Tribute: Remembering Neale Fraser | 3 December, 2024 | All Information | Information and Options | Information and Occasions

Australian tennis has misplaced certainly one of its giants with the passing of Neale Fraser AO, MBE.

Fraser received 19 Grand Slam titles together with Wimbledon and US singles titles, however his identify will perpetually be related to the Davis Cup each as a participant and record-setting run as Australian captain.

“I may by no means consider something higher than representing your nation,” Fraser typically mentioned.

He discovered to play on the clay courts subsequent door to his childhood residence in Melbourne and developed a recreation constructed round a thunderous left-handed serve.

As a cricket fan he watched how leg-spin bowlers turned the ball in several instructions by cocking their wrists and he tailored this ‘googly’ strategy to his serve.

Rising in the course of the golden period of Australian males’s tennis, Fraser was initially unable to interrupt into the Davis Cup crew and misplaced 3 times in main singles finals, together with twice to shut pal Ashley Cooper – first on the 1957 Australian Championships and at Wimbledon in 1958.

His persistence paid off in 1959 when he received all three US titles – singles, doubles and combined – at Forest Hills and led Australia to victory within the Davis Cup.

Captain Harry Hopman known as it ‘Neale Fraser’s Cup’.

In 1960 Fraser defeated Rod Laver to say the Wimbledon singles crown after which once more swept the three titles in New York.

Certainly one of his doubles companions, Roy Emerson, described Fraser as ‘a Normal’ on the courtroom.

Regardless of profitable affords to show skilled, Fraser remained an novice within the hope he would succeed Hopman as Australian Davis Cup Captain.

That ambition was fulfilled in 1970 and he remained within the place till 1993, helming 24 Davis Cup campaigns throughout which Australia received the title 4 instances.

Generations of gamers had been impressed by his management together with John Newcombe, John Fitzgerald and Pat Money.

“He was like a father to me,” Money mirrored. “He simply knew learn how to make you are feeling necessary and play your greatest.”

Fraser was inducted into the Worldwide Tennis Corridor of Fame in 1984, and the Australian Tennis Corridor of Fame in 1994. In 2008 Fraser was awarded the ITF’s Philippe Chatrier Award for excellent achievement in tennis.

Fraser, who was 91, shall be missed by his spouse Thea, household and plenty of pals world wide.

NEALE FRASER: Profession achievements

Highest world rating: No.1 in 1959

DAVIS CUP

Participant: 1955-1963: 18 wins, 3 losses (11-1 singles, 7-2 doubles)
Captain: 1970-1993: 49 wins, 19 losses (titles in 1973, 1977, 1983, 1986)

GRAND SLAM TITLES (19)

Singles

Wimbledon: 1960
United States: 1959, 1960

Doubles

Australia: 1957, 1958, 1962
Roland Garros: 1958, 1960, 1962
Wimbledon: 1959, 1961
United States: 1957, 1959, 1960

Combined

Australia: 1956
Wimbledon: 1962
United States: 1958, 1959, 1960