At least two stories would be incomplete without mentioning Aussie-turned-Italian Martin (or Martino, as Gianni Clerici used to call him) Mulligan: that of the Internazionali d’Italia, which he won thrice (once every two years starting in 1963), and that of the Fila brand, picked over Diadora in 1973. He had hung up his racquet, and was working for both companies, advertising Diadora shoes and Fila outfits. After a while, both companies started to produce the missing element in their respective collections, forcing Martin to choose the latter and to move to San Francisco to monitor the American market – he still lives there, and still collaborates with the Biella sports brand, founded in 1923.
However, we said that the incomplete stories would be “at least” two, since as a player (he was born in Marrickville in 1940, and will turn 80 on October 18) he earned a privileged spot in the saga of the second Grand Slam in Pre-Open tennis history, completed by Rod Laver in 1962 (he would repeat the feat in 1969, after the start of the Open Era). Not only did he play Rocket in the final of the Championships (on the very first occasion that the Queen was in the stands, no less!), but he also went less than inch from stopping Laver’s run in Paris, just a few weeks prior: up 4-5 30-40 in the fourth set, Martino countered an aggressive second serve with a passing shot down the line (as he’d done all afternoon), and could only look on as Laver hit a winning cross-court volley. Mulligan would then lose that set with a 10-8 score (no tie-breaks back then), without earning any more match points, before capitulating for 6-2 in the decider. “Oh Martin, what did you do?” is Ubaldo Scanagatta’s taunt to this day. You can watch the rest of their conversation in the video below, recorded before the cancellation of Wimbledon:
Mulligan’s maternal grandparents were born in Orsago, in the province of Treviso (near Venice), before moving to Australia at the onset of the 20th century. Martin would then take the reverse journey, coming back to his ancestral home to train and to earn a Davis Cup spot, something that he could have never achieved in Australia, where too many great players prevented him from breaking into Harry Hopman’s team. In Italy, he fulfilled his dream, starring in the 1968 team that lost the zonal tie against a Spanish team that could boast players like Gisbert, Santana, and Orantes with a score of 3-2 (Mulligan scored both points, winning a singles rubber after the tie was already decided along with the doubles, partnering Pietrangeli, who lost both singles against Santana and Gisbert, who was in turn the best player in the tie, having upset Martin too in the first rubber) – notably, Martin is the only foreign-born player to ever feature in an Italy Davis Cup team.
Throughout the interview, Mulligan recalls his early days working with Fila, when he tried to recruit a young John McEnroe for a company that already had Bjorn Borg as its showpiece. The plan was to deliver a test racquet to Martin, who would have checked it before passing it on to John, who was very faithful to his Wilson arsenal – however, “there was a delay in the delivery, and we were forced to send Mac the racquet without passing by my examination in San Francisco first.” That was the fatal error, since John’s surname was spelled with an “a” on the racquet. Not only wouldn’t McEnroe sign for Fila if his life depended on it, but, in Ubaldo’s recollection, he also yelled something along the lines of, “there’s no way they can make good racquets, they can’t even spell my name!” The original quote, which is slightly (and predictably) more colourful, can be heard in the video.
Mulligan also got quite honest while discussing today’s players – “They ace and then immediately go for their towel, there’s no need for that!” – and the game’s governing bodies: “The ITF should be in charge of tennis but their ineptitude in past years favoured the ascent of the ATP and of the WTA. There should be one big tournament per month at most. Moreover, there are far too many second-tier events.” He doesn’t hide his nostalgia for a time when life wasn’t this fretful, and yet people filled the Foro Italico to the brim anyway, cheering on their fellow countryman Martin Mulligan, who was able to defeat none other than Manuel Santana in four sets. It was 1965.
Text translated from Italian by Tommaso Villa
