Tombstone
Born: December 16, 1976 – Re-branded from New York Sets1Foley, Red. “Sets to Sell Apples as New Name in WTT”. The Daily News (New York, NY). December 17, 1976
Folded: October 27, 1978
First Match: April 28, 1977 (W 24-23 vs. Sea-Port Cascades)
Last Match: August 24, 1978 (L 26-16 @ Los Angeles Strings)
World Team Tennis Champions: 1977
Arenas
Madison Square Garden (18,000)21978 World Team Tennis Media Guide
Opened: 1968
The Felt Forum (4,000)31978 World Team Tennis Media Guide
Nassau Coliseum
Opened: 1972
Branding
Team Colors: Red & Green41978 World Team Tennis Media Guide
Ownership
Owner: Sol Berg
Attendance
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Sources:
1978 New York Applies Media Guide
Craig, Jack. “Lobsters to quit WTT for a year”. The Globe (Boston, MA). October 28, 1978
Record Book
WTT Male Most Valuable Player (Playoffs)
- 1977: Sandy Mayer
WTT Female Most Valuable Player (Playoffs)
- 1977: Billie Jean King
WTT Coach-of-the-Year
- 1977: Fred Stolle
Apple Picks
New York Apples
Team Tennis T-Shirt
World Team Tennis’ New York franchise made their home at Madison Square Garden during the summers of 1977 and 1978 and won a league championship with a cast led by Grand Slam champions Billie Jean King and Fred Stolle.
This design is also available in women’s scoop neck and racerback tank styles from Old School Shirts!
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Background
The New York Sets/Apples were a dominant entry in Billie Jean King’s World Team Tennis (WTT) promotion of the mid 1970’s. The franchise started out on Long Island at the Nassau Coliseum as the Sets from 1974 to 1976. The Sets were a last place finisher during WTT’s inaugural season of 1974. But the team turned a corner with the addition of King herself to the team’s roster in 1975. The Sets other marquee female player was two-time Grand Slam champion Virginia Wade. Featured male players included King’s mixed doubles partner Phil Dent and former Stanford University star Sandy Mayer.
In the final season on Long Island, the Sets won the WTT championship in August 1976.
In The Big Apple
In 1977 the club moved into Manhattan, splitting dates between the 17,800-seat main arena of Madison Square Garden and the more intimate 3,700-seat Felt Forum tucked inside the Garden. The Apples continued to play a handful of matches at the Coliseum on Long Island as well. To celebrate the move, the club also re-branded, dropping the dreadful “Sets” nickname and becoming the New York Apples for the 1977 season.
The Garden was favored for marquee matches, such as a June 6, 1977 match against the Phoenix Racquets which showcased the two biggest stars of the women’s pro tour: Billie Jean King of the Apples and Chris Evert of the Racquets. The match drew a league record 13,675 fans.
A few weeks after the match, King and Evert met again in the quarterfinals of the Wimbledon women’s singles competition. Top seed Evert destroyed the 5th-seeded King in straight sets 6-1, 6-2. But King’s Apples teammate Virginia Wade avenged her loss in the semis, upsetting Evert in three sets. Wade went on to win Wimbledon in 1977 for her third Grand Slam singles championship.
In late August the Apples met Evert and Racquets again in the WTT championship series. In the decisive match in Phoenix on August 29, 1977 Wade again defeated Evert in stunning fashion, shutting her out 6-0 in the women’s singles game. The Apples repeated as World Team Tennis champions in 1977 with a roster of Wade, Sandy Mayer and Australian newcomer Ray Ruffels.
Overall attendance surged 38% with the move to Manhattan, topping 100,000 for the season. The Apples averaged 4,939 fans per match.
The End
For the 1978 season, the Apples added a male superstar to pair with King and Wade, adding 23-year old Vitas Gerulaitis, who ranked as one of the top five males in the world at the time. The Apples also added a 21-year old rookie out of Douglaston, New York named Mary Carillo. Carillo would go on to become one of the great broadcasters of tennis and a highly respected reporter on HBO’s Real Sports and NBC’s Olympics coverage in the 1990’s and 2000’s.
But there would be no third straight title for the Apples in 1978. Chronic heel injuries sidelined the 34-year old King for much of the season, as JoAnne Russell took over as the Apples primary women’s singles competitor. The New Yorkers ran into another star-studded team in the playoff semi-finals – the Los Angeles Strings now led by Evert and the temperamental Romanian Ilie Nastase. The Strings ousted the defending champion Apples and went on to win the final championship of World Team Tennis in September 1978.
Team owner Sol Berg folded the Apples on October 27, 1978 in tandem with Boston Lobsters owner Robert Kraft. The closure of the two franchises started a domino effect as all but two of the remaining WTT franchises folder over the next several weeks. World Team Tennis folded in early 1979 after five seasons of play.
New York Apples Shop
New York Apples Video
JoAnne Russell (Apples) faces Chris Evert (Los Angeles Strings) in women’s singles play during the final game of the Apples’ existence. Los Angeles Forum, August 24th, 1978.
Downloads
1978 New York Apples Media Guide
1978 New York Apples Media Guide
Links
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2 Responses
Washington Kastles rule!
As I remember it, the reason why the New York team originally had the “unimaginative” name Sets was to associate the team with the New York Jets, the New York Mets, and most importantly, the (then) New York Nets. The Jets and Mets both played at nearby Shea Stadium, while the Nets shared the Nassau Coliseum with the Sets.
Both the Sets and the Nets left Nassau Coliseum at about the same time, with the Nets bolting to New Jersey; thus, there was then even less reason to keep the “Sets” moniker, which even we kids felt was a bit of a ridiculous stretch in the first place …