Andres Gimeno in Tennis HOF?

In the middle of January, International Tennis Hall of Fame announced its class of 2009 to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Leading the group of four inductees was Monica Seles, who received most of the media attention. Joining her were three other names, one of whom is an internationally little-known player from Spain, however, a legend by all means in his home country of Spain — Andres Gimeno. Why did I think of this guy? Let's start from the beginning.

Last week, I was watching a show on The Tennis Channel called "Best of Five: One-Slam Wonders." To me, that would mean players who won a Grand Slam and did not accomplish much else in their careers. Apparently, it had a different meaning to the producers of the show. I disagreed with every selection except Petr Korda.

I did not understand why they would put players on that list such as Goran Ivanisevic, Michael Chang, Yannick Noah, and Gabriella Sabatini who have had numerous tournament titles, who have reached other Slam finals and semifinals, and who spent a considerable portion of their careers ranked in top 10, unless their criteria was to simply select a player who only won one Slam in their career. But if that was the case, a large number of players would fit the criteria. It seemed that the producers forgot to consider the "did not accomplish much else in their career" part.

Their "Honorable Mentions" category with Gaston Gaudio, Thomas Johansson, and Richard Krajicek were better selections then four of the top five. Also, players such as Andres Gomez and Albert Costa were more fitting to the list than the four that I mentioned above. And who can forget Mark Edmondson, who won the Australian Open in 1976 as the 212th-ranked player in the world, struggled to maintain a top-100 ranking otherwise in his career, and won only five titles other than the Australian Open, all on grass by the way?

This is where in my train of thought came in Andres Gimeno, the 1972 French Open champion. He could have easily made this list also, although his case is not as blatant as Costa, Gaudio, Korda, or Edmondson. Outside of his Roland Garros title, he did reach the final of 1969 Australian Open, and two other semifinals. He does have wins over most of the top players of that era, such as Arthur Ashe and Ken Rosewall. So, I convinced myself that Gimeno, who runs one of the top tennis academies in Spain and has been doing commentary on TV for two decades, deserved better than that; he was not a "one-slam wonder," not in the way the Tennis Channel producers defined the term, but in my own.

Then, as I started thinking of Gimeno, I remembered vaguely reading in January that he was one of this year's inductees into the Tennis Hall of Fame. So, once again, my mind went back and forth. Okay, his accomplishments coupled with the sympathy that I have for him due to his receding hairline similar to mine were enough for me to take him out of consideration for "One-Slam Wonder" category. But did he really deserve to be in the Hall of Fame? After all, his French Open title came in a year where a ban against players who participated in WCT was in effect. This resulted in him beating a French man named Patrick Proisy (now be honest, who has heard of Proisy?) in the finals.

So his one accomplishment, the apogee of his career, accompanied an asterisk next to it. Now I became skeptical. At last, I decided to look at his total career and discovered that this was a man who played his first Slam in 1956! This was a man who was there through the transitional phase of tennis from an amateur sport into the Open Era that began in 1968! This was a man who had considerable accomplishments in both parts! Last, but not the least, this was a man who won his only Slam title when he was a just couple of months shy of turning 35! To top it all, he still holds that record to this day. Yes, it was decided — Andres Gimeno, the "Master" as some of his peers called him, absolutely and positively deserved to be in International Tennis Hall of Fame!

On Saturday, July 11, in the 2009 Induction Ceremony, I have no doubt that Monica Seles will get the loudest cheer when her name is announced. I promise to cheer just as loud when Mister Gimeno is introduced.