John O'Brien (born 6 July 1932) is an Australian tennis player active during the 1950s and 1960s. O'Brien was also one of the 18 hostages in the

2014 Sydney hostage crisis The Lindt Cafe siege was a terrorist attack that occurred on 15–16 December 2014 when a lone gunman, Man Haron Monis, held hostage ten customers and eight employees of a Lindt chocolate café in the APA Building in Martin Place, Sydney, ...

Tennis career

O'Brien played the first of ten Australian Championships in 1951. As a singles player, he made eight appearances in the Round of 32 and two in the Round of 64. In 1956 O'Brien appeared at the

French Championships The French Open (french: Internationaux de France de tennis), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, beginning in late May each year. The tournament and ven ...

finishing in the first round, however he followed this up with a Round of 16 performance at Wimbledon where he was defeated by eventual champion

Lew Hoad Lewis Alan Hoad (23 November 1934 – 3 July 1994) was an Australian tennis player whose career ran from 1950 to 1973. Hoad won four Major singles tournaments as an amateur (the Australian Championships, French Championships and two Wimbledon ...

. He returned to Roland Garros and Wimbledon in 1960, though he was eliminated in the Round of 128. O'Brien remained active into his eighties, and was ranked tenth in the world for players over 80 years old.

References

1932 births Australian male tennis players Living people Place of birth missing (living people) {{Australia-tennis-bio-stub