The 1970 Davis Cup was the 59th edition of the most important tournament between national teams in men's tennis. 53 teams would enter the competition, 31 in the Europe Zone, 11 in the Americas Zone, and 11 in the Eastern Zone.
Brazil defeated Canada in the Americas Zone final, India defeated Australia in the Eastern Zone final, and West Germany and Spain won the Europe Zones. In the Inter-Zonal Zone, West Germany defeated India, Spain defeated Brazil, and West Germany defeated Spain in the final. West Germany then fell to defending champions the United States in the Challenge Round. The final was played at the Harold Clark Courts in Cleveland, Ohio, United States on 29–31 August.
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Britain and the United States. By 2007, 137 nations entered teams into the competition. The most successful countries over the history of the tournament are the United States (winning 32 tournaments and finishing as runners-up 29 times) and Australia (winning 28 times, including four occasions with New Zealand under the name 'Australasia', and finishing as runners-up 19 times). The present champion is Spain who beat Argentina to claim the title.
The tournament was conceived in 1899 by four members of the Harvard University tennis team who wished to challenge the British to a tennis competition. Once their respective lawn tennis associations agreed, one of the four Harvard players, Dwight F. Davis, designed a tournament format and ordered an appropriate sterling silver trophy from Shreve, Crump & Low, purchasing it from his own funds for about $1000. They in turn commissioned a classically-styled design from William B. Durgin's of Concord, New Hampshire, crafted by the Englishman Rowland Rhodes. Davis went on to become a prominent politician in the United States in the 1920s, serving as US Secretary of War from 1925–29 and as Governor-General of the Philippines from 1929–32.
Rodney George "Rod" Laver MBE (born 9 August 1938) is an Australian former tennis player who holds the record for most singles titles won in history of tennis, with 200 career titles. He was the World No. 1 player for seven consecutive years, from 1964 to 1970 (from 1964 to 1967 in the professional circuit) . He is the only tennis player to have twice won the Grand Slam (all four major singles titles in the same year) – first as an amateur in 1962 and second as a professional in 1969. He is the only male player and was the first player, male or female, to have won the Grand Slam during the open era (in 1988 Steffi Graf also achieved this feat). Laver won a total of twenty major tournaments, including eleven Grand Slam tournament titles and nine Pro Slam titles. In 1967, Laver also won the Professional Grand Slam. In addition he won nine Championship Series titles (1970–75) the precursors to the current Masters 1000. Laver won and excelled on all the surfaces of his time (grass, clay and wood/parquet), and was ranked as the best professional player in the world during the five-year period he was excluded from the Grand Slam tournaments. Rod Laver is the second and last male player to win each major title twice in his career. Only Roy Emerson and Margaret Court had won all four Grand Slam tournaments twice before Laver in the history of tennis. Laver is regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time. Within his slams there are also 6 in doubles and 3 in mixed doubles.
Manuel Orantes Corral (born February 5, 1949 in Granada, Spain) was a tennis player in the 1970s and 1980s. He won the US Open in 1975, beating defending champion Jimmy Connors in the final. Orantes reached a career-high singles ranking of World No. 2.
On September 7, 1975, he defeated top-seeded Jimmy Connors in the finals of the US Open at Forest Hills, New York to win his only Grand Slam title. A year earlier, he was runner-up to Björn Borg in the final of the French Open, taking a two-set lead before Borg won the last three sets for the loss of just two games.
Overall, he won 33 singles titles, including Rome (1972), Hamburg (1972 & 1975), Canada (1975) and the Masters in 1976. He also reached 35 finals, the biggest being the French Open (1974), Cincinnati (1973), Monte Carlo (1970), Canada (1973 & 1974), Rome (1973 & 1975), and Hamburg (1976 & 1977).
He was a stalwart member of the Spanish Davis Cup team from 1967 to 1980, earning a record of 60-27 in Davis Cup match play. He also was a member of the Spanish team which won the inaugural World Team Cup in 1978.
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King".
Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family at the age of 13. He began his career there in 1954, working with Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African American music to a wider audience. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was the most important popularizer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country and rhythm and blues. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage the singer for over two decades. Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", released in January 1956, was a number one hit. He became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs, many from African American sources, and his uninhibited performance style made him enormously popular—and controversial. In November 1956, he made his film debut in Love Me Tender.