Tennis at the bottom of the towers with Vitas Gerulaitis in New York
Vitas Gerulaitis, we know him for his escapades: he squandered the majority of his 2.7 million dollars earned in his career on cars (a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, a Mercedes, a Porsche and two Rolls-Royces, including a yellow , like her hair, adorned with a license plate “VITAS G.”), expensive vacations, wild parties at Studio 54 and drugs. One day, former player Paul McNamee, one of his closest friends, even said: “Someone who worked at American Express told me that one year he appeared in their records as the third most big spender in the world. But in 1979, the day after a 5-0 victory in the Davis Cup final against Italy, the American decided to set up the Vitas Gerulaitis Foundation. The goal? To make tennis more accessible to children in New York’s five boroughs – Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. Because behind the mask of “Broadway Vitas” was hiding a man from a Lithuanian family who had had to flee the country when it was invaded by Russian forces in 1939, land in Austria with a simple suitcase in his hand and barter maternal jewelry on the black market for ration tickets. “Vitas wanted to bring tennis to children in isolated neighborhoods of New York, so he formed a small band that scoured his five neighborhoods every summer, told ATP in 2014 Mary Carillo, close to the American and his sister, Route. Snowshoes were offered. Vitas has managed to convince every major tennis star to volunteer their time, from Arthur Ashe to Bjorn Borg, Chris Evert and John McEnroe, Ilie Nastase and Jimmy Connors. It was his best face. Vitas multiplied exhibitions and charity dinners, just to combine business with pleasure. Its youth fund, Gerulaitis Foundation Youth Clinic, has helped hundreds of New York children to get into tennis, and above all launched a dynamic of which the foundations of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic are reminiscent today. “Vitas was the first to give rackets to children, testified his great friend Billie Jean King to the ATP, in 2019. We have perpetuated this tradition at the World Team Tennis league by offering rackets engraved with his name. It was a way for us to honor the man, the player, the tennis lover and the very good friend that he was. Retired at 31 after a career never really considered equal to that of his peers (25 titles, but 29 lost finals), Gerulaitis died at 40, poisoned in his sleep with carbon monoxide by the pool heater. defective from a friend with whom he slept. The day before, he was attending a charity event.
2023-08-17 08:35:47
#York #York #Tennis
