| Country | Great Britain |
|---|---|
| Born | 18 May 1909 Stockport, England |
| Died | 2 February 1995 (aged 85) Melbourne, Australia |
| Turned pro | 1937 |
| Retired | 1939 |
| Plays | Right-handed (one-handed backhand) |
| Int. Tennis HOF | 1975 (member page) |
| Singles | |
| Career record | 106–12 |
| Highest ranking | No. 1 (1934) |
| Grand Slam results | |
| Australian Open | W (1934) |
| French Open | W (1935) |
| Wimbledon | W (1934, 1935, 1936) |
| US Open | W (1933, 1934, 1936) |
| Doubles | |
| Career record | 18-4 |
| Grand Slam Doubles results | |
| Australian Open | W (1934) |
| French Open | W (1933) |
| Grand Slam Mixed Doubles results | |
| French Open | W (1932) |
| Wimbledon | W (1935, 1936) |
| US Open | W (1932) |
| Last updated on: 25 September 2010. | |
| Fred Perry | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | PERRY Frederick John | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Frederick John Perry (18 May 1909 – 2 February 1995) was a championship-winning English tennis and table tennis player who won 10 Majors including eight Grand Slams and two Pro Slams. Perry won three consecutive Wimbledon Championships between 1934 and 1936 and was World No. 1 four years in a row. Perry also became the last British player to win the men's Wimbledon championship in 1936.[1]
Perry was the first player to win all four Grand Slam singles titles (though not all in the same year) and completed this "Career Grand Slam" at the age of 26.[2] Although Perry began his tennis career aged 18, he was also a Table Tennis World Champion in 1929.[3]
In 1933, Perry helped lead the Great Britain team to victory over France in the Davis Cup; the team's first success since 1912, followed by wins over the United States in 1934, 1935, and a fourth consecutive title with victory over Australia in 1936.[2]
Perry was acclaimed across the tennis world, but was not universally admired in his homeland, and was widely ostracised by the tennis establishment for turning professional after completing a hat-trick of Wimbledon singles triumphs.[1][4] After becoming disillusioned with the class-conscious nature of the Lawn Tennis Club of Great Britain, the working-class Perry moved to the United States before becoming a naturalised US citizen in 1938. In 1942, he was drafted into the US Air Force during the Second World War.[5]
Despite his unprecedented contribution to British tennis, Perry was not accorded full recognition by tennis authorities until his twilight years.[1] In 1984, a statue of Perry was unveiled at Wimbledon, and in the same year Perry became the only tennis player listed in a survey of 2,000 Britons to find the ‘Best of the Best’ British sportsmen of the 20th century.[4]
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Perry was born in Stockport, Cheshire in 1909 where his father, Samuel Perry (1877–1954), was a cotton spinner. For the first decade of his life, he also lived in Bolton and Wallasey because his father was involved in local politics. Perry moved to Ealing in London aged nine when his father became the national secretary of the Co-operative Party after World War I. His father became the Co-operative Party Member of Parliament for Kettering in 1929.
Perry first began to play tennis on the public courts near his family's housing estate. He was educated at Ealing Grammar School for Boys.
In 1928-29, Perry won several medals in the single, double, and team events in the World Table Tennis Championships.[6] He had exceptional speed and played with the Shakehand style, attacking the ball low and on the rise.
Along with the US, French and Australian Open, Perry won the Wimbledon men's title three times in succession between 1934 and 1936. His final triumph was a 6-1, 6-1, 6-0 victory over the German Baron Gottfried von Cramm which lasted less less than 45 minutes. It became the quickest final in the 20th century and the second shortest of all time.
Perry's success attracted the adoration of the crowds at Wimbledon particularly as he contrasted sharply from the privileged background of most patrons and players associated with the All England Club at that time.
In the Davis Cup, Perry led the Great Britain team to four consecutive victories between 1933-1936, with wins over France in 1933, the United States in 1934 and 1935, and Australia in 1936. Perry competed in a total of 20 Davis Cup matches, winning 34 of his 38 rubbers in singles, and 11 out of 14 in doubles.[2]
After three years as the world No. 1 tennis amateur player, Perry turned professional in 1937. This led to him being virtually ostracised by the British tennis establishment. For the next two years he played lengthy tours against the powerful American player Elly Vines. In 1937 they played 61 matches in the United States, with Vines winning 32 and Perry 29. They then sailed to England, where they played a brief tour. Perry won six matches out of nine, so they finished the year tied at 35 victories each. Most observers at the time considered Perry to be the world No. 1 for the fourth year in a row, sharing the title, however, with both Vines and the amateur Don Budge. The following year, 1938, the tour was even longer, and this time Vines beat Perry 49 matches to 35. Budge, winner of the amateur Grand Slam, was clearly the World No. 1 player. In 1939 Budge turned professional and played a series of matches against both Vines and Perry, beating Vines 21 times to 18 and Perry by 18 victories to 11.
Perry was one of the leading bachelors of the 1930s and his off-court romances were sensationalised in the world press. Perry had a romantic relationship with the actress Marlene Dietrich and in 1934 he announced his engagement to the British actress Mary Lawson, but the relationship fell apart after Perry relocated to America. In 1935 he married an American film star Helen Vinson, but their marriage ended in divorce in 1940. In the meanwhile, Perry had abandoned his British nationality and become an American citizen. In 1941 he was briefly married to a model, Sandra Breaux, but then, in 1945, he married Lorraine Walsh, but the marriage ended quickly. Perry's final marriage to Barbara Riese in 1952 lasted forty years, until his death.[7] They had two children Penny and David. The sister of Barbara (Bobby) Riese was the actress Patricia Roc.
Perry had one sister, Sylvia, and has a great-nephew and great-niece, Daniel and Laura Nightingale.[8] Perry died in hospital in Melbourne, Australia after breaking ribs following a fall in a hotel bathroom.
Perry is considered by some to have been one of the greatest male players to have ever played the game. In his 1979 autobiography Jack Kramer, the long-time tennis promoter and great player himself, called Perry one of the six greatest players of all time.[9]
Kings of the Court, a video-tape documentary made in 1997 in conjunction with the International Tennis Hall of Fame, named Perry one of the ten greatest players of all time. But this documentary only considered those players who played before the Open era of tennis that began in 1968, with the exception of Rod Laver, who spanned both eras, so that all of the more recent great players are missing.
Kramer, however, had several caveats about Perry. He says that Bill Tilden once called Perry "the world's worst good player". Kramer says that Perry was "extremely fast; he had a hard body with sharp reflexes, and he could hit a forehand with a snap, slamming it on the rise—and even on the fastest grass. That shot was nearly as good as Segura's two-handed forehand." His only real weakness, says Kramer, "was his backhand. Perry hit underslice off that wing about 90 percent of the time, and eventually at the very top levels—against Vines and Budge—that was what did him in. Whenever an opponent would make an especially good shot, Perry would cry out 'Very clevah.' I never played Fred competitively, but I heard enough from other guys that 'Very clevah' drove a lot of opponents crazy."
Kramer also says that in spite of his many victories, both as an amateur and as a professional, Perry was an "opportunist, a selfish and egotistical person, and he never gave a damn about professional tennis. He was through as a player the instant he turned pro. He was a great champion, and he could have helped tennis, but it wasn't in his interest so he didn't bother." Kramer then recounts several instances in which it was clear to him that Perry was losing matches in which he had given up because he "wanted to make sure that the crowd understood that this was all beneath him."
Perry, however, recalled his days on the professional tour differently. He maintained that "there was never any easing up in his tour matches with Ellsworth Vines and Bill Tilden since there was the title of World Pro Champion at stake." He said "I must have played Vines in something like 350 matches, yet there was never any fixing as most people thought. There were always people willing to believe that our pro matches weren't strictly on the level, that they were just exhibitions. But as far as we were concerned, we always gave everything we had."[10]
A final comment from Kramer is that Perry unwittingly "screwed up men's tennis in England, although this wasn't his fault. The way he could hit a forehand—snap it off like a ping-pong shot—Perry was a physical freak. Nobody else could be taught to hit a shot that way. But the kids over there copied Perry's style, and it ruined them. Even after Perry faded out of the picture, the coaches there must have kept using him as a model."
In the late 1940s, Perry was approached by Tibby Wegner, an Austrian footballer who had invented an anti-perspirant device worn around the wrist. Perry made a few changes to create the first sweatband.
Wegner's next idea was to produce a sports shirt, which was to be made from white knitted cotton pique with short sleeves and a buttoned placket like René Lacoste's shirts. Launched at Wimbledon in 1952, the Fred Perry tennis shirt was an immediate success.
The white polo shirt was only supplemented in the late 50s when mods began demanding more varied colour palettes. The Fred Perry shirt became the garment-of-choice for diverse groups of teenagers throughout the 1960s and 70s, ranging from the skinheads to the Northern soul scene.
The brand's logo is a laurel wreath. It was based on the original symbol for Wimbledon. The logo, which appears on the left breast of a garment, is stitched into the fabric of the shirt.[11]
The brand is now owned by a Japanese corporation,[12] The brand was previously the clothing sponsor of British tennis player Andy Murray.
A bronze statue of Fred Perry was erected at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, London in 1984 to mark the 50th anniversary of his first singles championship. It is located at the Church Road gate.
The Fred Perry Way is a designated walking route through the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport which opened in September 2002. The 14 miles (23 km) route from Woodford in the south to Reddish in the north, combines rural footpaths, quiet lanes and river valleys with urban landscapes and parklands. Features along the route include Houldsworth Mill and Square, the start of the River Mersey at the confluence of the River Tame and River Goyt, Stockport Town Centre, Vernon and Woodbank Parks and the Happy Valley. The route also passes through Woodbank Park where Perry played some exhibition tennis matches.
The Fred Perry House in Stockport was opened by Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and John Perry, Fred Perry's grandson in November 2010. The building, which is the borough's new civic headquarters, will be used by various local government agencies. [13]
Perry was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 1975. Perry also has a street named after him in El Paso, Texas.
| Year | Championship | Opponent in Final | Score in Final |
| 1933 | U.S. Championships | Jack Crawford | 6–3, 11–13, 4–6, 6–0, 6–1 |
| 1934 | Australian Championships | Jack Crawford | 6–3, 7–5, 6–1 |
| 1934 | Wimbledon Championships | Jack Crawford | 6–3, 6–0, 7–5 |
| 1934 | U.S. Championships (2) | Wilmer Allison | 6–4, 6–3, 3–6, 1–6, 8–6 |
| 1935 | French Championships | Gottfried von Cramm | 6–3, 3–6, 6–1, 6–3 |
| 1935 | Wimbledon Championships (2) | Gottfried von Cramm | 6–2, 6–4, 6–4 |
| 1936 | Wimbledon Championships (3) | Gottfried von Cramm | 6–1, 6–1, 6–0 |
| 1936 | U.S. Championships (3) | Don Budge | 2–6, 6–2, 8–6, 1–6, 10–8 |
| Year | Championship | Opponent in Final | Score in Final |
| 1935 | Australian Championships | Jack Crawford | 6–2, 4–6, 4–6, 4–6 |
| 1936 | French Championships | Gottfried von Cramm | 0–6, 6–2, 2–6, 6–2, 0–6 |
Fred Perry joined professional tennis in 1937 and was unable to compete in the Grand Slams tournaments.
| Tournament | Amateur career | Professional career | Titles / Played | Career Win-Loss | Career Win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| '29 | '30 | '31 | '32 | '33 | '34 | '35 | '36 | '37 | '38 | '39 | '40 | '41 | '42 | '43 | '44 | '45 | '46 | '47 | '48 | '49 | '50 | '51 | '52 | '53 | '54 | '55 | ||||
| Grand Slam Tournaments: | 8 / 22 | 101–15 | 87.07 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Australian | A | A | A | A | A | W | F | A | A | A | A | A | Not Held | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | 1 / 2 | 9–1 | 90.00 | ||||
| French | A | A | 4R | QF | QF | QF | W | F | A | A | A | Not Held | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | 1 / 6 | 22–5 | 81.48 | ||||
| Wimbledon | 3R | 4R | SF | QF | 2R | W | W | W | A | A | A | Not Held | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | 3 / 8 | 36–5 | 87.80 | |||||
| U.S. | A | 4R | SF | A | W | W | SF | W | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | 3 / 6 | 34–4 | 89.47 |
| Pro Slam Tournaments: | 2 / 9 | 19–7 | 73.08 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| French Pro | N.H. | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | Not Held | 0 / 0 | 0–0 | N/A | |||||||||||||||
| Wembley Pro | Not Held | A | A | A | A | A | A | Not Held | A | A | QF | QF | A | N.H. | 0 / 2 | 2–2 | 50.00 | |||||||||||||
| U.S. Pro | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | W | F | F | W | A | A | N.H. | A | QF | QF | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | QF | 2 / 7 | 17–5 | 77.27 |
| Total: | 10 / 31 | 120–22 | 84.51 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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