Susan Barker, Adriano Panatta Get Their Only Grand Slam Wins At 1976 French Open

By Author: Kristopher Dillon
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In the tennis world there are 4 tournaments that are more prestigious and sought after than any of the other tournaments in the world. These prestigious tournaments are called “Grand Slams.” These Grand Slam tournaments include the US Open, Wimbledon, the Australian Open and the French Open. These tournaments test the different skills of players as they are played on a variety of surfaces.

The most technically challenging of these tournaments may be the French Open. The French Open is played on a clay surface. Clay surfaces tend to promote slower play as the ball does not pick up the same speed off the clay that it does off of a hard surface.

The Men’s singles tournament is the most exciting of the tournaments at the French Open. In 1976 this tournament came down to Adriano Panatta and Harold Solomon. The Italian and the American played a solid match that took 4 sets to decide the winner. Panatta won the first two sets fairly easily, but Solomon came back to win the 3rd set. The 4th set went to tiebreaker points, but Panatta managed to put Solomon away 7-6 to end the match. This was the only Grand Slam title ...
... that Panatta won over the course of his career and was probably the greatest moment of his professional tennis career.

The Women’s singles title match was between Susan Barker and Renata Tomanova. These players had a very interesting match. The first set was dominated by Barker, winning 6-2. The second set featured a complete turnaround as Tomanova won the next set without surrendering a game. This was a huge shift in momentum and it looked like Tomanova would take the match after gaining that momentum. Barker miraculously took back the momentum and dominated the next set, winning 6-2. This was the only Grand Slam title of Barker’s career.

The Men’s doubles tournament came down to Brian Gottfried and Raul Ramirez against Frederick McNair and Sherwood Stewart. Gottfried and Ramirez were quite the doubles team as they were also in the finals of the Men’s doubles tournament at Wimbledon. In the end, McNair and Stewart were the combo that came out on top as they managed to beat Gottfried and Ramirez in straight sets.

The Women’s doubles tournament final was Fiorella Bonicelli and Gail Sherriff Chanfreau Lovera against Kathy Harter and Helga Niessa Masthoff. Bonicelli’s team managed to win the title, but they did drop one set in the process of taking home the victory.

The Mixed doubles tournament finale was between the combo of Ilana Kloss and Kim Warwick and the combo of Delina Boshoff and Colin Dowdeswell. Boshoff and Dowdeswell managed to win the first set of play, but they began to fall in the second set and could not regain their momentum. Kloss and Warwick were ultimately the winners of the mixed doubles tournament.

1976 was a great French Open that featured career highlights for Panatta and Barker as they won their first and only Grand Slam titles.

AUTHOR:-
Kristopher Dillon writes reviews on various sporting events including the online sportsbook websites. In this piece of write up he highlights the one of the popular sports pro tennis and tennis betting odds. The author also takes the readers opinion on how to do tennis betting online.