Handsome Eight
The Handsome Eight were eight professional tennis players that Dave Dixon signed to professional contracts soon after the U.S. Championships were held at Forest Hills in 1967. Dixon sold his interest to Lamar Hunt, who created a new tennis tour, called World Championship Tennis (WCT). Taken together with a rival group of another half-dozen professionals such as Ken Rosewall and Rod Laver, so many of the top players were now lost to amateur tennis that an irresistible impetus was given to the need to create Open Tennis, which would let both professional and amateur players compete in the same tournaments. The first Open tournaments were held in 1968.
The "Handsome Eight" were Nikola Pilić of Yugoslavia, Butch Buchholz and Dennis Ralston of the United States, Pierre Barthes of France, Cliff Drysdale of South Africa, Roger Taylor of Great Britain, and John Newcombe and Tony Roche of Australia.