Almanac Tennis: The Ant Hill Mob – Remembering Mal Anderson

 

Mal Anderson has passed and with him goes another fingertip touch with the greatest generation of Australian tennis … that mob who learned to play on courts made from crushed ant hills and then made Australia famous.

 

Mal didn’t have a nickname like ‘Muscles’ or ‘Rocket’ and his role in the post-war Harry Hopman era could be categorised as a supporting actor rather than the leading man. All he managed was to win the US singles and the Davis Cup in 1957 before turning professional. When Open tennis arrived, he was ready to go again and was part of the 1973 Davis Cup winning team and picked up the Australian Open doubles with Newk at the age of 37.

 

Mal was Queensland. The moment you met him there was a welcoming smile spread across a face flecked with old sunspots. The day I saw it was in his retirement in Brisbane. He had to shout to be heard over the downpour hitting the roof and the Miami Open semi-finals on the television turned up loud. On the wall was the wooden racquet he used in 1957 in New York. He took it down and admired it, gently turning it in his weathered hands.

 

‘I just had something. I wanted to play the game of tennis, I don’t know why. I was addicted to it. If you have the love for it and want to work hard for it, you can achieve.’

 

He grew up at Theodore where the family ran cattle. The old man chipped the grass off near the house and pounded out a court for the kids.

 

‘We got these big ant beds and crushed and watered them and it made a fantastic surface. One of the best. We played on granite too, most of the country tournaments were on granite, the only time we played on grass was the big tournaments in Brisbane.’

 

From these outback hardcourts came Rod Laver and Roy Emerson and if you throw in Ashley Cooper, a Victorian by birth but self-declared Queenslander, you have four players who won everything.

 

‘They all came from the country. Rod came from a cattle property; Roy came from a dairy farm in Blackbutt and of course, later Pat Rafter was born at Mount Isa. So, there must be something in the country air.’

 

There is something in their approach too. Anderson had sweet groundstrokes, served and volleyed and when he was on, could beat anyone.  His endurance was as long as a Queensland summer. Anderson accepted Hopman’s advice that he might not be the best player, but he could make himself the fittest.

 

 

 

 

Emerson and Anderson looked similar and so after Mal won the US title, Roy headed up to the clubhouse and took advantage of the free drinks and applause on offer by confused officials. They presumed this was Mal and Roy wasn’t about to correct that assumption. When they were asked to speak about tennis in Australia, they would explain with a straight face that kangaroos were substituted for ball kids with balls kept in their pouches. They looked after each other on the long months they were away and living on a miser’s budget. Mates who eventually became family when Mal married Roy’s sister Daphne, which Roy says is ‘the smartest thing that Mal ever did.’

 

The wedding was planned for October 1957, when the players were due to return from the States. That is until Hopman got involved. The Fox wasn’t much for romance.

 

‘I got a letter from Harry Hopman, and I thought this is great he has some advice for me because my performance until then was just ordinary. I opened up the letter and read it, and it says Mal if you don’t go well [at the US] and lose then I want you to come to Melbourne straight away and cancel your wedding.

 

‘I thought I must be reading incorrectly and thought what am I going to do so I started running and training harder and hit more balls. I was doing that anyway, but luckily, I got past a couple of rounds, and I was able to go ahead with the wedding which is the greatest – more than 60 years of it – and we have three kids, nine grandkids and six great-grandchildren.’

 

 

 

 

‘I got past a couple of rounds’ is the modest voice of someone describing winning a major title unseeded, dropping only two sets, and beating the number one seed Cooper 10-8, 7-5, 6-4 in the final. Four months later, Anderson, Cooper and Merv Rose took the Davis Cup Challenge round 3-2 over the United States at Kooyong.

 

He never lost the love. After retiring as a player, Anderson and Cooper set up a program where Mal spent years travelling through country Queensland running clinics and encouraging talent. One was Rafter. In the 1980s, he managed junior squads on overseas tours, including youngsters John Fitzgerald and Wally Masur. After one poor period, he went full Hopman on them.

 

‘I felt none of them knew how to train, so I got them up before six and we went for a good run, and I ran with them and after the day’s play, I said we are running again. I ran with them morning and afternoon for the whole six weeks. At the last tournament, the top 16 players played in a final and I think I had six representatives in that because they got fit and worked on their game a bit, but they got themselves mentally strong.’

 

Fitzgerald says for him that was when the penny dropped for what was needed to succeed.

 

Vale Mal Anderson – Ant Hill King.

 

 

 

 

 

To read more by Michael Sexton as well as reviews of his books click Here.

 

 

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