Mike Davies

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V. l. To the right: Davies, D. Hardwick, Jimmy Connors at the award ceremony of the 1979 World Championship Tennis finals

Michael Grenfell "Mike" Davies (born January 9, 1936 in Swansea ; † November 2, 2015 ) was a British tennis player and entrepreneur from Wales .

Career as a player

In 1960 Davies and his compatriot Bobby Wilson lost the final in the doubles competition against the Mexican Rafael Osuna and the American Dennis Ralston in three sets with 7: 5, 6: 3 and 10: 8 at Wimbledon . In addition, he was in the individual finals in San José in 1958 and Gstaad in 1960. In 1957, 1959 and 1960 he was in first place in the British rankings. Between 1955 and 1960 Davies played 16 games for the British Davis Cup team . He won 15 of his 22 singles and nine of his 15 doubles.

After making the double-finals at Wimbledon, Davies accepted an offer of £ 4,500 a year from Jack Kramer that turned him from amateur to professional athlete. This was in contradiction to the rules of the International Tennis Federation at the time , which did not allow professional players in their competitions. Consequently, Davies was prohibited from further participation in the Davis Cup and Grand Slams . From then on, Davies held his own tournaments with other professional players and became the first spokesman for an early players' association that was a pioneer of today's ATP . Marketing the professional tournaments was also one of his tasks.

In 1967 Davies first ended his active career. When professional players were first allowed in Wimbledon from 1968, Davies made a one-off comeback. Between the 1960 and 1968 championships, there were twelve Grand Slams that Davies had missed during his suspension.

Career as an entrepreneur

After his active career, Mike Davies worked in the field of functionaries. He was signed by the early World Championship Tennis Tour, which he was managing director for 13 years. Many innovations and new regulations relating to tennis can be attributed to him in order to modernize the sport. These include colored game balls and the introduction of the tie-break. His greatest success was a television contract with NBC that made tennis accessible to the masses on television for the first time. From 1981 to 1984 Davies worked for ATP as managing director and led it from the approaching bankruptcy to an association capable of acting. From 1987 Davies worked for the ITF as Marketing Director and was responsible for tripling the sponsorship money and TV revenues that flowed to the ITF. During this time he also founded the Grand Slam Cup .

In 1995 Davies retired from the ITF, but continued to serve as tournament director of the former New Haven ATP tournament . In 2012, Davies was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame for his contributions to the ATP and ITF .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Former British tennis player Mike Davies dies at 79 . AP news item on Yahoo News , Nov. 3, 2015.
  2. ^ Tennis Industry Exec Mike Davies to be Inducted in 2012 . tennisfame.com, accessed on July 20, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Davies, Mike
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Davies, Michael Grenfell (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British tennis player
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Swansea
DATE OF DEATH November 2, 2015