Rod Laver
Rod Laver 
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| Rod Laver at the Top Tennis Toernooi in Amsterdam in 1969 | |||||||||||||
| Nation: |
 Australia
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| Birthday: | August 9, 1938 | ||||||||||||
| Size: | 173 cm | ||||||||||||
| Weight: | 68 kg | ||||||||||||
| 1st professional season: | 1962 | ||||||||||||
| Resignation: | 1975 | ||||||||||||
| Playing hand: | Left, one-handed backhand | ||||||||||||
| Prize money: | $ 1,565,413 | ||||||||||||
| singles | |||||||||||||
| Career record: | 536: 135 | ||||||||||||
| Career title: | 52 | ||||||||||||
| Highest ranking: | 3 (August 9 1974) | ||||||||||||
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| Double | |||||||||||||
| Career record: | 235: 77 | ||||||||||||
| Career title: | 28 | ||||||||||||
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| Mixed | |||||||||||||
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| Sources: official player profiles at the ATP / WTA and ITF (see web links ) | |||||||||||||
Rodney "Rod" George Laver , AC (born August 9, 1938 in Rockhampton , Queensland, Australia) is a retired Australian tennis player .
Laver, who as a professional tennis player was not allowed to take part in Grand Slam tournaments between 1963 and 1967, was the second player after Donald Budge to win all four tournaments in this series in one season in 1962 and is the only player in tennis history who achieved this success a second time in his career (1969). Especially because of these successes, Laver is considered one of the best players of the late 1950s and 1960s and, alongside Pancho Gonzales , Ivan Lendl , Pete Sampras , Roger Federer , Rafael Nadal and Novak Đoković, one of the best players of all time.
In his 23-year career, Laver achieved a record of around 200 individual titles, of which only 52 are listed in the official ATP statistics, including 11 Grand Slam tournaments in singles and 6 titles in this category in doubles. He also won three mixed doubles.
Tennis career
Rod Laver was born in August 1938, about a month before Donald Budge won the historic Grand Slam . Even as a youth player, Laver successfully drew attention to himself by winning the US Junior Championship in 1956 at the age of 17. It took three years before he was able to record his first major successes on the adult tour - after his participation in the final at Wimbledon in 1959, but finally by winning the Australian Open in 1960 in both singles and doubles he became one of the best players in his sport counted. He was able to confirm this impression in the further course of the 1960 season when he again reached the final at Wimbledon and also at the US Open, but lost both games. In the 1961 season, three more finals followed in Grand Slam tournaments, Laver this time in Australia and again in Forest Hills was defeated, in Wimbledon in his third finals in a row but was able to win the tournament for the first time.
The 1962 season was to be by far the best season in Laver's tennis career to date. A total of 21 tournament victories were recorded in Lavers statistics at the end of the season, including victories in all four Grand Slam tournaments, making Laver the second player to win the Grand Slam 24 years after Don Budge. The greatest difficulty revealed to Laver in Roland Garros, where he was forced three games in a row over the full distance of five sets during the tournament. In the final against Roy Emerson he was able to turn a clear 0-2 set deficit.
| year | Tennis player | competition |
|---|---|---|
| 1938 |
 Don Budge
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Men's singles |
| 1951 |
Ken McGregor Frank Sedgman
|
Men's doubles |
| 1953 |
Maureen Connolly
|
Ladies singles |
| 1960 |
.svg){kind=small} Maria Bueno with various partners |
Ladies doubles |
| 1962 |
Rod Laver
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Men's singles |
| 1963 |
Margaret Smith Ken Fletcher
|
Mixed |
| 1965 |
Margaret Smith with various partners |
Mixed |
| 1967 |
Owen Davidson with various partners |
Mixed |
| 1969 |
Rod Laver
|
Men's singles |
| 1970 |
Margaret Court
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Ladies singles |
| 1984 |
 Martina Navratilova Pam Shriver
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Ladies doubles |
| 1988 |
 Steffi Graf
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Ladies singles |
| 1998 |
 Martina Hingis with various partners |
Ladies doubles |
| rank | player | title |
|---|---|---|
| 1. |
Roger Federer
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20th |
| 2. |
 Rafael Nadal
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19th |
| 3. |
 Novak Đoković
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17th |
| 4th |
Pete Sampras
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14th |
| 5. |
Roy Emerson
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12 |
| 6th |
 Bjorn Borg
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11 |
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Rod Laver
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| 8th. |
Bill Tilden
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10 |
| As of February 2, 2020 | ||
After winning the Grand Slam, Laver decided in 1963 to switch to the professional tour, which among other things also meant that he was no longer allowed to participate in Grand Slam tournaments until the beginning of the Open era in 1968. Many experts assume that Laver could show significantly more Grand Slam tournament victories in his statistics today if he had continued to take part in the amateur tour. In the years that followed, Laver fought many remarkable matches with the stars of the professional tour, in particular his compatriot Ken Rosewall , as well as the American Pancho Gonzales , who had dominated the professional tour in recent years. Despite initial difficulties in duels with these players, Laver was soon able to celebrate great success on the professional tour and win the US Pro Singles five times.
In 1968, professional players were allowed to take part in the Grand Slam tournaments for the first time, and Laver played his way into the tournament finals at Wimbledon and Roland Garros in this first season of the Open era. At the French Open he had to admit defeat to Ken Rosewall, but at Wimbledon he beat his compatriot Tony Roche and thus secured his third Wimbledon title. In 1969 Laver achieved the second Grand Slam win of his career, in historical retrospect even more valuable than the first success, as he now had to overcome the rivals from his professional tour. In the following years Laver was able to show regular tournament victories, but further successes in the Grand Slam tournaments did not materialize. After the introduction of the official tennis world rankings in 1973 Laver was able to play his way up to 3rd place on this list and remained among the top ten players in the world rankings until 1975.
In 1973 Laver led the Australian team to victory in the Davis Cup for the fifth time in his career. Before that, he had led his team to victory four times in a row from 1959 to 1962.
Grand Slam successes
Victories
| year | competition | Final opponent | Final result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | Australian Open |
Neale Fraser
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5: 7, 3: 6, 6: 3, 8: 6, 8: 6 |
| 1961 | Wimbledon |
Chuck McKinley
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6: 3, 6: 1, 6: 4 |
| 1962 | Australian Open |
Roy Emerson
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8: 6, 0: 6, 6: 4, 6: 4 |
| 1962 | French Open |
Roy Emerson
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3: 6, 2: 6, 6: 3, 9: 7, 6: 2 |
| 1962 | Wimbledon |
Martin Mulligan
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6: 2, 6: 2, 6: 1 |
| 1962 | US Open |
Roy Emerson
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6: 2, 6: 4, 5: 7, 6: 4 |
| 1968 | Wimbledon |
Tony Roche
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6: 3, 6: 4, 6: 2 |
| 1969 | Australian Open |
Andrés Gimeno
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6: 3, 6: 4, 7: 5 |
| 1969 | French Open |
Ken Rosewall
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6: 4, 6: 3, 6: 4 |
| 1969 | Wimbledon |
John Newcombe
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6: 4, 5: 7, 6: 4, 6: 4 |
| 1969 | US Open |
Tony Roche
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7: 9, 6: 1, 6: 2, 6: 2 |
Final defeats
| year | competition | Final opponent | Final result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Wimbledon |
 Alex Olmedo
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4: 6, 3: 6, 4: 6 |
| 1960 | Wimbledon |
Neale Fraser
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4: 6, 6: 3, 7: 9, 5: 7 |
| 1960 | US Open |
Neale Fraser
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4: 6, 4: 6, 7: 9 |
| 1961 | Australian Open |
Roy Emerson
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6: 1, 3: 6, 5: 7, 4: 6 |
| 1961 | US Open |
Roy Emerson
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5: 7, 3: 6, 2: 6 |
| 1968 | French Open |
Ken Rosewall
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3: 6, 1: 6, 6: 2, 2: 6 |
Records
Laver won a total of 200 individual titles in his career and reached 282 finals, both all-time records. He is also the only player to have won the Grand Slam twice (1962, 1969). Only Roy Emerson and Laver triumphed at least twice in each of the Grand Slam tournaments in their careers. Laver won 18 titles in one season in 1969, which is the Open Era record. He won at least 15 titles in six seasons and at least ten titles every year from 1964 to 1970.
Awards
- In 1981, Rod Laver was inducted into the Hall of Fame for International Tennis.
- In 2016, Rod Laver was named Companion of the Order of Australia .
Naming
- In 2000 the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne was named after him. The Rod Laver Arena is the center court at the Australian Open .
- The Laver Cup , a tennis comparison competition between Europe and the rest of the world that has been taking place since 2017, similar to the Ryder Cup in golf , is named after Rod Laver.
Web links
- ATP profile of Rod Laver (English)
- ITF Profile of Rod Laver (English)
- Davis Cup stats by Rod Laver (English)
- Profile of Rod Laver on "tennis.com.au" (English)
- Rod Laver in the "International Tennis Hall of Fame" (English; with picture)
Individual evidence
- ↑ 50 years on: Laver reminisces (rolandgarros.com from July 3, 2019, accessed on September 17, 2019, English)
- ↑ 50 Moments That Mattered: Laver wins second Grand Slam, spikes and all (usopen.org from July 26, 2018, accessed on September 17, 2019, English)
- ↑ Australia Day: Rod Laver, seven-time ARIA award winner Tina Arena among 829 honors , abc.net.au, January 26, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
- ↑ The Making Of The Laver Cup And How Tony Godsick And Roger Federer Plan To Keep It Going (forbes.com from July 16, 2019, accessed on September 17, 2019)
- ↑ Roger Federer's Laver Cup Added As An Official ATP Tour Event (forbes.com, May 24, 2019, accessed on September 17, 2019)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Laver, Rod |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Laver, Rodney George (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Australian tennis player |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 9, 1938 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rockhampton , Australia |