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1968 Wimbledon Championships – Men's Singles
Rod Laver defeated Tony Roche in the final, 6–3, 6–4, 6–2 to win the gentlemen's singles tennis title at the 1968 Wimbledon Championships. It was the first edition of Wimbledon open to professional tennis players, a period in tennis history known as the Open Era. John Newcombe was the defending champion, but was defeated in the fourth round by Arthur Ashe. Seeds Rod Laver (champion) Ken Rosewall ''(fourth round)'' Andrés Gimeno ''(third round)'' John Newcombe ''(fourth round)'' Roy Emerson ''(fourth round)'' Manuel Santana ''(third round)'' Lew Hoad ''(third round)'' Pancho Gonzales ''(third round)'' Dennis Ralston ''(quarterfinals)'' Butch Buchholz ''(quarterfinals)'' Fred Stolle ''(fourth round)'' Tom Okker ''(quarterfinals)'' Arthur Ashe ''(semifinals)'' Cliff Drysdale ''(third round)'' Tony Roche ''(final)'' Nikola Pilić Nikola "Niki" Pilić (born 27 August 1939) is a Croatian former professional tennis player who competed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rod Laver
Rodney George Laver (born 9 August 1938) is an Australian former tennis player. Laver was the world number 1 ranked professional in some sources in 1964, in all sources from 1965 to 1969 and in some sources in 1970, spanning four years before and three years after the start of the Open Era in 1968. He was also ranked the world number 1 amateur in 1961 by Lance Tingay and 1962 by Tingay and Ned Potter. Laver's 200 singles titles are the most in tennis history. This included his all-time men's record of 10 or more titles per year for seven consecutive years (1964–1970). He excelled on all of the court surfaces of his time: grass, clay, hard, carpet, and wood. Laver won 11 Grand Slam singles titles, though he was banned from playing those tournaments for the five years prior to the Open Era. Laver is the only player, male or female, to win a Grand Slam (winning all four major titles in the same calendar year) twice in singles, in 1962 and 1969; the latter remains the only tim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikola Pilić
Nikola "Niki" Pilić (born 27 August 1939) is a Croatian former professional tennis player who competed for SFR Yugoslavia. He was one of the Handsome Eight. Pilić was ranked world No. 6 in January 1968 and world No. 7 for 1967 by Lance Tingay of ''The Daily Telegraph''.United States Lawn Tennis Association (1972). ''Official Encyclopedia of Tennis'' (First edition), p. 428. Early life Pilić was born in Split, Banovina of Croatia, Kingdom of Yugoslavia to Krsto Pilić and Danica Tomić-Ferić five days before the outbreak of World War II that began on 1 September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. The youngster took up tennis during the summer of 1952. Thirteen years of age at this point, he began practicing on the Firule tennis club clay courts in parallel to studying shipbuilding at the streamlined high school in Split. Upon graduating he attempted to enrol at a community college () in Zagreb, but due to not meeting the entrance criteria ended up in Novi Sad where he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Becker
Roger Becker (6 February 1934 – 6 November 2017) was a British tennis player. Besides tennis, Becker competed in cricket, football, and golf; all were well within his grasp. However, in 1949 he chose tennis to the dismay of the players of the other sports. In 1952, Becker played in the Davis Cup at 18 years of age, the youngest British player to have done so at the time. His record stood until 2005 when it was broken by Andy Murray at the age of 17. He later served as Paul Hutchins Paul Raymond Hutchins (5 April 1945 – 14 March 2019) was a British tennis player and Davis Cup player. He was the longest serving British Davis Cup captain, being in charge for 31 matches and 13 years, including the 1978 final. Biography B ...' coach for a time. References External linksGuardian article 1934 births 2017 deaths English male tennis players British male tennis players Tennis people from Greater London Professional tennis players before the Open Era {{UK-tennis- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gordon Forbes
Gordon Forbes (21 February 1934 – 9 December 2020) was a South African professional tennis player and author. Forbes won the singles title of the South African Championships in 1959 and 1961 and was runner-up in 1955, 1962, 1963 and 1964. He won the Tuscaloosa Grass Court Invitational in 1962, defeating Rod Laver in the final. During the 1950s and 1960s, he was the doubles partner of countryman Abe Segal. They were considered one of the best doubles teams in the world. Career Forbes learnt to play tennis in his childhood on the family farm. At age 12, he played and won his first junior tournament in East London. Forbes won the singles title of the South African Championships in 1959 and 1961 and was runner-up in 1955, 1962, 1963 and 1964. He won the Tuscaloosa Grass Court Invitational in 1962, defeating reigning U.S. No. 1 Whitney Reed in a marathon semifinal, and World No. 1 Rod Laver in a close four set final. He played for the South African Davis Cup team in 14 ties ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Cox (tennis)
Mark Cox (born 5 July 1943) is a former tennis player from England, who played professional and amateur tennis in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He was ranked as high as world No. 13 on the ATP rankings (achieving that ranking in August 1977). Cox was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School in Leicester and Millfield School in Somerset. Cox obtained an economics undergraduate degree from the University of Cambridge (Downing College), where he was a member of the Cambridge University Lawn Tennis Club. Career He played his first tournament on 3 November 1958 at the Torquay Indoor. During his career, he won twenty singles titles and three doubles titles spanning both the pre-Open Era and Open Era, reached the quarterfinals at the U.S. National Championships (in 1966), and the final at the event in Cincinnati (in 1977). He also played for Great Britain's Davis Cup team, and was on the team that reached the 1978 final against the United States. He has also gone down in tennis history a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herb Fitzgibbon
Herbert Fitzgibbon (born July 14, 1942) is a former tennis player who was nationally ranked in the 1960s and 1970s. Fitzgibbon played four years of high school tennis for Garden City High School and never lost a match. He played collegiate tennis at Princeton University and was a gold and bronze medalist at the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968 when tennis was a demonstration sport. Fitzgibbon won the singles title at the tournament in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1964 and was a two-time singles runner-up (1965 and 1963) there as well. He also reached the Cincinnati doubles final with Butch Newman in 1965. That year, he also won the Long Island Championships and the Eastern Clay Court title. In 1968, Fitzgibbon won against 16th-seeded Nikola Pilić in the first round at Wimbledon, 3–6, 7–5, 6–3, 6–2. The same year he won the La Coruna International in Spain against Juan Gisbert Sr.. Fitzgibbon also was an accomplished platform tennis player, winning national doubles titles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Fairlie
Brian Fairlie (born 13 June 1948), is a retired tennis player from New Zealand. During his career from 1968 to 1979, he won four titles in doubles, all with the Egyptian player Ismail El Shafei, and 10 singles titles in the Open era (and at least two more in 1967). Playing career Juniors Fairlie was the 1967 Boys' Singles champion of the Australian Championships. Professional Failie's best result in a Grand Slam was reaching the semi-finals of men's doubles at the French Open in 1971 with partner Frew McMillan. A year earlier, he reached the singles quarterfinals of the U.S. Open, losing to Tony Roche. While his highest ATP singles ranking was World No. 24 (in September 1973), Fairlie was ranked inside the world's Top 20 in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1969, his first full year on the circuit, he upset former Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion John Newcombe in the quarterfinals of the Heineken Open in Auckland. The tournament's website describes the atmosphere at the e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald Dell
Donald L. Dell (born June 17, 1938) is an American sports attorney, writer, commentator, and former tennis player. Dell was the first sports agent in professional tennis, and represented Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Jimmy Connors, and Ivan Lendl during the golden age of pro tennis (1975 to 1985). He was also the founder of Professional Services (ProServ), one of the nation's first sports marketing firms established in 1970. Dell is considered one of the fathers of sports marketing and the sports agent business along with IMG's Mark McCormack. Dell co-founded the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in 1972 with Jack Kramer and Cliff Drysdale. Clients of ProServ dominated the leadership roles of the ATP in its formative years. ProServ expanded into basketball, and Dell signed Patrick Ewing, Michael Jordan, and other top NBA players. He wrote his first book, ''Minding Other People’s Business'' in 1989 about how to recruit, manage, market, and keep client athletes, and a second b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marty Riessen
Marty Riessen (born December 4, 1941) is an American former amateur and professional tennis player active from the 1960s to the 1980s. He was ranked as high as No. 11 in the world in singles on the ATP rankings in September 1974, though was ranked as high as world No. 8 by Lance Tingay of ''The Daily Telegraph'' in 1971 before the computer rankings. Renowned for his doubles play, Riessen was also a regular doubles partner of Australian tennis great Margaret Court, winning six of his seven major mixed titles and a career Grand Slam alongside her. Additionally a winner of two men's doubles Grand Slams, his highest doubles ranking was No. 3 in March 1980. Career Riessen played collegiate tennis at Northwestern University, where he reached the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) singles finals three times: 1962 (falling to Rafael Osuna of University of Southern California); 1963 and 1964 (falling to Dennis Ralston of USC both times). He was a semifinalist at the NCAA Do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jan Kodeš
Jan Kodeš (born 1 March 1946) is a Czech former professional tennis player. A three-time major singles champion, Kodeš was one of the premier players in the early 1970s. Kodeš's greatest success was achieved on the clay courts of the French Open, where he won the singles title in 1970 and 1971. However, he also won Wimbledon on grass courts in 1973, although the tournament was largely boycotted by top players that year over the ban of Nikola Pilić by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF). Kodeš never played at the Australian Open, but was twice the runner-up at the US Open, in 1971 and 1973. Kodeš reached his highest ATP ranking of world No. 5 in September 1973. During the Open Era, he won nine top-level singles titles and 17 doubles titles. Kodeš was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1990. In 2013, he received the Czech Fair Play Award from the Czech Olympic Committee. He is an economics graduate of the Prague University. Career statist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stan Smith
Stanley Roger Smith (born December 14, 1946) is an American former professional tennis player. Smith is best known to non-tennis players as the namesake of a popular brand of tennis shoes. A world No. 1 player and two-time major singles champion (at the 1971 US Open and 1972 Wimbledon Championships), Smith also paired with Bob Lutz to create one of the most successful doubles teams of all-time. In 1970, Smith won the inaugural year-end championships title. In 1972, he was the year-end world No. 1 singles player. In 1973, he won his second and last year end championship title at the Dallas WCT Finals. In addition, he won four Grand Prix Championship Series titles. In his early years he improved his tennis game through lessons from Pancho Segura, the Pasadena Tennis Patrons, and the sponsorship of the Southern California Tennis Association headed by Perry T. Jones. Since 2011, Smith has served as President of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Career Smith grew up in P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Merlo
Giuseppe "Beppe" Merlo (11 October 1927 – 17 July 2019) was an Italian tennis player. Merlo reached the semifinals of French Championships in 1955 (losing to Sven Davidson) and 1956 (losing to Lew Hoad). In the final of Rome in 1955, Merlo led 2 sets to 1 and had 2 match points against Fausto Gardini, but minutes later had to retire with cramps. Merlo lost in the Italian Open final again in 1957 (to Nicola Pietrangeli Nicola "Nicky" Pietrangeli (; born 11 September 1933) is a former Italian tennis player. He won two singles titles at the French Championships and is considered by many to be Italy's greatest tennis champion. Biography Born 11 September 1933, in ...). His other career highlights include winning the Reggio Calabria International tournament four times (1959–60, 1963, 1967) He retired from competitive tennis in 1969 when he was 41 years old. He was 91 at the time of his death in July 2019. References External links * * * 1927 births 2019 deaths S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
