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We're all familiar with our most recent Texas hero - Andy Roddick, but have you heard of these other famous Texans and tennis events?
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Wilmer L. Allison, who competed from 1922 through 1936. He won one United States singles championship and, with partner John Van Ryan, captured two Wimbledon and two United States Open doubles titles and won fourteen of sixteen Davis Cup matches. Allison coached the University of Texas team for sixteen years.
- Texas was the site of the most famous tennis match in history, the 1973 "Battle of the Sexes" between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King at the Astrodome. Still considered a watershed event in the battle for women's rights, the contest attracted the largest television audience ever to see a tennis match to that time. King's victory before 30,472 spectators propelled her to the forefront of the women's movement.
- Steve
Denton of Corpus Christi, Texas. Denton had nine successful years
playing tennis professionally. During his career, he advanced to seven
singles finals and was one of the top-ranked doubles players in the
world. Denton's highest doubles ranking was second (1982) and climbed
as high as 11th in the world in singles (1982) competition. He advanced
to back-to-back singles finals of the Australian Open in 1981 and
1982 and gained a spot in the finals of doubles in Melbourne 1983.
In 1982, Denton teamed with former college teammate Kevin Curren and
captured the U.S. Open doubles title. He also represented the United
States in the 1982 and 1983 Davis Cups. During his career, Denton
defeated the likes of Boris Becker, John McEnroe and Stan Smith in
singles. In 1984, he also broke the world record for fastest serve
of 138 miles per hour, a record that stood in the Guiness Book of
World Records for 13 years. He also served as Team Captain for the
1989 Davis Cup team of the Philippines.
- Now it's just a rumor mind you, but it has been told that, according to a tour guide at Kooyong, who used to be one of the locker room attendants, John McEnroe had just played Steve Denton. Evidently the story goes that Steve was handing out John one hell of a thrashing and John threw one of his tantrums and stalled the match for about five minutes and Steve lost his concentration and lost the match. When they got into the locker room a few more words were exchanged and then Steve lost it and grabbed John round the head and rammed him into the locker and knocked him out. Now whether this is true or not, I guess no one knows except Steve and John!
- Zina
Garrison-Jackson was introduced to the sport of tennis at age 11.
In 1981 Ms. Garrison was the No. 1-ranked player in the world, having
won both the Junior U.S. Open and Junior Wimbledon. Having just graduated
from high school, she flew to her first pro tournament, the French
Open, where she entered the computer rankings at No. 29. In less than
one month she reached the top 10.
In September 1988 Ms. Garrison beat Martina Navratilova at the U.S. Open, and in that same year she represented the United States in the Olympics winning a bronze in singles and a gold in doubles. In 1989 she earned the singles titles at the Virginia Slims of Chicago, California and Newport, three doubles titles and the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon. Also in 1993, Ms. Garrison won her 500th match (only the 12th woman to do so).
Can you think of any other famous Texans? If so, e-mail us so we can add them to our hall of fame!
