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John Austin and Tracy Austin – THE only Brother and sister team to
win a mixed doubles title at Wimbledon. Unseeded john Austin and Tracy
Austin (USA) won the 1980 mixed doubles championship at Wimbledon with a
4-6, 6-4, 7-5 win over Mark Edmondson and Dianne Fromholtz.
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Boris Becker is THE ONLY UNSEEDED player to win a singles final at
Wimbledon. Boris Becker broke three barriers at Wimbledon in 1985. He became
the first unseeded player to win a singles event, and, at 17years, 227 days,
the youngest ever male single champ. |
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Richard Williams, THE ONLY PLAYER to survive the sinking of the
Titanic to win the U.S men’s singles title. Williams was a tennis champion
in his native Switzerland and, at the age of 21, decided to try his hand at
college and tennis in he US. Unfortunately, he booked his passage on the
Titanic. William’s father died in the disaster on April 14, 1912, but
Richard was rescued in the icy North Atlantic. He went on to become the men’
s NCAA singles champion while at Harvard in 1913 and 1915, and won the U.S
Nationals men’s singles title in 1914 and in 1916. |
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The ONLY PLAYER to credit a squirrel with helping win a match at
Wimbledon was Hans Van Swol. In the second round in 1949, Hans Van Swol
(Netherlands) and Robert Abdesselam (France) were in the fifth set of the
match. Abdesselam led the decisive set 5-3 when a squirrel invaded the
court. It took three minutes for the ball boys to catch up with the
offending animal while Van Swol sat on the grass for a much-needed rest.
Collected, Van Swol went on to win the match 3-6, 1-6, 6-2, 7-5, 13-11. The
next year, at Wimbledon, he had a squirrel embroidered on his shirt. |
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Frank Riesley and Sydney Smith. THE ONLY PLAYERS to determine the
winner of a Wimbledon match with a coin flip. Playing at Wimbledon in 1904,
Frank Riesley (Great Britain) and Sydney Smith (Great Britain) were tied at
two sets all, when they decided to forgo a fifth set and settle the match
with a coin flip. The two were doubles partners and wanted to preserve their
energy for the doubles championship against Laurie Doherty, losing, losing
6-1, 7-5, 8-6. Riesley and Smith also lost the doubles title to Laurie and
his brother Reggie 6-1, 6-2, 6-4, so their coin flip strategy was a huge
mistake. |
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Hans Redl, THE ONLY PLAYER with one arm to win a Davis Cup match.
Hans Redl played for Austria in the Davis Cup in 1938 and for Germany in
1939 after his homeland was taken over by the Nazi regime. Redl lost his
left arm in he siege at Stalingrad. He learned to play tennis with one arm.
Because of his disability, the rules of tennis were amended to permit a
player with only one arm to use the racquet to toss the ball. Redl rested
the ball on his racquet and flipped it in the air to serve. He played for
Austria again from 1948 through 1955 in Davis Cup play and won three doubles
and one singles match. |
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THE ONLY PERSON to compete in both men’s and women’s singles at the
U.S Open. Richard Raskind (USA), an ophthalmologist who competed at
Wimbledon and Forest Hills in the early 1960s, reached the semifinals of the
Nationals 35-and-over championships in 1972. In 1975, he had sex
reassignment surgery to start a new life as Renee Richards. In 1977, she was
admitted to the U.S. Open women’s field, after getting a court order and
passing the Olympic chromosome test. She lost to Virginia Wade, 6-1, 6-4,
and, with Bettyann Stuart, lost women’s doubles final 6-1, 7-6. |
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Joshua Pim, THE ONLY WIMBLEDON CHAMPION to play under as assumed
name. Joshua Pim was a doctor from Country Wicklow in Ireland who played
under a series of assumed names at Wimbledon because he believed that
playing tennis would bring embarrassment to his medical practice. Pim was a
singles finalist in 1891 and 1892 and won the singles event in 1893 and
1994. |
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Dorothy Cavis-Brown. THE ONLY LINESWOMAN to fall asleep during a
match at Wimbledon. Dorothy Cavis-Brown was respected lineswoman of many
years’ standing at Wimbledon, until June 22, 1964. Her responsibility was
calling one of the sidelines during a match between Clark Graebner and Abe
Segal, but she became so bored with the proceedings that she fell fast
asleep, slumped over slightly in her chair with her head down. Graebner
walked over to awaken her. “Frankly it was to see if she had died.” he
admitted later. Wimbledon officials ordered Cavis-Brown to take a few days
off to catch up on her sleep. |
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Earl Cochell. THE ONLY PLAYER to receive a life-time suspension for
misbehavior at the U.S. championships. Earl Cochell (USA) set a standard for
boorish behavior at the U.S. Nationals on August 29, 1951.Tied with Gardnar
Mulloy at one set each and trailing 4-1 in the third set in the fourth
round, Cochell was being booed heavily by the crowd because he had
frequently stopped play to argue about calls. Cochell tried to climb the
umpire’s chair to commandeer the microphone to lecture the crowd. Cochell
lost the match 4-6, 6-2, 6-1, 6-2. Two days later the executive committee of
the United States Lawn Tennis Association banned Cochell for life for
unsportsmanlike conduct. |
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Henri Cochet. THE ONLY PLAYER to win Wimbledon after being down two sets
to love in the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals. In the 1927 Wimbledon
championships, Henri Cochet (France) was down two sets to Frank Hunter (USA)
in the quarterfinals, and came back to win. In the semis, Bill Tilden led
Cochet 6-2, 6-4, 5-1 in the third set, just one game from victory. Cochet
bounced back to take the third set 7-5 and went on to an extraordinary 2-6,
4-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-3 victory. In the finals, Cochet did it again against
fellow French countryman Jean Borotra. Borotra had match point six times,
but lost the title to Cochet 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5. |
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Wilbur Coen and Bunny Austin. THE ONLY TWO PLAYERS to deliberately throw
a set to each other in a semifinal match. Wilbur Coen (USA) and Bunny Austin
(Great Britain) faced each other in a semi-final match of a tournament in
Beaulieu, France, on February 22, 1930. Austin was an hour late, and Coen,
piqued that tournament officials did not default the match in his favor,
threw the first set, losing 6-0. Austin then threw the second set to Coen
6-0. The players got down to serious tennis in the third and deciding set.
Austin won 8-6. |
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Jimmy Connors. THE ONLY MAN to win 109 singles championships. From the
time he burst onto the professional circuit in 1972 as a teen sensation
through 1991 when he made a valiant run at the U.S. Open title as an aging
veteran, Jimmy Connors (USA) won 109 singles championships. His Grand Slam
titles include the U.S. Open in 1974, 1976, 1978, 1982, and 1983, Wimbledon
in 1974 and 1982, and the Australian Open in 1974. |
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