Tony Trabert

Marion Anthony (Tony) Trabert (born August 16, 1930 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is a retired American tennis champion and long-time tennis author, TV commentator, instructor, and motivation speaker. In his 1979 autobiography Jack Kramer, the long-time tennis promoter and great player himself, included Trabert in his list of the 21 greatest players of all time. [In his 1979 autobiography Kramer considered the best player ever to have been either Don Budge (for consistent play) or Ellsworth Vines (at the height of his game). The next four best were, chronologically, Bill Tilden, Fred Perry, Bobby Riggs, and Pancho Gonzales. After these six came the "second echelon" of Rod Laver, Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall, Gottfried von Cramm, Ted Schroeder, Jack Crawford, Pancho Segura, Frank Sedgman, Tony Trabert, John Newcombe, Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Björn Borg, and Jimmy Connors. He felt unable to rank Henri Cochet and René Lacoste accurately but felt they were among the very best.]

Career

Trabert was a stand-out athlete at the University of Cincinnati and a member of Sigma Chi Fraternity, In 1951 he won the U.S. Intercollegiate singles title. He was also a starter on the basketball team at the University of Cincinnati. Previously, at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, he had been state singles champion three times and played guard on the 1948 basketball team that won the district championship.

Trabert honed his tennis skills on the courts of the Cincinnati Tennis Club with the help of another member of that club, fellow International Tennis Hall of Famer William Talbert. Talbert became Trabert's mentor, and the first win Trabert posted over Talbert came in the final of Cincinnati's international tennis tournament (now known as the Cincinnati Masters) in 1951.

Trabert's record in 1955 was one of the greatest ever by an American tennis player. He won the three most prestigious tournaments in amateur tennis - the French, Wimbledon, and American championships - en route to being ranked World No. 1 among the amateurs for that year. Only Grand Slam winners Don Budge and Rod Laver have ever achieved the same feat. Trabert's own chance at a Grand Slam was stopped with a loss in the semi-finals at the Australian championships. Trabert won 18 tournaments in 1955, compiling a match record of 106 wins to 7 losses.

An extremely athletic right-hander who mostly played a serve and volley game, Trabert won all of the five Grand Slam event finals he appeared in. He won the French doubles in 1950, 1954, and 1955 and also won the French singles in 1954 (becoming the last American man to win that event until Michael Chang 35 years later) and the U.S. championship in 1953. He reached the semi-final of Wimbledon in 1953 before winning the title the following year without losing a set (a record shared with Don Budge, Chuck McKinley and Björn Borg).

Trabert, along with Vic Seixas, was an American Davis Cup team mainstay during the early 1950s, during which time the Americans reached the finals 5 times, winning the cup in 1954. It was their only victory over the dominant Australian teams during the decade.

Having reached the top amateur ranking in '55, Trabert turned professional in 1956. He was beaten on the head-to-head tour by the reigning king of professional tennis Pancho Gonzales, 74 matches to 27. He beat Gonzales for the French Pro Championship in 1956, however, and beat Frank Sedgman for the same title in 1959. He was runner-up to Sedgman in the London Indoor Pro in 1958; in the U.S. Pro Championships he was runner-up to Alex Olmedo in 1960.

Retirement

Forty years after his matches with Gonzales, Trabert told interviewer Joe McCauley "that Gonzales' serve was the telling factor on their tour — it was so good that it earned him many cheap points. Trabert felt that, while he had the better ground-strokes, he could not match Pancho's big, fluent service." ["The History of Professional Tennis", Joe McCauley ]

In 2004, Trabert announced that the Wimbledon Championships he was commentating that year would be his last.

Trabert was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 1970.

Grand Slam Singles Finals

Wins (5)

Notes

ources

* "The Game — My 40 Years in Tennis" (1979) — Jack Kramer with Frank Deford (ISBN 0-399-12336-9)
* "The History of Professional Tennis" (2003) Joe McCauley

External links

* [http://www.tennisfame.com/famer.aspx?pgID=867&hof_id=129 International Tennis Hall of Fame profile]