Manuel Santana and Fred Stolle were this week awarded the ITF’s highest honour – the Philippe Chatrier Award – in recognition of both their stellar playing careers and their commitment to the sport throughout their lives.

The pair’s story now spans 6 decades, and it was during the mid-1960s that both reached the sport’s highest reaches. While official world rankings were not introduced until the 1970s, the pair headed the unofficial rankings compiled by British journalist Lance Tingay in 1966, with Santana at No. 1 and Stolle at No. 2.

This week, in the first of a series of ‘Staturday’ features, we look into some of Santana and Stolle’s career statistics to put their achievements in context.

 

Santana is widely regarded as the first true great of Spanish tennis. He was the first player from Spain to win a Grand Slam singles title, capturing the first of his four major titles in Paris in 1961, and the first Spanish man to win a Grand Slam doubles title – Lili Alvarez’s success in the women’s doubles at Roland Garros in 1929 had been the only Spanish triumph at the Grand Slams prior to Santana.

In fact, in an era where Australian men dominated the sport, Santana was the man to fly the flag not only for Spain, but for the rest of the world. His tally of four Grand Slam men’s singles titles during the 1960s was bettered only by Roy Emerson (with 12) and Rod Laver (with 11). He was the only non-Australian man to win multiple major titles during that decade – of the 40 Grand Slam men’s singles titles in the 1960s, 32 were won by Aussies, four were won by Santana, and the rest of the world (in the form of Americans Arthur Ashe and Chuck McKinley, Italy’s Nicola Pietrangeli and Mexico’s Rafael Osuna) combined for the remaining four.

Delving deeper into the stats further enhances the scale of his achievements. With a win-loss record of 71-14 at the Grand Slams during the 1960s, Santana was the only non-Australian man to boast a win percentage of 80% or higher in that decade – his mark of 83.53% is bettered by Laver (93.04%) and Emerson (86.22%), but places him above the likes of Neale Fraser (82.69%) and Ken Rosewall (82.35%).

What perhaps makes these feats even more impressive is that, with the journey from Europe to Australia significantly more challenging than it is today, Santana never contested the Australian Championships (which became the Australian Open in 1969). With no non-Australians winning the Australian title during the 1960s, who knows whether Santana would have been the man to break the Aussies’ stranglehold at home?

One thing Santana never achieved, however, was a victory over his co-recipient of this year’s ITF Philippe Chatrier Award. Stolle recorded a comfortable straight sets triumph over Santana in the semifinals at Wimbledon in 1963, before mounting a stunning comeback from two-sets down in the opening match of the 1965 Davis Cup Final to help Australia to the title.

For Stolle, that was the second of three Davis Cup titles – and the Davis Cup was another achievement that just eluded Santana, despite his 92 victories in the competition, which is the fifth-highest of all time. He guided Spain to a first Davis Cup final in 1965, and to another runner-up finish in 1967, with Australia again the champions. 

Stolle won 13 of his 16 Davis Cup matches, most of which came in the 1964 season after Australia battled past Mexico, Chile and Sweden to reach the Challenge Round, before winning their title back from the American team which had wrested it from them a year previously.

That triumph set Stolle up for what was arguably his best-ever season. In 1965, he defeated Tony Roche in the final at Roland Garros to break through for his first Grand Slam title – he had previously lost a record five straight major finals (four of them against his friend, countryman and doubles partner Emerson). He is one of eight Australian men to win the title in Paris.

That would also be the year that he completed the ‘career Grand Slam’ in men’s doubles – becoming the seventh man in history to do so. He won the doubles at 1965 Roland Garros (and becoming one of an increasingly-rare group of players to win both singles and doubles titles at a major) and the 1965 US Championships, and adding to the four doubles titles he had previously won at the Australian Championships and Wimbledon.

Another Grand Slam singles title at the 1966 US Championships means that Stolle was one of just six men (alongside Emerson, Laver, Santana, Fraser and John Newcombe) to have won multiple Grand Slam titles in the 1960s.   

Stolle was also a proficient mixed doubles player, combining with Lesley Turner Bowrey, Margaret Court and Ann Haydon-Jones to win seven Grand Slam titles. Across singles, doubles and mixed doubles, he won a total of 19 Grand Slam titles which, at the time of retirement, made him the sixth-most decorated male player in history in terms of total major titles. He remains joint-10th on that list today.

The Philippe Chatrier is about far more than its recipients’ on-court careers – both Santana and Stolle have remained closely involved with the sport since retiring in the 1970s. But it is clear that the pair were two of the finest exponents of the game in one of the strongest eras in men’s tennis.

You can read full interviews with both Manuel Santana and Fred Stolle in the Spring 2020 edition of ITFWorld, which was published this week.

Santana by the numbers

• 4 – Santana won four Grand Slam titles (at Roland Garros in 1961 and 1964, at the 1965 US Championships and at 1966 Wimbledon)
• 67% – Santana won the title at one-sixth of the Grand Slams he entered
• 92 – Santana’s 92 victories in Davis Cup put him in fifth-place on the all-time list for most match-wins in the competition

Stolle by the numbers

• 3 – Stolle was part of three Davis Cup title-winning teams, in 1963-65
• 7 – Stolle became the seventh man to complete the ‘career Grand Slam’ in men’s doubles
• 19 – Stolle won a total of 19 Grand Slam titles across all disciplines, putting him joint-10th on the all-time list for most Grand Slam titles won by male players