Douglas Burke (born 25 July 1963) is a former professional

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

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

Career

Burke was the Canadian Junior Champion in both the Under-18s and Under-21 categories.ATP World Tour Profile
/ref> The Jamaican born player competed in collegiate tennis for

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) is a public university in Edwardsville, Illinois. SIUE was established in 1957 as an extension of Southern Illinois University Carbondale.Butler 1976, p. 18 It is the younger of the two major inst ...

in the early 1980s and was an

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

All-American on five occasions, for singles in 1981 and for both singles and doubles in 1982 and 1983. He and

Ken Flach Kenneth Eliot Flach (May 24, 1963 – March 12, 2018) was an American doubles world No. 1 tennis player. He won four Grand Slam men's doubles titles (two Wimbledon and two US Open), and two mixed doubles titles (Wimbledon and the French Open) ...

were the 1982 NCAA Division II doubles champions. Burke began representing the Jamaican team 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 ...

competition in 1987. He went on to appear in a total of 18 ties, before retiring in 1995. Of his 36 rubbers, Burke won 20, 11 in singles and nine in doubles. His partnership with fellow Canadian-Jamaican player Karl Hale, which resulted in eight wins, remains a national record. In 1988, at New York's

OTB Open The OTB Open was a WTA Tour, Grand Prix and ATP Tour affiliated tennis tournament played from 1985 to 1994. It was held in Schenectady, New York Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the coun ...

, Burke became the first Jamaican to reach a quarter-final on the

Grand Prix tennis circuit The Grand Prix tennis circuit was a professional tennis tour for male players that existed from 1970 to 1989. The Grand Prix and World Championship Tennis (WCT) were the two predecessors to the current tour for male players, the ATP Tour, with t ...

. He had wins over

Jim Gurfein Jim Gurfein (born January 4, 1961) is a former professional tennis player from the U.S. Gurfein reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 96 in September 1983. Early years Gurfein was born in New York City, and he is Jewish. Gurfein gr ...

and

Martin Blackman Martin Blackman (born March 5, 1970) is a former professional tennis player from the United States. He later represented Barbados. Early life Blackman was born in New York City, before moving to Barbados when he was 2 years old. He spent much o ...

, before falling in the quarter-finals to

Pete Sampras Petros "Pete" Sampras ( el, Πέτρος Σάμπρας; born August 12, 1971) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. His professional career began in 1988 and ended at the 2002 US Open, which he won, defeating longtime rival Andre ...

. The following year he was also a quarter-finalist at the

BP National Championships The BP National Championships is a defunct Grand Prix and ATP Tour tennis tournament played from 1988 to 1995. It was held in Wellington in New Zealand and was played on outdoor hard courts. The tournament began as part of the ''Regular Series'' ...

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

, beating

Peter Doohan Peter Doohan (2 May 1961 – 21 July 2017) was an Australian tennis player who won three consecutive Australian Hard Court Championships singles titles (1984, 1985, 1986), which remains an Open era record for that tournament. He won a further t ...

and David Lewis.

Personal life

Burke grew up in Jamaica but completed his schooling in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, where he and his family immigrated to in 1978. He attended the

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, then returned to Canada. Although he opted to represent Jamaica during his career on tour, he remained based in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

. His son, Brandon Burke, is also a Jamaican Davis Cup player.

Coaching

Burke was the director of Tennis Jamaica from 1994 to 2011. Doug Burke joined ACE, a high performance tennis development program in Burlington, Ontario as Tennis Director in August 2011. He was recently named President.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burke, Doug 1963 births Living people Jamaican emigrants to Canada Jamaican male tennis players Sportspeople from Kingston, Jamaica SIU Edwardsville Cougars men's tennis players Tennis players from Toronto