I first met [Bobby] in 1936 at the National Clay Courts [in Chicago]. He was 18 and the national junior champion, and I was in college. He was there with Wayne Sabin and a fellow by the name of [Jack] Del Valle, who he said was his manager. [Del Valle] was a hanger-on, a friend of Bobby’s. You know, Bobby always had a lot of entourage hangin’ around him, all these hangers-on, because he was very congenial and everybody like hangin’ around in his aura. Always. Del Valle was one of ’em. They drove up in a Cord, a big, white…brand new, front-wheel drive. So, that’s where I met him.

Everybody was sayin’ how good he was, and Del Valle was goin’ around betting for Bobby on Bobby to win the tournament. And everybody said, “Well, that’s impossible.” Because we had [defending champion] Frankie Parker, Bitsy Grant, myself, Joe Hunt might have been there, Junior Coen and a bunch of other fine clay court players.

I got smart. Bobby was playing a first-round match down on court ten or something, so I snuck down there to watch him. He was playing this nobody, and the guy was givin’ him a big run. Bobby’s running all over the place. So I ran back and got a hold of Del Valle and bet $36—all the money I had. We didn’t have any money in those days.

But Bobby kept winning and kept winning and kept winning. [Taking the title in the final over Frank Parker.] I couldn’t understand it, because I’d seen him play this guy and he wasn’t impressive at all. But [I later learned] the way Bobby played, he never won a match easily. He was always struggling, but he always won. He’d do just enough to win. He’d play to the crowd and talk to the girls while he was playing.

Anyway, [the next year] I got to the finals against him [in Chicago] and everybody was pullin’ for me, betting for me to win. But he ended up beatin’ me in five sets. Five tough sets. He was very steady, and beat me 7-5 in the fifth. I was struggling and fighting and going to the net. He didn’t come to the net once the entire match until the last point on my serve to volley the ball away. We talked about it afterward and he laughed. He said, “I remember sneaking up on you, and that one volley."

I’ll tell you about his game. I analyzed it for years, because I wondered how he can win this match and that match. When he was in trouble, he got out of it. And finally, somebody asked me to put together a fantasy tournament with 16 great players of all time, and figure it out right to the finals. I had Bobby winning. They said, how can you have Bobby win? I said, listen, Bobby was unique, he never lost a match the first time he played somebody. You play him over a series, he’ll lose to greater players. But he had a way of winning, he always won a big match. That’s why I thought he’d beat Billie Jean King.

We got to be pretty good friends. Though we played each other about seven times, I only beat him once. We hated each other on the court, but we loved each other off. We doubled dated. We kidded each other, go to shows together, [and] shoot the fat until the wee hours of the morning. Bobby was always playin’ cards or something. One time at Southampton there was a big crap game during a thunderstorm. Suddenly, the lights went out. And when the lights went on, there was Bobby Riggs lying on top of the pot, face down with his arms around it. “I don’t trust anybody.” And they go, “Well, we don’t trust you. You bugger.”

The last time I played with him was [at the LA Tennis Club in 1993] against [Cortez] Corky Murdoch and Dodo Cheney in a doubles match. He had just played them with Joe Davis and they’d lost and Bobby was mad. He said they lost a lot of money, so he called me and asked me if I’d play. I said, “Bobby, yeah, I’ll play if you pay my way out there.” I was going out there anyway for the national indoors in San Francisco, but I didn’t tell him that. He was pretty sick by this time. I knew he was ill, because he wasn’t playing in tournaments. So anyway, I said okay.

Bobby says, “You think we can beat ‘em.”
“Bobby, I don’t know,” I answered.

So I get out there, and Jack Kramer and Frank Sedgeman were there and Bobby was working everybody, betting. So I says, “Bobby, we got a tough match to play. You’re in no shape. You can’t move.” And he goes, “Well, they’re old ladies. We can’t lose.” But I say, Bobby, “You’re an old man. How about quieting down and concentrating.” He’s foaming at the mouth, betting… he had a lot of money bet. Jack Kramer and Sedgeman bet against us. “There’s no way you can win with Bobby,” they tell me.

Bobby tells me [before the match], “If they hit to me I can handle it. But I can’t handle anything else. You have to run down the lobs, you have to run after the drop shots. But Gar, you can do it.”

And damned, we finally beat ‘em. We go out there and beat them in straight sets, [6-4, 6-4]. I was running all around him. Kramer comes up to me afterwards and says, “I don’t know how you did it.” And I said, “I don’t know, I just didn’t let Bobby take anything.” If you hit it to him, he was great, otherwise… but I got my five Gs.

But he went really down after that.