Match Point Came Too Quickly Gullikson Partnership Revealed Ultimate Bond On, Off Court

They were two of a kind, the last of their kind. And now the blood partnership of two very decent men, lasting nearly 45 years of fun and accomplishment, has been severed. Tim Gullikson was buried Tuesday outside of Chicago, leaving his identical twin Tom - and people across the world - to mourn.

One of those people is the No. 1 tennis player, Pete Sampras, for whom Timothy Edward Gullikson was more than the man who coached him to three successive Wimbledon titles. Tim was friend, guiding influence, steadying hand for a young guy who knew that behaving like an even-tempered Gullikson in the fickle, seductive and chaotic realm of professional sports was the way to go.

Sampras’ were the first public tears shed for Tim Gullikson, and seen by puzzled millions 15 months ago as he wept through a dramatic - and traumatic - five-set victory over Jim Courier during the Australian Open. The brain tumors that would kill Tim last week had just been diagnosed. That awful news came after two seizures and misdiagnoses in Europe.

“Oh, how Tim fought,” says Rose Gullikson, a lawyer and registered nurse, mother of their two children. “And with such good nature through all the surgery and chemotherapy. It was unbelievable. He wouldn’t let himself get down. He was cheering us up. The doctors were astounded that he got this far.”

“Unbelievable” is a word we all use often. But it wasn’t unbelievable, as Rose knew, that Tim battled and hoped, looking for a way to win.

Tom Gullikson, the big brother by 5 minutes, remembers that wonderful July afternoon in 1983, when they paused to smell the grass of Wimbledon’s Centre Court and the surrounding hydrangeas, accompanied by 14,000 witnesses and innumerable television viewers. “I guess that was the best, as players,” Tom said. “We’d gotten each other to a Wimbledon (men’s doubles) final. We couldn’t beat the best that day (John McEnroe and Peter Fleming). But we looked at each other and smiled, thinking, ‘How did we ever get here from where we started?”’

Not that they were the first twins in a Big W final. After all, the English Baddeleys, Wilfred and Herbert, had been there as recently as 1897. But the Gulliksons were guys we shouldn’t have heard of. As the last of their uncoached kind, small townies and incredibly late starters, their cribs unequipped with tiny rackets as Andre Agassi’s was to be, they didn’t belong in such select company.

“We couldn’t have done it without each other,” said Tom, now the exemplary U.S. Davis Cup captain. “Once we’d made up our minds to try the pro tour, we wouldn’t let each other fail.”

They were 24, small-time teaching pros, doing OK because their wives also worked. Then a respected friend, Hank Jungle, told them he thought they could make it on the circuit. Why not see? Even though it was an outlandish idea, even in 1977, they sensed a now-or-never shot at a dream. The wives, uprooted, too, were skeptical at first, especially about gambling savings.

Jumping into pro tennis at 24 is like a man on a life raft trying to teach himself navigation. They weren’t products of zealous tennis parents - papa Bob was the town barber in a suburb of nowhere, Onalaska, Wis. - or one of those boot camp-foster home tennis academies. Nor were they teen phenoms and high school dropouts. They actually graduated from college (Northern Illinois), a terrible background by today’s pitiable standards, yet had notable careers, Tim as high as No. 18, Tom No. 56. They worked for a living before embarking on the tour, became family men, avoided the dreaded cavern of tunnel vision.

“We played everything as kids, tennis, too, but we were probably better at basketball,” said Tom. “Our mother threw us out of the house and sent us across the street to play. Luckily the athletic fields of the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse were there. That’s where we started, before moving to Onalaska. We played on the freshman basketball team in college, and our boast is we both guarded Illinois State’s (future NBA-er) Doug Collins and held him to 42 points. Tim insisted Doug got only 20 against him.”

At Wimbledon in 1979, Tim laughed, “Sure we know grass. The first courts we played on had grass everywhere, growing through the cracks.” That was after he gained the quarterfinals by stunning second-seeded McEnroe, who had eliminated Tom in the previous round. “Nobody beats two Gulliksons at Wimbledon,” Tim said.

Karl Meiler was one of the confused when the indistinguishable twins joined the tour. He lost to two Gulliksons and didn’t realize it. Tim, the right-hander, beat him one week and Tom, the lefty, soon after. Meiler looked ready for a psycho ward. “He beats me right-handed - then he beats me left-handed!” screeched the German. “How can it be?”

“It was funny,” Tom said, “but I had to tell the guy there were two of us before he flipped.”

But, sadly, now there is only one. “We competed against and with each other, loved each other, were best friends,” Tom sighs. “Hardly a day went past that we weren’t in touch. But Pete, all of us, have to accept it. I have the marvelous memories to treasure.”

So do we, Tom.