Tennis, when Wimbledon was Wimbledon and Clerici asked to rest, breaking with tradition

It was June 1953 and a young tennis player from Como, already twice winner of the Coppa de Galea (a sort of under 23 Davis Cup) decided to go and seek more experience than glory on the Wimbledon grass: the economic conditions allowed him to finance himself, since his family was decidedly wealthy. The good level achieved in the federation rankings (more or less Italian number 5) gave him access to the draw. So our friend filled his Fiat Cinquecento (it must have been a topolino or a station wagon) with bags and rackets and crossed the Channel to reach, after a tiring journey, the tennis mecca.
The draw for drawing up the draw wasn't particularly hostile to him. The first round thus reserved for him an opponent who was a little stronger, but from whom he would not have been punched. Everything to gain and nothing to lose, as they say in the jargon. And so Gianni Clerici, the future "scribe" of tennis, found himself facing the most famous tournament in the world as a player. Moreover, competitive, at least on the first outing.
And it certainly didn't look bad. He was defeated, but in four games. In short, one set brought him home, and this allowed him to score a very special personal record. Here we need to take a small step back. In the 50s (and so it will be for a long time, until after the introduction of the tie break), in the big international tournaments, in which three sets out of five were played, the rule was in force that after the third set players had the right to 20 minutes of rest. Thus, in cases where the fourth set had to be played, the players retired after the conclusion of the third to the locker room to catch their breath. There was much debate among tennis players whether, in those twenty minutes, it was better to take a short shower, or whether it was better, in order not to lose concentration, to limit oneself to changing the underwear (at the time the white uniform was de rigueur, not only at Wimbledon) soaked in sweats. Most of the tennis doctrine opted for this second hypothesis.
At Wimbledon, however, there was a tradition that this rule of rest was not observed. And since in Albion, sometimes even the rules give way to custom, the players avoided asking for a stoppage after the third set. But Clerici didn't think this way and so, after losing two sets and winning one, he decided to ask for the rules to be applied. And he got his 20 minutes of rest.
The future "scribe" probably didn't think then that he would spend a good part of his life describing, and almost always defending, the tradition of the most beautiful and atypical tournament in the world, repeatedly subjected to the changes imposed by modernity. And the writer is pleased to imagine that Clerici, in 1953, asked for that rest in order to prolong his presence in the temple of tennis as much as possible. Our scribe did not know then that he would continue to frequent that temple even as an octogenarian. As befits a great journalist who is above all a fascinating writer. And not just for us enthusiasts.