Tennis (1980 vs 2017), Wimbledon, Ilie Nastase

[Bob Eisenman]

In 1975 a co-worker with my first post college employer used to talk my ear off about Ilie Nastase and his great looking legs. She was from or had relatives in Lithuania. She talked about a vacation flight she took to Lithuania (about 1974) where a woman wearing a Babushka came out to the plane to refuel it on the tarmac. 
I was just getting interested in playing tennis, a sport I would find myself coaching daily in another 5 years for a decade. Gut strings for the tennis racquet were the cats meow and synthetic was a second place choice. I hardly followed the tennis world at that time but sensed the attraction she had for the playing style and body style of tennis great Ilie Nastase, despite his seeming 'foreign persona'.
When I started coaching tennis, a sport which I haven't really played much since 1990, it became important to instruct the sport. At the time there was the 'eastern' and 'western' grip. Dual handed anything didn't really exist in 1980. A recent Google search reveals several new grips
1-continental
2-eastern
3-semi-western
4-Western
5-full Western
6-backhand
7-two handed backhand

A recent news story about  Ilie Nastase says that this year he will not be invited to the 2017 Wimbledon 'Royal Box'. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2017/05/04/ilie-nastase-calls-wimbledon-royal-box-ban-small-minded/

I played tennis with some older guys when I was younger (1989s) and now I'm one of them. It must be tough for a champ like Nastase to be banned from the Royal Box at Wimbledon.