Zimpapers Logo

WIMBLEDON. — A long Wimbledon day had stretched into evening, and finally darkness, by the time Cara Black settled into a chair, with another victory registered in an illustrious doubles career that has brought her 10 Grand Slam titles with partners female and male.
She was tired, expressionless, but only until a question was asked about her beloved grass courts.
Mind you, not those most famous lawns here at the All England Lawn Tennis Club.

“You know about that?” she asked midway through Wimbledon’s first week, her eyes suddenly brightening. “Yes,” she was told by a reporter, who had visited the four grass courts at the Black family home in Harare, Zimbabwe. She explained that they were actually the reason she was back at Wimbledon, back on tour after a one-year leave, her husband and young son in tow.

She is 35, a long way from a dreamy childhood on a lush 22-acre property, bisected by a stretch of Enterprise Road, a straight shot from downtown Harare, where her father, Don, tried to be an avocado farmer until that plan went awry and he decided to grow tennis players instead.

Don Black had played at Wimbledon in the 1950s, when tennis was an amateur endeavour and his native Zimbabwe was Rhodesia. He made the third round in 1956 and held four match points against an Australian, Ashley Cooper, but lost.

“It was his pinnacle,” Cara Black said. “He just loved Wimbledon, the grass courts. He used to say that his dream was for one of his kids to win it one day.”
He married Velia, the girl of his dreams from down the road where he grew up, the son of a Scottish farmer and English mother. He retired early from his post-tennis vocation as a high school teacher and built his miniature All-England club.

The grass courts he nurtured like fruit, and he surrounded the one hardcourt with banana trees. Barefoot on the grass, he gave lessons to people from the area, young and old, stressing discipline and hard work more than technical expertise.

Mostly, he taught his sons, Byron and Wayne, while old-school enough to discourage Cara, the youngest, thinking the transient tennis life was not great for a girl.
Not the most physically imposing — she would grow to a lean 5 feet 5 ¾ inches — she was fast and persistent.

It did not hurt that she could beat her father by the time she was 12.
At high altitude, built for speed, the courts played lightning fast, purposefully designed to mimic the conditions back when playing Wimbledon meant short points, forcing the issue, or failing.

On sun-baked days, Don Black regaled his children with tales of swashbuckling Aussie greats who had, in fact, visited him in Harare and played on the courts.
He dropped a few names, Roy Emerson and Rod Laver, who had even slept in the bed that now belonged to Cara. “We had a routine, where every day he’d get us up at 5:30 before school and we’d practice for an hour on the cement court,” she said.

“And then in the afternoons we’d come home for a session on the grass.
“He’d feed us some balls, and then from 4:30 to 6 we’d play a match. Like him, we never wore shoes, unless it was raining and he didn’t want us denting the grass with our heels. Our feet were as tough as anything.”

There was a weekend in February 2000 when the United States Davis Cup team, captained by John McEnroe, arrived in Harare to play a Zimbabwean team anchored by Byron and Wayne Black.  — The New York Times.