How it's played: tennis secrets by Rod Laver

This 1961 Movietone newsreel highlights the style and technique of one our most decorated tennis players.

The NFSA holds only the 35mm film picture negative for this revealing footage of champion Australian left-hander Rod Laver, captured before the Queenslander turned professional in 1962. 

As the NFSA does not yet hold a print with picture and sound intact, the voice-over narration that would have accompanied these images for cinema screenings at the time is absent here. 

Without sound, Laver’s timing, power and movement come into clear view. His serve-and-volley game, aggressive ground strokes and precise technique unfold shot by shot, with the aid of slow-motion filming. Close-ups of his grip and strokes reveal why commentators have described him as ‘technically faultless’.

The footage includes Laver playing Italy’s Nicola Pietrangeli in the 1961 Davis Cup Challenge Round at Kooyong Stadium, Melbourne, as well as a doubles match alongside Neale Fraser against Pietrangeli and Orlando Sirola. Australia went on to win the tie five rubbers to nil, and the team is shown with the trophy.

Laver’s legendary tennis status was sealed in 1969 after completing the ‘Big Four’ for the second time, winning the four Grand Slam tournaments (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, US Open) all in the same year, after first achieving this in 1962. 

Considered by many experts the greatest men’s player of all time, Laver retired from professional tennis in 1979. The Australian Open’s largest indoor arena was renamed in his honour in 2000.