Granddaddy Numero Uno

Mai Clarke '22 won a New England junior tennis tournament when he was 15. Between the ages of 15 and 74, however, one thing and another interfered - financial pressures, college studies, a long career as a school teacher and administrator - and Clarke's tennis fell by the wayside.

When he was 74, however, he let his sister talk him into entering a seniors tournament in town. He walked away with it and in the rash afterglow of victory told a newspaper reporter he was going to shoot for the national championships in the 75-and-over division the following year.

Clarke, who lives with his wife Frances on a tiny farm on the Maine coast, spent the next winter furiously cutting wood and swinging a four-pound mallet with his right arm. In the summer he played daily matches against a 45- year-old neighbor. "I could beat him," recalls Clarke, "but I had to work my tail off to do it. It was great training." And through it all, Clarke adhered rigidly to a daily schedule which has become famous among tennis buffs as the "martini regimen."

"I get up at 7:00," explains Clarke, "and have a cup of tea. Then I go about the day's business (loafing), and at 9:00 a.m. I stop what I am doing and have a martini, which I nurse until about 10:00. Then I get the biggest salad I can from out of the garden. I play three to four sets of singles from 11:30 until 2:00, and doubles if possible from 2:00 till 3:00. Then I take a short nap, after which I have two more martinis. I have a second meal at 6:00 and go to bed around 9:30."

Whether because of the martinis or in spite of them, Clarke made good his threat. In January of 1978, the 170-pound, 5' 10" righthander was ranked number one in the United States in 75- and-over singles. "It was a squeaker," he says, referring to the neck-and-neck battle he had all the way with his longtime friend and constant opponent, Clarence Chaffee (Brown '24), retired tennis coach of Williams College.

Clarke was dubbed the "Dark Horse from the East," and his grandchildren started calling him "Numero Uno." (Despite all the hoopla, Clarke says, neither Chaffee nor he could beat the best 12-year-old boys or girls. "We play an old man's game," he says, laughing. "You know - where you hit the ball hard but it doesn't go hard.")

Super Senior tournament competitors are all at least 55 years old. Over 1200 of them are hitting the courts these days, bringing pace- makers and corsets and hearing aids along. "I think we're all nuts," says Clarke - but medical science disagrees. Studies show that most aged but active tennis players are in exceptionally good health. Competitors examined at the National Clay Court Championships for 70s and 75s one year showed circulation, coordination, and memory superior to those of their more sedentary contemporaries. A doctor at the University of Virginia's department of sports medicine once tested the bone density of senior netters, with startling results. The reading for Clarke's right arm was above the top of the scale. "They plan to modify the machine and the graph," says Clarke.

This past fall, however, the Down East Dark Horse got dumped. The 77-year-old Chaffee stopped "fiddling around," as he himself put it, "got serious," and snatched the top title away from Clarke. "Chaffee looked great out there, didn't he?" said the deposed monarch, with rare grace. (Clarke cushioned his fall by copping a national doubles title when he teamed with Ted Wellman of California against Chaffee and Clarke Kaye of Kentucky.)

Sic transit gloria mundi. And, anyway, just over the horizon gleams another prize - the crown of the new 80s division.