Lew Hoad
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Lewis Alan Hoad, born November 23, 1934 in Glebe, New South Wales, Australia - died July 3, 1994 in Fuengirola, Spain, was a champion tennis player.
With his movie-star good looks, powerful physique, and outgoing personality, Lew Hoad became a tennis icon in the 1950s. Strength played an important part of his game, often driving for winners rather than rallying and waiting for the right opportunity. Although he assaulted his opponents, he had the skill to win the French Championship on the slower clay court. For five straight years, beginning in 1952, he was ranked in the World Top Ten, reaching the World No. 1 spot in 1956.
Lew Hoad was a member of the Australian team that between 1952 and 1956 won the Davis Cup four times. In 1956 he won the first three stages of the Grand Slam tennis tournaments and was heavily favored to win the fourth and then turn professional for a lucrative contract. In a stunning upset, he lost to fellow Australian Ken Rosewall in the United States Championship at Forest Hills. However, that same year, and partnered with Rosewall, he won the doubles Grand Slam in tennis. Fresh from his victory over Hoad, it was Ken Rosewall who signed the professional contract and went on to spend the new year as the regular victim of Pancho Gonzales on the pro tour. At a time when only amateur players were allowed to compete in the four national championships, Hoad finally turned professional after winning his second successive Wimbledon singles title in 1957.
His first year as a pro was a series of head-to-head matches with the reigning king of professional tennis, Pancho Gonzales. Hoad won 18 of the first 27 matches, but Gonzales surged back to finally defeat Hoad by 51 matches to 36. Gonzales, whom many consider to be the greatest tennis player of all time, always maintained that Hoad was the toughest, most skillful adversary that he had ever faced.
Back problems plagued Hoad throughout his career and forced his retirement from the tennis tour in the mid 1960s. He moved to Fuengirola, Spain, near Malaga, where he and his tennis-playing wife, Jenny Staley, operated a tennis resort for more than thirty years entertaining personal friends such as actors Sean Connery, Kirk Douglas, and Charlton Heston.
He is often remembered for his match as a 19-year-old amateur in the 1953 Davis Cup against the great United States champion Tony Trabert. In a titanic struggle, Hoad defeated Trabert by a score of 13-11, 6-3, 3-6, 2-6, 7-5 to help his country retain the Cup.
Lew Hoad was battling leukemia and waiting for a bone marrow donor when in his weakened condition, he died of a heart attack in 1994 at the age of 59. A book written by him and author Jack Pollard titled The Lew Hoad Story, was published in 1958. In 2003, Pollard teamed up his with his widow Jenny to write My Life With Lew.
He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1980.
Grand Slam Tournament wins:
- Australian Open:
- singles champion - 1956, 1957
- doubles champion - 1953, 1956
- French Open:
- singles champion - 1956
- Wimbledon Championships:
- singles champion - 1956, 1957
- doubles champion - 1953, 1956, 1957
- US Open:
- doubles champion - 1956
Adapted from the article Lew Hoad (http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.phtml?title=Lew_Hoad), from Wikinfo, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.