Fifty Snapshots or not | The Sports Writer

The most influential people in Australian tennis - ever.

Rod Laver - Has one of the world’s best stadiums named after him and remains relevant globally especially after his 50 year grand slam anniversary tour in 2019 that, at times, looked like it might run as long as his career. While younger generations won’t know much about his exploits, everyone knows his name. Missed out on six years playing the majors when he turned pro, Laver’s two grand slams in 1962 and 1969 (only one man, Donald Budge, has won even one) sealed his reputation yet the Rockhampton Rocket who learned the game on an ant bed court as a child, remains as much about flair and decency. Has lived in California for 50 years and is adored by many players, Roger Federer and John McEnroe to the fore. Australia’s greatest ever sportsperson? Yes.
Margaret Court - A chart topping 62 titles at the majors is mind boggling (current Aussie number 1 Ash Barty has two) and Court has, for now, a Melbourne show court named after her. Like Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams later, the Aussie Amazon took the physical side of women’s tennis to new peaks and reshaped the sport. Sidelined by Tennis Australia last year on her own grand slam 50th anniversary due to her rigid religious views, she polarises opinion yet the question of what to do with Margaret is avoided more than addressed. World famous, her record 24 singles titles at the majors (three as a mother) gnaws away at her detractors. Staggeringly she won 192 titles all told. Australia’s greatest ever sportsperson? Like it or not, there is a very strong case.
Harry Hopman - Would Australia have leapt to the apex of world tennis and stayed there for decades if it wasn’t for the small dapper coach from inner Sydney? Hopman, a single minded autocrat was viewed with some distrust by tennis authorities and worked his players to the bone in his 28 years at the helm of Aussie tennis from 1938. Yet Laver, Frank Sedgman, Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall et al all owe him a great debt. Not universally liked, the former first rate doubles player (he won seven majors) and tennis obsessive was much respected and, curiously, coached a young John McEnroe for good measure in later life. Led Australia to 16 Davis Cups as captain. The prophet.
Tony Roche - In Melbourne last January, the great and good of Australian tennis gathered to pay tribute to Roche. The 74-year-old, uncomfortable in the spotlight, listened as John Newcombe, Lleyton Hewitt and Pat Rafter, onstage, verged on the tearful in their public admiration of the man from Tarcutta (a NSW town so small his home telephone number was Tarcutta 1 recalled Newcombe). His honours call is extraordinary - one French Open crown, 15 doubles slams, four Davis Cups and he coached Ivan Lendl, Rafter and Roger Federer to major titles. A mentor and coach still, he was on court directing the Australian Davis Cup team in practice in Adelaide in March 2020. “The old grandad, they love him,” says Hewitt. A giant of any sport.
John Newcombe - The much higher profile thrust of the Newcombe and Roche doubles partnership, the Sydney slicker timed it well arriving just after Laver and Rosewall and before the Connors/Borg dominance of the 1970s. Seven singles majors (he won Wimbledon and the US Championships/Open as an amateur and pro), five Davis Cups, Davis Cup captain and 20 doubles majors puts him at the top end of any sports listing. And the annual Newcombe Medal keeps his name in the spotlight, as if he didn’t need it. A man long known by his moniker only, Newk is the consummate big name, big personality who has made friends - US president George W Bush among them - with ease and had a few dust-ups along the way. Really only the Laver name carries more weight. Bewdy.
Evonne Goolagong - Seven singles majors and three Fed Cups, an indigenous ambassador, the girl from sheep farming NSW swept up the Wimbledon title at just 19-years-old, her idol Court the beaten finalist. It was the way Goolalgong won though that captured the eye and heart, a lithe grace blinding opponents and the public to a formidable strength of body and mind. An individualist, she stamped another Australia on the world map to the men of Hopman’s era. Arguably could have been better used post playing days but that would require an ongoing desire for the spotlight. An accurate playing comparison might be the weightless movement of McEnroe. Trailblazing.
Frank Sedgman - Led the Aussie charge post WW2, the world’s number one amateur and later, professional, when he joined the outcast Jack Kramer’s money paying US ranks in January 1953. Training harder than anyone, he raised the bar and had little time for the old smothering amateur officialdom. Hopman revered him so much that he held a public money raising campaign to buy Melbourne’s finest a petrol station in 1951 to keep Sedg in the amateur game for another 12 months. He left with five singles majors and 17 doubles titles and three Davis Cups. Paid $100,000 in 1953 on his first professional tour of the US, he later coached Margaret Court and, at 92, is the grand old man of Australian and (arguably) world tennis. Attends the Open regularly still from his Melbourne home, a gentleman and a star.
Neale Fraser - You might pass Fraser unwittingly in the street but three singles majors, 16 doubles titles and 24 years as a four-time winning Davis Cup coach from 1970 make for an enormous contribution. His playing record is exceptional but the defining image of the flat hitting lefty is courtside, sat in his aged lounge chair, urging his boys to another Davis Cup triumph. Drove Aussie tennis forward as effectively as Hopman but with a wholesale, more endearingly Aussie leadership. A major contributor, to his sport and ridiculously under the radar somewhat. Pat Cash and Darren Cahill have called the 1960 Wimbledon champion a “second father.” The consummate team man.
Ken Rosewall - Muscles (he didn’t have any hence the tag) was not yet at the peak of his playing powers when he turned professional in late 1956. Indefatigable and stylish, he more than any player other than the great American Pancho Gonzalez missed out on more honours by joining the money paying circuit. Think Usain Bolt barred from the Olympics on account of his bank balance. Yet Rosewall still snaffled eight major singles tiles and played in Wimbledon singles finals 20 years apart (’54 and ’74) and, in tandem with Laver, was most probably the finest player of the 1960s, his professional circuit record exemplary. Grew up with Lew Hoad in Sydney and will be forever one of the giants of the game. Old school class.
Lleyton Hewitt - A few years ago John McEnroe was asked where he ranked Hewitt among the best ever players. With the very best said Mac instantly. US singles champion at just 20 and Wimbledon winner 10 months later, the never say die Hewitt remains the youngest ever world number 1 in the men’s game. But it is his dominance of the sport in Australia that propels the Davis Cup captain up this list. His turnaround of the mentality and culture in the Davis Cup team is absolute and can set up men’s tennis here for years. Took eight weeks off playing to prepare for the 2003 Davis Cup final in Melbourne. Loyal and sometimes divisive, he is, even with the advent of Ash Barty, the most important person in Australian tennis right now. Watch his TV analysis to see how a top player thinks. Driven.
Lew Hoad - Maybe Australia’s best player ever, on his day Hoad was simply unplayable says Frank Sedgman, an obit backed up by Pancho Gonzalez. An adonis who died aged 59 while living in Spain where he ran tennis camps and where Hollywood flocked to his door, Sean Connery and Kirk Douglas arriving for lessons and drinks. Only his doubles partner, Rosewall, stopped Hoad from completing a 1956 grand slam, beating him in the US final, and together they led the second brigade of Aussies to dominate world tennis post WW2. Lesser known now but immense in his day, beer and laughs to the fore, he helped build and kindle the Aussie macho image. Dunlop named a racquet after him. Another top player lost to pro tennis in late 1956, Hoad earned a small fortune during his professional days.
Craig Tiley - South African born, the current Tennis Australia chief exec has taken the sport’s infrastructure nationally to new levels, rebuilding the Melbourne Park HQ and consolidating the Australian Open as a major, and untouchable, force in the face of envious Asian neighbours. Each year at the Open’s closing ceremonies, players make sure they thank Tiley who looks after their every needs religiously. It is a clever, and rewarding, move. Inclusivity and building Australian tennis’ financial independence are key to a man who spent years as a player and coach in the US. Integral to establishing the inaugural ATP Cup here in Australia this year. Not someone to suffer fools, he makes our AFL administrators look like kindergarten perennials.
Roy Emerson - The men’s majors leader for years, the athletic Emmo won all four singles majors at least twice, 12 all up plus 16 doubles titles. A country kid from Black Butt in Queensland, he beat everyone but couldn’t afford to turn pro so good were the under the table handouts at amateur tournaments he says. His astonishing eight Davis Cup wins suggest that the loved the amateur game too. Visits the Australian Open every year from his California home, "five movies, three meals, easy,” he says. Not in the limelight much now - he speaks very well and should be - Emerson was the best amateur player anywhere in the 1960s. Beat everyone in his day.
Jack Crawford - The first true global Aussie great, ‘Gentleman Jack’ from NSW so nearly became the first player anywhere to win a grand slam, just one set away at the 1933 US Open before collapsing to England’s Fred Perry. Still, he was a remarkable achiever, six majors in singles plus 11 in doubles and eight Davis Cups, a competition he gave everything to. A stylish, fluent player and very popular everywhere he went, the Roger Federer of his day in all likelihood.
Judy Tegart Dalton - Dalton won the doubles at all four majors (winning nine in total) and was part of two Fed Cup winning sides. But Dalton makes this list due to her part in revolutionising women’s tennis as one of nine top players who in 1970 broke away from the game’s governing body to set up the Virginia Slims tour, the precursor to today’s governing women’s body, the WTA. A disparity in prize money was the issue, women were paid substantially less less than their male counterparts and Melbourne’s Dalton hopped onboard the rebel team led by Billie Jean King. It changed tennis forever and was the true battle of the sexes. Belatedly picked up an OAM in 2019 for "significant service to tennis as a player, to equality for women in sport, and to sporting foundations”.
Darren Cahill - A first rate if not leading singles player, like his dad John (former Port Adelaide boss), Killer came into his own as an innovative and heavily in-demand coach, taking Lleyton Hewitt to the world number one slot, the youngest player to do so. Next up came Andre Agassi who he made the oldest player to be ranked the world’s best. The current and long term coach of current Wimbledon champ and recent world number 1 Simona Halep, Cahill has helped out Andy Murray among numerous other top payers. A sports nut, no detail is left unturned and he is a high profile TV commentator too. Sits on the board of Port Adelaide FC and is a former co-owner of a Las Vegas nightclub with Agassi and Steffi Graf.
Pat Cash - A genuine icon, the 1987 Wimbledon champion has a playing and fashion sense rooted in that decade and despite just that one major title, dominated Australian tennis for nearly all his playing days. A good coach too, Cash projected attitude always, a sort of grunge tennis royalty. Loyal to a fault, he had long standing feuds with Ivan Lendl and John Newcombe and gave everything for his country when it came to the Davis Cup, winning it twice. “It’s good to play for Superman,” said teammate John Fitzgerald after a tie in Mexico won almost exclusively by Cash just days after he had lost in the 1988 Australia Open singles final. An unswerving analyst, Cash doesn’t fit in any one camp but is great value always. Our rock star.
Pat Rafter - The nicest man in tennis? Why not, ‘Saint Pat’ gave everything for his country in particular and was an inspiration to a young Lleyton Hewitt when he first made the Davis Cup squad. World number 1 for one week only, in 1999, his greatest exploits came outside Australia, winning the US Open in 1997 and ’98 and he was the other man in perhaps the most raucous Wimbledon final of them all, the Goran Ivanisevic win in 2001. Keeps to himself at at home with his large family in remote Queensland. Davis Cup winner in 1999 and four years as captain. Carried Australian tennis between Cash and Hewitt. A top bloke.
Brad Drewett - A decent if unspectacular player, Drewett came into his own as an administrator, becoming executive chairman of the ATP in 2012, putting an Aussie in realistically the sport’s top job. Tellingly he united the world's players when negotiating significant prize money increases beneficial to lower ranked tour members at the four majors. When he died in Sydney of motor neurone disease aged just 54, in 2013, the tributes were overwhelming. “An articulate, well-educated, well-read individual but certainly not lost in the locker room,” said John Fitzgerald. "An incredibly warm human being and a dedicated family man, always an inspiring leader," lamented Federer. A memorial brass bust of Drewett in Melbourne Park says, ’A top 40 player, Australian Davis Cup representative, ATP Executive Chairman and President, Brad left an indelible mark on the sport he loved, ensuring our great game was in a better place than he found it.’
Ash Barty - Right now, the future of Australian tennis. Just 24, she already has quite a backstory, junior Wimbledon champ, dropping out of the game to play cricket professionally, the steady return and remarkable ascent, French Open champion 2019. More impressively still, once she bagged the world number 1 slot in June last year, she held onto it and won the year-end $6 million WTA finals shootout. There are doubters - Barty does not have the biggest game on tour and already a formidable new brigade, Sofia Kenin and Coco Gauff - is coming. In person, Ash is polite, calm and affable but is developing a neutral persona to hive off the attention. Everyone wants a piece of Barty. She is not the new Serena Williams, clearly, but can pick up more majors. Australia must appreciate what it has with Ash and leave it at that.
Fred Stolle - Another with an extraordinary haul of major titles, eighteen for Stolle, Fiery lost his first five singles finals in the majors before clinching the French and US singles crowns. He coached team tennis successfully in the US before hooking up as coach with everyone’s favourite American at the time, Vitas Gerulaitis, for six years. Three Davis Cup wins and father of Davis Cup player Sandon, Stolle was a TV commentary staple for years post playing.
Peter Smith – Smith’s coaching was central to the formative years of three Davis Cup captains – Lleyton Hewitt, John Fitzgerald and Peter Carter (Switzerland) - yet there is far more to the self-taught, state level South Australian player. Cahill, Mark Woodforde, Brod Dyke and Roger Rasheed also emerged under Smith’s tutelage in Adelaide. The secondary school teacher, and twice national coach of the year, does not just operate at the top end though, kicking off the first state tennis championships for disabled players in 1999 and took the first ever intellectually disabled Australian team to Europe in 2000. An integral part of the Ken McGregor Foundation which support people with a disability. Parkinson’s Disease has cut back his coaching of late but he remains an active and formidable fount of knowledge and encouragement. The guru.
Steve Wood - In the news in late 2019 as part of an ASIC court case brought against two former Tennis Australia board members, Wood was instrumental in bringing tennis in Australia into the commercial big league - he controversially negotiated a $195 million TV deal with Seven to begin in 2013 (almost double the prior arrangement), shored up the long term future of the Australian Open and paved the way for Tiley to widen its remit. Wood delivered widely for tennis in his eight years as Tennis Australia chief exec at a pivotal time.
Norman Brookes - The oldest entrant here, Brookes won Wimbledon twice and the Australian Championships before World War 1 as well as bagging six Davis Cups and a knighthood. A stickler for the rules - after failing to persuade Sedgman not to turn pro in 1952, he never spoke to his star player again - the autocratic Brookes became the first president of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia in 1926 and hung onto it for the next 29 years. Lives on through the Australian Open men’s singles trophy which is named after him. From a wealthy background and of his class and time.
John Alexander - A world top 10 singles ranking, the youngest player to play Davis Cup for Australia still (a winning team member in 1977), Fed Cup captain and a couple of Australian Open doubles titles is good going but JA really came into his own after he put down his racquet. Best known as a very high ranking Liberal party politician, he changed tennis when, after spending 15 years in the USA running a tennis and health club empire for entrepreneur Lamar Hunt (the biggest influence on 20th century US sport?) he teamed up with former British player David Lloyd to set up the Next Generation Clubs across Australia, Adelaide’s Memorial Drive featuring prominently, and he led the construction of the Ryde Aquatic Centre for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Played the first ever professional tennis match in China, against Bjorn Borg, in 1978.
Dylan Alcott - The blossoming of the Alcott profile over the last few years has been astonishing, Aus Open TV pundit, author (his autobiography is ‘Able’), motivational speaker and star of endearing, if slightly irritating after multiple showings, TV ads. Is there anything he can’t do? No, and that’s his point. A wheelchair Paralympian (gold in Rio) and wheelchair tennis quads serial winner at the majors (he has won nine of his 10 slam finals since 2015). Exuberant, in your face and popular, Alcott believes in himself and has thrust disability sports into the mainstream to the point where his chair is an appendage only. It is his greatest achievement.
Ashley Cooper - In 1958, Cooper was the king of tennis anywhere, just a five set French semi-final loss (he was two sets up) preventing him from completing a singles grand slam. An attacking, singles focused Victorian, he was the world’s best player in 1957 and ’58 at which point, like most greats of the age, he joined the pro circuit, a fleeting but starry few years only as an amateur. Cooper worked with Tennis Queensland and sat on the board of Tennis Australia. Largely unheralded today, more than 5000 people turned out to his wedding to a former Miss Australia in January 1957. Cooper died in 2020 and, if understandably much lesser known today, remains one of the global greats.
Adrian Quist - Just 1.68cm high, the bouncy army major from Adelaide will be unknown to many of today's sports fans yet personifies the strength and achievement of Australian tennis in the 1930s and '40s. He bagged three Australian singles Championship titles, before and after the war (where he served) but it is his doubles record that is staggering - 14 titles won at all four slams including 10 consecutive Australian Championships (five before and five after WW2) and only Lleyton Hewitt has won Davis Cups totes for Australia (including a 1939 final comeback in the USA from two sets down). Later David Cup captain too, Quist has a tally to belittle almost every Australian to pick up a racquet. We should know more about him.
John Bromwich - Nineteen major titles all up, most partnering Quist, but Bromwich claimed two Australian singles titles and blew three match points in the 1948 Wimbledon singles final (he lost). Wounded in New Guinea during WW2, he won titles before and after the war including seven Davis Cups. An unorthodox stylist, the natural lefty served right handed and was known for never giving up a point. Men like Bromwich and Quist, tutored by Hopman, laid the foundations and philosophy for tennis in Australia that endure today.
Thelma Coyne Long - Another player with stats that seem surreal today, 19 majors in total including 12 Australian women’s doubles titles. She played forever, her first major came in 1936 and her last not until 1958. Only Federer has been an older singles champ in Australian than Coyne Long, her second title coming in 1954 when she was close to 36-years-old. An army captain, Red Cross worker and State Library of NSW volunteer, she became a teaching professional in 1960 and coached promising NSW juniors for years. Died aged 96 in 2015.
John Fitzgerald - The stellar South Australian from a remote farm in Cockaleechie near Port Lincoln claimed the doubles title at all four majors and was a Davis Cup stalwart for years - he won it as a player in 1983 and ’86 - before captaining Australia to its last glory in Melbourne in 2003. He was at his country's helm for nine years until 2010. An experienced and popular TV presence, Fitzy has helped drive a TA initiative to unite drought affected communities through tennis. Inducted into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame in January 2020. The archetypal good Aussie bloke, he remains an enthusiast for his country’s tennis.
Nick Kyrgios - The leading Aussie out there, a world top 10 regular, a majors winner? No, but he could be and that's what frustrates with Nick. Outrageously talented, he can be surly with other players, the press and public but underneath sits someone special. The star of the first week of the Australian Open each year, he falls short every time but shouldn’t. On his day Kyrgios is as good as Roger and Rafa and Novak but what he really wants to do is play basketball he says. Prone to self implosion left on his own on tour, he has lately blossomed as a team player under Hewitt. Post COVID-19, fit and focused he can be the face of men's tennis worldwide still but at 25, the clock is ticking. Potentially the best Aussie since Newcombe? A decent person, absolutely, and box office dynamite.
Lesley Turner Bowrey - Another with an extraordinary playing record - French Open singles winner in 1963 and ’65, 11 doubles slams, Fed Cup winner twice and later captain for six years and she also coached a young Jelena Dokic. But it is the post career accolades that really gleam. She was the Sarah Palfrey Danzig Award in 1997 winner, a tribute to the female player who by character, sportsmanship, manners, and spirit of cooperation has contributed to the growth of tennis. Bowrey collected an OAM for service to tennis as a player, coach and mentor to junior players and the community in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2009. Married to Bill Bowery, last singles winner of the Australian Championships.
Paul McNamee - An impressive singles player (world 24) McNamee followed it up with four doubles titles in the majors, three coming as part of the SuperMacs team. He has two Davis Cups in his locker too, 1983 and ’86. McNamee's real contribution though came as an innovator, founder of the inter-country Hopman Cup in Perth and he had 11 years as Australian Open boss until 2006, albeit not an obvious fit. He didn't just stick to tennis though, Mac was the tournament director of the men's and women's Australian Golf Open and had a brief, if tumultuous, spell as CEO of the Melbourne Football Club. The best events are all about atmosphere he says. "If an event is not dripping with atmosphere, you have a problem. Only a good atmosphere will seduce viewers to stay tuned in. Oddly maybe for an Aussie, a lover of clay courts. ''It's the poetry, the art, the essence of the sport,” he says.
Merv Rose - A first rate player in the 1950s (he won the Australian and French Championships), Rose came into his own as a coach, looking after champions Billie Jean King, Margaret Court and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario among many others. Twice a Davis Cup winner he was awarded the Australian Sports Medal in 2000, and inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2001 and Australian Tennis Hall of Fame in 2002. Appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2006 for service to tennis for his role as a coach and mentor to amateur and professional players. An occasional racquet smasher, he was once chased off a court in Rome for beating local hero Nicola Pietrangeli. Died in 2017.
Todd Woodbridge – 22 men’s and mixed doubles titles at the majors and two Davis Cups is a throwback to the serial trophy collectors of the 1960s for the younger half of the Woodies. The TV face of Australian tennis for several years, Woodbridge has an inner grit that belies his ever smiley, everyman image. The best tennis pairing ever? Maybe so, the Woodies scooped 61 ATP doubles titles, including 11 majors and won five straight Wimbledon titles (1993 - 97) and are, oddly, possibly under appreciated still. With such a pedigree, he has a vast remit to serve the game that arguably could be better used than purely in front of camera.
Mark Woodforde – Pre Woodies, and before he’d really won anything, the southpaw half of the record pairing heard McEnroe needed a partner for the 1989 US Open doubles. Afraid to ask Mac directly, Woody sent a message via a third party suggesting they pair up. “Tell him he’d better hold his end up,” came the reply. He did and they won the title. A Palm Springs resident for years (and why wouldn’t you), he is high in the prodigious achiever league - 17 doubles slams, a Davis Cup and Olympic Gold - and a TV mainstay for years. Accessible and easy going, he coached the Fed Cup team and was a co-founder of the annual golden oldies WTC (Adelaide) tournament.
Sam Stosur - An under achiever or the woman who flew the flag for Australian tennis at the very top for a decade when no-one else would? There is no doubt the Queenslander should have won more and she has fallen prey to nerves at the Australian Open and Wimbledon to the point where early humiliation is routinely expected. But she beat Serena Williams in her own backyard on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 to win the US Open singles (Australia is yet to realise the magnanimity of this achievement) and was a world top 10 staple for years and owns six doubles slams. Affable, courteous and shy, Stosur should be cherished more at home. Much more.
Nancye Wynne-Bolton - Only Court and Serena Williams have won more Australian Open/Championships singles titles than the Melbourne champion’s six. A war widow, the formidable, 179cm tall player collected 20 major crowns in Australia all in either side of WW2. “Our best, even though the war cut into her prime years and she didn't have many opportunities to travel,” said multi major winner, and compatriot, John Bromwich. Some compliment.
Peter McNamara - For a renowned doubles champ, McNamara peaked in singles at world number 7 (in 1983) and won Wimbledon doubles (twice) and the Australian Open with McNamee, a partnership that in hindsight yielded less major titles than it felt at the time. A steadfast, likeable Aussie, the Melbourne raised McNamara excelled as a coach after his playing career was curtailed by injury (incurred beating the then unbeatable Ivan Lendl indoors in Brussels). He later linked up with Mark Philippoussis, Grigor Dimitrov at the Patrick Mouratoglou Academy in Paris and current Chinese number 1 Wang Qiang. "Macca won well and he lost well, which is so hard,” said McNamee of his pal who died from prostate cancer in 2019. The vast outpouring of grief and tributes are a small testament to his service to his sport.
Ken McGregor - Half of the world’s best double partnership with Frank Sedgman (they won seven consecutive majors from 1951), the tall Adelaide serve and volleyer was a fine singles player too, Australian Championships winner in 1952 and Wimbledon finalist. There were three Davis Cup wins too before he embarked on a year long pro tour of the US with Sedgman. “One of the nicest guys who ever played for me,” said pro tour chief Jack Kramer, but despite a successful spell stateside, McGregor’s heart lay in Adelaide and football where he returned to play SANFL for West Adelaide for five years. A big name in his day, the Ken McGregor Foundation continues his legacy by helping the next generation of international tennis players.
Daphne Akhurst - Akhurst died, just 29-years-old, from an ectopic pregnancy in 1933 but had already won 14 majors, all in Australia. She had been retired two years by then. Her legacy lives on through the Australian Open women’s singles trophy which is named after her. The first major woman in Australian tennis. Multi talented, she was a student of the famed Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
Mark Philippoussis - Nick Kyrgios could do better than to study Scud, for better or worse, an individualist often at his best in the mist of a Davis Cup squad and away from the excess of a headline making private life. Twice, in 1999 and 2003, the giant Victorian won the deciding rubber to deliver the Davis Cup to Australia, an iconic and cult hero who never dominated mainstream tennis as he might. A top 10 player and Wimbledon and US Open singles finalist, knee surgeries between 1999 and 2001 left him in a wheelchair for three months. But tennis was not everything, Philippoussis managed to date Anna Kournikova, Delta Goodrem and, allegedly, Paris Hilton. "I lived the life you dream about," he said. Fair call.
Alicia Molik - There’s no mistaking the Fed Cup captain courtside these days, the tall, glamorous Adelaidean is everywhere in the Aussie summer, urging every one of her charges on. A top 10 singles player, Athens Olympics medalist and twice a doubles winner at the majors, she was derailed by a long lasting ear infection in her mid 20s that ultimately finished her career. Molik is crucial to the continued burgeoning of women's tennis and, like her men’s compatriot Hewitt, has installed an all-for-one winning culture, taking Australia to the 2019 Federation Cup final after a 26 year hiatus is testament to her leadership. The players love her.
Bob Brett - Perhaps best known outside his homeland, Brett has spent 24 years on the ATP circuit coaching the very best - Boris Becker, Goran Ivanišević, Andrei Medvedev, Mario Ančić and Marin Čilić. It’s all about talent, endurance, self-sacrifice, determination he says. "A champion is someone who maximises his potential, not someone who has the number one ranking,” he says. Runs the Bob Brett Tennis Centre in San Remo and was a player rep on the ATP board and influential in revamping doubles to make it more spectator friendly sport to watch
Rennae Stubbs - Six doubles titles at the majors (including two Wimbledons) and 60 in all competitions is impressive enough but it’s more about the ongoing presence with Stubbs. Four Olympics and 17 years in the Fed Cup team means the forthright Sydneysider has seemingly been around forever. Throw in her perennial TV work for ESPN and Channel Seven and coaching of Sam Stosur and Karolina Pliskova and she is a face of, and go-to, for women’s tennis.
Charlie Hollis – That Hollis helped coach Fred Stolle, Mal Anderson, Roy Emerson, Wally Masur and Mark Edmondson is enough to include him on any tennis greats list. That he also spotted and developed the 10-year-old Rod Laver looking for a hit on a court in Rockhampton, marks the nomadic Queenslander, and WW2 artillery instructor, marks him down as sold gold. Heart, brains and a never-say-die fighting spirit were the integrals behind Hollis. “To Charlie, you were a mug or a champion, with nothing in between. He wouldn’t give you the time of day if he thought you had a couldn’t-care-less attitude,” says the Rocket.
Bob Carmichael - When 63-year-old former apprentice carpenter ‘Nails’ died unexpectedly in 2004, a leading obituary referred to him in its headline as 'player, coach and character’. It is an astute call. A run of the mill player, he was a founding member of the ATP, and helped coach the young Rafter, Cahill and Wally Masur, demanding his players fight to the end always and with dignity. Later Carmichael helped India's Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi to three majors doubles titles. He was deeply liked, the Australian Davis Cup team, former Wimbledon champions, club players and fans were among hundreds at his funeral. Essendon raised, Carmichael was self taught but his influence was wide and deep.
Peter Carter - Nine-year-old Roger’s Federer’s first real coach, Carter died in a car crash a year before Fed won his first major in 2003, leaving the Swiss devastated. For years since he has hosted Carter’s parents at the Australian Open, inviting them to Melbourne from their home in South Australia’s Barossa Valley. “Peter Carter was a very important man overall for my character,” Federer said. “He taught me respect for each person. It doesn’t matter if that person is famous or not famous. He just taught me the right values, so did my parents. They got on very well. We were very close to Peter, all of us.” A former ATP player whose career was sidelined by injury, Carter himself was coached by Peter Smith.
Wally Masur - That a former Davis Cup captain sits at 50th slot in this list says much about the vast strength of tennis in this country for more than a century. Masur, currently performance director with Tennis Australia, has been near the top level of the sport for almost 40 years. Singles semi-finals at the Aus and US Opens make him a decent player but it is his coaching, media and caretaker stint as Davis Cup captain before Lleyton Hewitt took the reins that make him a presence. John Fitzgerald’s number two when Australia last won the Cup, in 2003. Lived in a vast Tudor style manor house in northern Sydney for years, perhaps fitting for a true blue Aussie actually born in the UK.

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