Ken Rosewall, the reigning champion at 37, had just won his fourth Australian Open, but he felt a little guilty.

“It’s not good for tennis generally for me to still be winning,” he told The Age, a Melbourne newspaper, in 1972 after beating Mal Anderson, who was 36.

Anderson had worked as a tennis and squash instructor for four years, coming out of retirement only weeks before that tournament. Asked how two fathers (Anderson had three children, Rosewall two) had made it to a major final, Anderson said: “The youngsters these days have things too easily. There is too much money around, and they don’t have to fight for a living.”

Rosewall’s first-place check was for $2,240; Anderson took home $1,120. Forty years later, Rosewall remains the oldest man to win a Grand Slam tournament in the Open era, but the Australian Open has become much more lucrative. This year’s singles champions will receive a record $2.3 million, or about $1 million more than Rosewall estimated he made in his 25-year career.