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Published: Monday, Aug. 01, 2011 / Updated: Friday, Dec. 30, 2011 05:17 PM

Tennis great serves lesson in walkover match

STEELE CREEK -- 

Staring across sneaker-swiped clay and a taut tennis net at Tim Wilkison is love at first sight – as in, I’d be lucky to score a point off this guy.

Love, the graceful tennis term for a whole heap of nothing, is the score I’ll start and end with on this day when I etch my name alongside those of tennis legends Boris Becker, Jimmy Connors, Jim Courier and Pete Sampras. Throw Stefan Edberg and Ivan Lendl in, too – all former world No.1 players who’ve tasted cruel defeat at Wilkison’s racquet.

In all white, all smiles and with a gentlemanly offer of a sunscreen squirt, the Shelby, N.C., native doesn’t seem like a man once deemed “Dr. Dirt” and “Rambo” during his 16-year ATP Tour career. Wilkison won’t introduce himself as the highest-ranked junior player in the country by age 16, the last American left in the 1986 U.S. Open draw or the winner of 559 career matches.

“I probably did for a while, but it’s been a while now,” said Wilkison, 51, whose final tour match came in Charlotte back in 1993. “That was a long time ago.”

Now, Wilkison lends his name to the Tim Wilkison Signature Sports Complex, a facility in The Palisades in Steele Creek featuring eight grass, clay and hard courts along with a pool and fitness center, for hundreds of members. He’s also coaching area high school talent and foreign players through an exchange program.

“Putting it all together, we try to make it a nice social event for our members,” Wilkison said. “The only way it’s going to be successful is if I help other people enjoy the experience.”

Experience was no friend of mine Monday. My distinguished tennis career consists of about an hour practicing two days prior. His includes five wins against a former Australian pro with my same name. In a six-month stretch beginning in September 1989, Wilkison knocked off Hall of Fame players Courier and Sampras on the same day four separate times in three separate countries. All doubles matches, granted, but it beats the yellow fuzz off of my resume.

We schedule a 1 p.m. first serve on an afternoon hot enough to fry an egg on my racquet without yoking the court. Two decades his junior, fitness should be my advantage. It’s a hypothetical one. On the way there, I down enough water to free a beached whale. Wilkison prefers the heat.

I somehow return his first two southpaw serves, but my errancy ends the rallies quickly. Then, at 30-love, it happened. Several topspin forehand returns barely clear the net, drawing Wilkison closer. My entire game is one shot, merely a poor mimicry of players I watched on television as a kid. For fun, let’s pretend this entire point consists of intentional shots. With Wilkison in, I swing over top of a lob that some combination of fate, fortune or foul wind places just on the money side of the baseline midcourt. 30-15.

I could pen such a paragraph on every point I won. In fact, I just did. In a 6-0 set Wilkison conceded only the one, with never a game in doubt. Nice as he is, I catch glimpses of the rabid intensity fellow former pro Vitas Gerulaitis described in a gem of a quote on Wilkison’s atpworld.com career profile:

“Every match I’ve played with him, he always comes out bleeding,” it reads. “One of these days, he’s going to kill himself.”

Wilkison and I save bloodshed for another day. The top two inches of net steal a few sure points from me, but he and I simply aren’t in the same class. Our verbal exchanges outlast our volleys. I mention he could beat me blindfolded.

“I couldn’t beat anybody blindfolded,” he insists.

I point out game four, a double fault-fest where I barely sniffed the service box.

“Well, maybe that last game,” he admits.

We talk “Dr. Dirt,” the moniker bestowed by a former coach comparing Wilkison to one of the premier basketball players of the day, “Dr. J” Julius Erving.

“He was very elegant,” Wilkison said. “He made everything look really easy. I was the exact opposite. I still get that occasionally. I go to play somewhere, they introduce me that way, and people call me ‘Dr. Dirt’ for the day.”

We talk favorite career moments, including that 1986 U.S. Open quarterfinal run when a panicky television network left with “like seven Swedes and one guy from North Carolina” needed Wilkison for ratings.

“It was the U.S. Open,” he said. “Being American, to do well in the U.S. Open was sort of the most important to me.”

Closer to home, there was The Championships at The Palisades held at his facility from 2006 to 2009. Difficult to impossible replacing that type of major event at The Palisades near-term, Wilkison always keeps a listening ear. He calls the senior series event a success despite its exit, saying it extended past the three-year trial model and ranked top two in support annually for the Outback Champions Series.

“It was definitely a success,” he said. “If we could still raise the sponsorship money, they’d still be here.”

At its highest level, with maniacal spin and dizzying speed on every shot, what separates elite tennis players from the field is something Wilkison hasn’t lost in almost 20 years of retirement. He’s a man who could win points off a cinder block practice wall. It’s that consistency, that perseverance and, yes, sometimes even a little bloodshed that allowed him to compete with players who've autographed more tennis balls than a Wilson factory.

“I never look back,” Wilkison said. “I look back if you ask me a question so I can tell you. That’s it. I’m too busy doing what I’m trying to do right now.”

Competition: Former tennis pro and current Palisades instructor Tim Wilkison, once ranked No. 23 in the world with wins over several Hall of Fame players.

Contest: One set, clay surface.

Score: Wilkison def. Marks, 6-0 in a match that wasn’t as close as the score indicated. Final score: Wilkison 6, Marks 0.

Overall Record: Lake Wylie Pilot local talent 115.07, Marks 34.

On Your Marks is a monthly column where Lake Wylie Pilot reporter John Marks takes on competition from the greater Lake Wylie area, challenging locals in their field of expertise and profiling what makes them special. Check out past On Your Marks columns at lakewyliepilot.com. Look for “On Your Marks” under the “Home” tab. For ideas about who you think Marks should challenge next, e-mail jmarks@lakewyliepilot.com.