Donald Fontana (1 January 1931 – 17 July 2015) was a former high-ranking

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

player from the 1950s and 1960s. Fontana was the year-ending no. 2 ranked Canadian player six times, three times in the 1950s and three more in the 1960s. He was ranked in the Canadian top-ten five more times. Fontana was runner-up in the Canadian Open singles in 1956 in Vancouver on grass, losing in the men's singles final to U.S. player

Noel Brown Noel Abner Brown (born March 21, 1926) was an American tennis player in the mid-20th century. He was born in Stamford, Texas. Brown was captain of the University of California at Los Angeles tennis team in 1946. He won singles titles at two of t ...

in four sets. He won the Canadian Open doubles championship three times, in 1955, 1957, and 1959 with compatriot Robert Bedard, and was a runner-up four more times. At the

1956 Wimbledon Championships The 1956 Wimbledon Championships took place on the outdoor grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom. The tournament was held from Monday 25 June until Saturday 7 July 1956. It was the 70th ...

, Fontana lost in the first round to the eventual Wimbledon champion for that year, Lew Hoad. In 1957, Fontana reached the fourth round at the US Open Championships where he lost to Budge Patty. Don won the Ontario Open singles tennis championship three times at the Boulevard Club on clay in Toronto. In 1957, he defeated

Henri Rochon Henri Rochon (12 March 1924 – 5 February 2005) was a Canadian National tennis champion and Davis Cup tennis player. Born in and resident to Montreal, Rochon won the Canadian Open, the precursor to today's Rogers Cup ATP 1000 Series event, i ...

and

Paul Willey Paul Arden Willey was a Canadian tennis player. Willey, the Canadian junior champion in 1949, attended Vancouver's Kitsilano Secondary School. In 1954 he won the Ontario Championships in singles, and was runner-up at the same event in 1956 to B ...

in the final two rounds. He also won the Ontario Championships in 1958 and 1960 at the Boulevard Club. He was a

Pan American Games The Pan American Games (also known colloquially as the Pan Am Games) is a continental multi-sport event in the Americas featuring summer sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The competition is held ...

competitor twice, in 1959 and 1963. Fontana represented Canada in

Davis Cup 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. It is described by the organis ...

eight times from 1955 to 1963 and had a career win-lose record of 7 and 15, 4 and 8 in singles and 3 and 7 in doubles. He was Canadian Davis Cup captain five times between 1963 and 1976. Fontana was tournament director of the Canadian Open in 1959 and from 1971 to 1978. He was also a long-time tennis TV analyst for CTV's coverage of the Canadian Open. Don was inducted into the Tennis Canada Hall of Fame in 2000. Fontana is also one of the last people to have ever played tennis with the legendary

Bill Tilden William Tatem Tilden II (February 10, 1893 – June 5, 1953), nicknamed "Big Bill", was an American tennis player. Tilden was the world No. 1 amateur for six consecutive years, from 1920 to 1925, and was ranked as the world No. 1 professional b ...

. According to

Frank Deford Benjamin Franklin Deford III (December 16, 1938 – May 28, 2017) was an American sportswriter and novelist. From 1980 until his death in 2017, he was a regular sports commentator on NPR's ''Morning Edition'' radio program. Deford wrote fo ...

's authoritative biography of Tilden, Big Bill Tilden, at pp. 273–74, in 1953 Fontana and Bedard, while on tennis scholarships at UCLA, were invited by Tilden to play tennis with him and Tilden's protégé Art Anderson on Charlie Chaplin's tennis court in Los Angeles in a mock-Davis Cup format of the U.S. versus Canada (the Canadians won both the first two singles and the doubles for an insurmountable 3–0 lead). Tilden, age 60 then, was found dead in his apartment a few days later on the eve of his proposed departure for the U.S. Pro Championships in Cleveland, Ohio.Frank Deford, Big Bill Tilden. Simon & Schuster (1976) P. 273ff. Fontana died in

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, sub ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

17 July 2015.

References

External links

* * *
''Tennis Canada'' Hall of Fame webpage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fontana, Don 1931 births 2015 deaths Canadian colour commentators Canadian male tennis players Tennis players from Toronto Tennis commentators UCLA Bruins men's tennis players