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93 pages

English

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Fred Perry, three-time Wimbledon champion in the 1930s, was one of Britain's greatest sportsmen of the 20th century. His success on the hallowed Wimbledon turf went unmatched by a British man for a remarkable 77 years, until Andy Murray's triumph in 2013. Perry was the first player to hold all four Grand Slam titles, and he also played a pivotal role in Great Britain's domination of the Davis Cup in the mid-1930s. Despite his status as a global sports celebrity, Perry was criticised for his ruthless desire to win and was frequently at odds with the amateur tennis authorities of the day. In this revealing biography, award-winning historian Kevin Jefferys examines afresh the life and career of Britain's most successful tennis star. The author shows how good fortune as well as tremendous talent aided Perry's meteoric rise to the top; traces his frosty relationship with the British tennis establishment, which continued after he turned professional in 1936; and considers Perry's place among the true legends of the sport.

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Tennis

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Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	15 juin 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781785312915
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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First published by Pitch Publishing, 2017
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Kevin Jefferys, 2017
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785312908
eBook ISBN 9781785312915
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction: Perry is not a popular champion at home
1. Moving from north to south
2. Entering the world of elite tennis
3. On the rise
4. Davis Cup drama
5. A year of disappointments
6. Triumph in Paris
7. American and Australian champion
8. World number one
9. On the brink
10. Swapping glory for gold
11. Life on the pro tour
12. Coach, commentator, businessman
Conclusion: the tennis legend
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
Photographs
To my family, with love and thanks
Preface and Acknowledgements
T he realisation that I would never be able to master the art of playing the game anything like Fred Perry came quite early on in my tennis career (using the word career in the loosest possible sense).
As a teenager in the 1970s, I spent several happy summers travelling around my local area and competing in some of the numerous weekly tournaments held during the school holidays. My finest hour in singles appeared to have arrived in 1976 when - aided by withdrawals among several players affected by the blistering heat of that summer - at one such event I reached the semi-finals of the boys singles.
As the match unfolded I surprised myself by taking the first set and storming to a 5-1 lead in the second, leaving me just one game away from victory and a place in the final. Until this point my opponent, the annoyingly tall, dark and handsome number one seed, had spent most of his time glancing across and smiling at his entourage of mostly female court-side followers. At this 11th hour, however, he decided it was time to rouse himself. Spraying winners to all parts of the court, he pulled back to take the second set 7-5 and proceeded to win the match easily in the third.
My singles ambitions thwarted, I decided that doubles was the thing for me, and throughout my adult life I ve been fortunate to derive years of great pleasure and enjoyment from club doubles. But as a lifelong tennis fan I ve always retained a fascination with the individual greats of the sport, from the Borgs and Mcenroes of my youth to the Federers and Murrays of today, trying to watch and understand what it is that makes the top players really tick. hence it s been a real pleasure for me to research and write about one of the true legends of modern lawn tennis and of British sport more generally.
This is Fred Perry s story.
* * *
I am grateful to the librarians and archivists at various institutions for facilitating access to important collections of material relating to Perry s career, notably to the staff of the Wimbledon Library at the All england Club. My debt to the writings and recollections of former players, journalists and observers of the tennis scene is suitably acknowledged, I hope, in the Notes at the end of the book.
For permission to use the photographs reproduced in the book I d like to thank Press Association Images, and in particular Sam harrison. The front cover jacket shows Perry in action during his second Wimbledon final, July 1935. on the back cover, Perry is seen holding the trophy after his third victory in the US Championships, September 1936. Images courtesy of Getty Images. I m also grateful to Kate for helping in the preparation of the manuscript; to Graham hales for assistance with the photos; to duncan olner for the cover design; and to Jane and Paul Camillin at Pitch Publishing for their support and encouragement in bringing the project to fruition. While grateful to all those concerned for their valuable help and guidance, it should be added that responsibility for any errors or omissions rests with me alone.
Kevin Jefferys, April 2017
Introduction: Perry is not a popular champion at home
A LL looked set fair on the afternoon of Friday 6 July 1934 for a famous British sporting triumph. In front of the packed stands on Wimbledon s Centre Court, Fred Perry played some dazzling tennis in his attempt to become the first home player to take the men s singles title since 1909.
Although his Australian opponent, the defending champion Jack Crawford, took an early lead in the opening set, Perry entered into what the later American Wimbledon winner Arthur Ashe described as one of those serene highs that tennis players occasionally experience: a period of sustained, almost unplayable brilliance.
The Englishman claimed 12 games in succession as his virtually error-free serving, volleying and ground strokes swept him to a 6-3, 6-0 advantage; Crawford managed just a meagre eight points in the second set. The third set was closer, but after little more than an hour s play Perry was victorious. He did a cartwheel to celebrate his straight-sets win, followed by a trademark leap over the net to shake his opponent s hand.
Even in the pre-television age, there were plenty of court-side photographers on hand to ensure that newspaper images of the athletic young champion would be recognisable around the world.
The American Jack Kramer, another post-war Wimbledon winner, wrote in his memoirs about the glamour associated with the sport when he was growing up in the 1930s, If you never saw tennis players in their long white flannels, I cannot begin to explain to you how majestic they appeared.
With film-star good looks and slicked-back hair, the imposing young Englishman illustrated Kramer s point more than most. Fred Perry in a linen shirt, matching pants, everything tailored: there was never a champion in any sport who looked more like a champion than Fred Perry. 1
Yet beneath the surface, something was amiss on that warm July afternoon. In part this was because the last point of the contest was an anti-climax; Crawford s reign as champion ended with the indignity of serving a double fault. Fred Burrow, the referee of the tournament, reflected that this had the unfortunate effect of depriving the winner of a great deal of the applause he most certainly ought to have received The stands were too stupefied at the sudden and unfortunate finish to give Perry a proper tribute . 2
But the muted response of the 15,000-strong crowd was not simply the result of a tame finish to the match. Centre Court spectators were not always averse to greeting new champions with gusto. Twenty-four hours after Perry s win, Worcestershire s Dorothy Round made it a British double by winning a thrilling women s final. According to one close observer of the tennis scene, Teddy Tinling, who was present on both days, The crowd were roused to a far greater pitch of excitement than that which had greeted Perry s victory. There were deafening cheers from all sides, said Tinling, and even King George V and Queen Mary, attending to support Miss Round, seemed quite overwhelmed . 3
The reality was that many of the onlookers were underwhelmed by what they witnessed on 6 July. Throughout the Perry-Crawford encounter, not simply at the end, the atmosphere was subdued. For a Wimbledon final, noted the match report in The Times , there was a strange lack of excitement in the crowded galleries. 4 What the role of the crowd during and at the end of the match implied was that, in spite of his striking physical appearance and his claim to have become the best player in the world, there was little instinctive rapport between Perry and his audience.
Remarkably, in view of the long years since 1909 without British men s success at Wimbledon, there appeared to be warmer support for the vanquished than the victor. According to a reporter from the Associated Press, Crawford received greater applause for his endeavours than Perry.
Confirmation that more was at work than British sympathy for a gallant loser came a week later. In its review of the tournament the official mouthpiece of the game s governing body in Britain, the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), described Perry s win as the finest individual achievement by an Englishman since the Great War. But it also adopted an unmistakably jarring tone, Frankly many of us had not believed that Perry had such tennis in him In spite of his defeat much of the honours of the 1934 Championship Meeting must go to J. H. Crawford. 5
The new champion would not have been surprised by this account, for within half an hour of coming off court after the final he experienced at first hand the frostiness of some sections of the British tennis establishment towards his victory. In the days of unpaid amateur competition, when the reward for winning Wimbledon was not a sizeable cheque but a replica trophy, a medal, a shopping voucher valued at 25 and a gold laurel wreath embroidered on a silk ribbon, there were no on-court presentation ceremonies. Instead it was the custom to offer congratulations in the changing rooms.
Perry was greeted by family and friends coming off court, but as he settled into the bath to soak and recover from his exertions, he overheard a Wimbledon committee member, Brame Hillyard, offering congratulations to Jack Crawford and saying, This was one day when the best man didn t win.
It was an incident that still rankled with Perry when he published his autobi