rolling like waves to win a pair of championships, 1991 over Soviet Leila Meskhi, and 1992 over Spaniard Conchita Martinez.
BUD COLLINS
Boston Globe/ ESPN/ Tennis Channel/ www.BudCollinsTennis.com
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Wednesday, April 16
 Although Steffi Graf was the second sweet-16 to capture the Family Circle Cup, cutting off Chrissie Evert’s reign at eight championships, 6-4, 7-5, in 1986, another of that tender age had preceded “Fraulein Forehand” to the winner’s circle. She was slight but iron-willed Californian Tracy Austin in 1979. Her close-shave of Aussie Kerry Melville Reid, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (9-7), was a prevue of Tracy’s triumph five months later at Flushing Meadow. She beat Evert, 6-4, 6-3, becoming the youngest of all U.S. potentates.
Tracy first showed up here in 1977 as a 14-year-old looking as though she was on the way to the Teddy Bear’s picnic, a 90 pounder in a pinafore her mother made. Just a little kid armed with plenty of resolve. Later in the year she made it to the quarter-finals at the U.S. Open and received a congratulatory phone call from the White House. The caller was President Jimmy Carter, a pretty fair hacker on the court himself.
BUD COLLINS
Boston Globe/ ESPN/ Tennis Channel/ www.BudCollinsTennis.com
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Tuesday, April 15
 In 1974, the teen-ager who would become “Chris America,” blew into the Family Circle Cup like a hurricane from her native Florida. She, of course, was 19-year-old Christine Marie Evert, who practically had a title to the title in perpetuity, certainly a stranglehold. Imperturbably cool, with an arsenal of killer groundies, Chrissie won eight Cup between 1974 and 1985. She would go on to be Empress of Earthen Courts, Queen of Clay – French Open ruler a record seven times, as well as U.S. Clay Court victor, also a record seven times.
But everything ends. In 1986, a swift 16-year-old German, Steffi Graf, appeared to win her first important title. Moreover, it was at Chrissie’s expense, 6-4, 7-5, after trailing 4-1 in the second set. As “Fraulein Forehand,” Steffi won four Family Circle Cups. She was the only player in tennis history to win each of the majors at least four times: seven Wimbledon, six French, five U.S., four Australian. The upward road began in South Carolina.
BUD COLLINS
Boston Globe/ ESPN/ Tennis Channel/ www.BudCollinsTennis.com
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Monday, April 14
What were these two small people named Jones and Casals doing in a pine clearing on Hilton Head Island? Although neither had let diminutive physiques stand in their way to success, they had arrived at out-of-the-way Sea Pines Plantation as improbable visitors seeking a big score.
They were lured by a tennis tournament that did not yet exist. Jack Jones, a Los Angeles businessman and tennis junkie, was classified as “crazy” by sports promoters who had heard about the new tournament that he had dreamed up. Jones and associate, John Moreno, had envisioned a blockbuster event for $ 100,000 in prize money at a time when such a stratospheric purse was virtually unheard of. Even nuttier -- all that cash was for women: $ 30,000 to the champ! None of the four major championships (Australian, French, Wimbledon, U.S.) paid its male or female victor that much.
That was May of 1973. The women’s professional tour was barely up-and-running, but Jones had convinced a sponsor, Family Circle, and a network, NBC, that this could catch on because the racket-swinging babies were appealingly on their long way.
 One of those pioneers, ”The Rosebud” – San Franciscan Rosie Casals -- had never been in South Carolina, hardly tennis country. However, sensing the historic occasion, Rosie was anxious to be in on it even though a clay court was not her best playground. Amid such-world beaters as Billie Jean King, Aussie Margaret Court and Nancy Richey, all of whom had won the clay classic, the French Open, Rosie was a very long shot -- like the tournament itself.
But they both came through with fine reviews. Jones and Casals earned plaudits, and the Family Circle Cup was here to stay. The Rosebud bloomed with two of her finest wins: beating Billie Jean in the semis, 7-5, 6-4, and in the final overcoming Texan Nancy Richey, six-time U.S. Clay Court champ, 3-6, 6-1, 7-5.
BUD COLLINS
Boston Globe/ ESPN/ Tennis Channel/ www.BudCollinsTennis.com
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