But of course he also had some great tennis accomplishments. He made the US Open and Wimbledon quarter-finals in 1973 (when he was not quite 20; the Wimbledon draw was depleted by the withdrawal of 18 of the top-20, but the US Open was an authentic full-scale event; he was beaten in the QF by Ken Rosewall, the man with the greatest backhand of all time -- partly because Vijay failed to heed Pancho Gonzalez' advice to hit exclusively to Rosewall's forehand...
). In 1981, he made the quarter-finals at Wimbledon again, losing an epic 5-setter to Jimmy Connors that many of us remember with a keen sense of what might-have-been. He had a similarly heart-breaking loss to Bjorn Borg in the second round at Wimbledon in 1979 (Vijay had numerous match-points in the 4th set, but Borg held on and went onto his 4th consecutive title). In fact, in 1973 Tennis magazine hailed Amritraj, Borg and Connors as the "ABC" of tennis' future. Sadly, "A" was the only one who didn't quite live up to the early potential, reaching a career-high of #16, winning 16 titles (including 4 Indian Opens, and 2 Newport titles) but never making it past the QF of a Slam. But Vijay had a very respectable 5-6 career record against his contemporary Connors (although Jimmy won all 3 of their encounters in the Slams!); most memorable of Vijay's wins over Connors was in the final at the Volvo international in Bretton Woods in 1973 (on clay!). Vijay also beat Borg at the US Open in 1974 (his only win against Bjorn in 4 matches), and had 2 wins in 10 matches against McEnroe. Vijay also had excellent career records against some of the other great players of his day -- 2-1 against Vilas (as he never played Guillermo on clay!!) and 3-4 against Gerulaitis (although, again, he lost to Vitas in both their Slam encounters). Although Rod Laver was approaching the end of his career by the time he played Vijay, Amritraj won both encounters against him (at the R3 of US Open and the QF at Bretton Woods, both in 1973). But Vijay had trouble with Rosewall (although Ken was 19 years older, he beat Vijay the first 6 times they played each other, losing to him just once in 1977, when Rosewall was 43!) and Lendl (0-6).
And, of course, Vijay (along with brother Anand) was the leading member of two Indian Davis Cup teams that made the final -- in 1974 (when we boycotted the South Africans because of apartheid) and 1987, when he was the playing captain.
Vijay has written a wonderfully engaging autobiography (co-authored with Richard Evans) aptly titled "Vijay!". (Bilingual pun clearly intended).
