World Championship Tennis (WCT)
In 1967, future USFL founder Dixon persuaded his friend and the AFL founder Lamar Hunt to finance World Championship Tennis. After signing John Newcombe to a professional contract, Dixon persuaded Cliff Drysdale, Nikki Pilic, Roger Taylor, Tony Roche, Dennis Ralston, Pierre Barthes and Butch Bucholtz, seven of the world's ten best male tennis players, to turn pro within a few weeks. The US Open, the French Open, the Australian Open, and the Wimbledon Championships, formerly limited to amateur players, admitted professionals and the popularity of the game grew dramatically. Remarkably, within ten years the leading money winner on the tennis pro tour was earning more money than the leading money winner on the pro golf tour.
Read more about this topic: David Dixon (businessman)
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or tennis:
“The alcoholic trance is not just a haze, as though the eyes were also unshaven. It is not a mere buzzing in the ears, a dizziness or disturbance of balance. One arrives in the garden again, at nursery time, when the gentle animals are fed and in all the world there are only toys.”
—William Gass (b. 1924)
“I know some of my self-worth comes from tennis, and it’s hard to think of doing something else where you know you’ll never be the best. Tennis players are rare creatures: where else in the world can you know that you’re the best? The definitiveness of it is the beauty of it, but it’s not all there is to life and I’m ready to explore the alternatives.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)