Chuck McKinley

Charles Robert McKinley Jr. (January 5, 1941 – August 11, 1986) was an American former world no. 1 men's amateur tennis champion of the 1960s. He is remembered as an undersized, hard-working dynamo, whose relentless effort and competitive spirit led American tennis to the top of the sport during a period heavily dominated by Australians.

McKinley won the 1963 Men's Singles Championship at Wimbledon. At the end of 1963, McKinley was ranked world No. 1 amateur by Ned Potter and an Ulrich Kaiser panel of 13 experts. He paired with Dennis Ralston to win the 1963 Davis Cup, the only interruption in eight unbroken years of Australian dominance. He also paired with Ralston to win the U.S. Men's Doubles championships in 1961, 1963, and 1964.

Biography

McKinley was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of a local pipe fitter, and grew up in a 'rough neighborhood' on the north side of town. As a boy, McKinley used to drop by the local YMCA where he was taught table tennis by volunteer instructor Bill Price. Eventually Price, who was also a tennis professional, took McKinley and some of the other boys to the public tennis courts. McKinley soon became so good that Price advised him to quit all other sports and concentrate on tennis.

In 1960 McKinley enrolled at Trinity University where he joined Frank Froehling, another leading American player, under the tutelage of coach Clarence Mabry, who also coached John Newcombe and other professionals. This gave Trinity arguably the best collegiate men's tennis team in the U.S. However, during this period Trinity never won the NCAA championship because the NCAA scheduled the championship tournament opposite Wimbledon, and both McKinley and Froehling chose to participate in Wimbledon rather than the collegiate tournament.

McKinley's decision to play Wimbledon was justified when in 1961, as a college sophomore, he reached the Wimbledon singles finals in which he was defeated by Rod Laver in straight sets. The same year, he won the singles title at the Eastern Grass Court Championships in South Orange against Frank Froehling. He won the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships in 1962 and 1963, defeating Fred Stolle and Dennis Ralston in the respective finals. In 1962 and 1964, McKinley was victorious in the singles event at the U.S. National Indoor Championships.

His intense desire to win, his habit of screaming, "Oh Charley, you missed that one," at himself after a bad shot, and the fact that he drew a four-month suspension for heaving his tennis racket into the crowd at a Davis Cup match, gave him the reputation of the 'bad boy of international tennis.'

In 1963, with Laver in the professional ranks, McKinley won Wimbledon without losing a set. He was helped in this by the fact that favorite Roy Emerson was eliminated by little known German Wilhelm Bungert. After McKinley eliminated Bungert, the press asked the German if he had been tired. “I was tired,” said Bungert, "Tired from those five set matches earlier. And tired from watching McKinley run." According to ''Time'', McKinley played the tournament "with an astounding lack of grace. He leaps, he lunges, he scrambles, he slides, he falls, he dives, he skins his elbows and knees, and he flails at the ball as if he were clubbing a rat. His nerves are as taut as the strings of his racket." In the final, McKinley met Fred Stolle who had beaten McKinley four out of six previous meetings. However, Stolle said "He knocked it down my throat...In the end, I didn't know where to serve or what he was going to do."

In December 1963, McKinley and Dennis Ralston played all of the matches for the U.S. in winning the Davis Cup from Australia. The Australians had not lost the cup for four years and did not relinquish it again for another four. In the decisive match, McKinley defeated John Newcombe.

After graduation from Trinity, McKinley chose not to go into professional tennis, and he became a stockbroker in New York City. He died in 1986 in Dallas, Texas of a brain tumor at the age of 45. McKinley has been elected to the Trinity University Hall of Fame and to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.Trinity University Athletics Hall of Fame
/ref>

The tennis courts at Pattonville High School in Maryland Heights, Missouri, the school he attended, are named after him.

Playing style

McKinley was small for a tennis player, and as a grown man, he stood 5' 8” and weighed 160 pounds. McKinley did not use off speed shots but relied instead on a power game. According to a ''Sports Illustrated'', “Not in years has an American fledgling combined so much box-office appeal with so much pure ability – or crashed the tight little world of big-time tennis with so much confidence. 'If I didn't think I could be the best tennis player in the world,' Chuck McKinley says, 'I don't think I'd want to play.'" Bill Talbert described the young McKinley by saying, "There is nothing he can't do on the court. He has all the strokes. He's fast. He's strong. He has marvelous reflexes. He has the eyes of a hawk—sees the ball as well as anyone in the game."

Grand Slam finals

Singles (1 title, 1 runner-up)

Doubles (3 titles, 1 runner-up)

Grand Slam tournament performance timeline

Singles

Notes

References

External links

*
*
*
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:McKinley, Chuck
American male tennis players
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
Tennis players from St. Louis
Trinity Tigers men's tennis players
United States National champions (tennis)
Wimbledon champions (pre-Open Era)
American stockbrokers
1941 births
1986 deaths
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in men's singles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in men's doubles
Deaths from brain cancer in the United States
Deaths from cancer in Texas
20th-century American businesspeople
World number 1 ranked male tennis players