WARNING: SPOILERS

My father is a big tennis fan, and the other day I was telling him about the trailer to this movie, in which various hip and hip-hop people talk about the Stan Smith tennis shoe, and one of them (DMC from Run-DMC, it turns out) asks the title question. Because he has no idea. To him, Stan Smith is a tennis shoe, not a person.

I’m the opposite. I’m like, “Wait, Stan Smith is also a tennis shoe?”

My father, who was recovering from a stroke, was a little confused by this talk for a different reason. “There’s a movie about Stan Smith?” he said. “Is there enough material there?”

“It’s a documentary,” I said.

The doubt remained. “Is there enough material for a documentary?” 

Dad was right.

The Pilic boycott
When I was young, tennis suddenly became a thing—my parents began to play, and watch—and this was when Stan Smith, with his laughing eyes, moustache, thinning blonde hair and plain American name, was ranked No. 1 in the world. In 1971 he won the U.S. Open and in 1972 he won Wimbledon. Both times he leaped over the net in victory. (When did that practice stop?) He was at the top of his sport.

And then he wasn’t. The doc details his rise through Southern California tennis circles—winning the Davis Cup for the Americans with Arthur Ashe and company—but less the swift decline. What caused it? The change in styles? The switch to metal rackets? Age?      

The boycott probably didn’t help. In 1973, 81 of the top tennis players, including Smith, boycotted Wimbledon because a Yugoslavian player named Nikola Pilic had been suspended by his national lawn tennis association, and the newly formed Association of Tennis Professionals decided to stand by their man. So Smith didn’t even get a chance to defend his title. He never made the Wimbledon finals again. He made the semis in ’74 but in ’75 he got knocked out in the first round. Ditto the U.S. Open. He seemed to gather himself the following years, making it to the fourth round of Wimbledon in ’76 and ’77 before being bounced by Jimmy Connors both years. He was still highly ranked but not in the top 10. In 1981, 35 years old, he again made it to the fourth round before another brash American, John McEnroe, eliminated him in four sets.

The doc makes it seem that Smith and Bob Lutz dominated the doubles circuit even as Smith’s singles game fell off, but that’s not quite true. They mostly dominated the U.S. Open but at intervals, winning it four times: ’68, ’74, ’78 and ’80. They won Australia in 1970, but they never Wimbledon nor the French Open.

I do like drawing out the difference between the two men—particularly since from a distance Smith seemed like an early ’70s swinger. Opposite. Lutz was the party animal, Smith the churchgoer. He pursued a pretty blonde girl, they married, had four kids. I like the stuff about the birth of the Open Era in 1968 when professionals were finally allowed to play the Grand Slam tourneys. I like John McEnroe as talking head. I could listen to him on the history of tennis for a good long while. 

Ka-ching
But Dad was right, there’s just not enough material here. Or the doc keeps going in uninteresting post-tennis directions. They must do 15 minutes on helping that kid from South Africa come to America and become an author. It almost becomes a mini-doc about him rather than Stan Smith.

The shoe stuff is OK but incomplete. East Enders began to wear them because Bowie did, but why did Bowie begin to wear them? Why did Run-DMC like them? Why did they sing about them?

That said, when I got home from SIFF Egyptian, where the documentary was playing, I did order a pair. So I guess the doc served one purpose. Or its only one.