![]() Mulloy in 1956 | |
Full name | Gardnar Putnam Mulloy |
---|---|
Country (sports) | ![]() |
Born | Washington, D.C., U.S. | November 22, 1913
Died | November 14, 2016 102) (aged Miami, Florida, U.S. |
Height | 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) |
Turned pro | 1934 (amateur tour) |
Retired | 1969 |
Plays | Right-handed (one-handed backhand) |
College | University of Miami |
Int. Tennis HoF | 1972 (member page) |
Singles | |
Career record | 918–310 (74.7%) [1] |
Career titles | 60 [2] |
Highest ranking | No. 6 (1947, Harry Hopman ) [3] |
Grand Slam singles results | |
Australian Open | SF (1947) |
French Open | QF (1952, 1953, 1954) |
Wimbledon | SF (1948) |
US Open | F (1952) |
Doubles | |
Career record | 0–8 |
Grand Slam doubles results | |
French Open | F (1951, 1952) |
Wimbledon | W (1957) |
US Open | W (1942, 1945, 1946, 1948) |
Grand Slam mixed doubles results | |
Wimbledon | F (1956) |
US Open | F (1955) |
Team competitions | |
Davis Cup | W (1946, 1948, 1949) |
Gardnar Putnam "Gar" Mulloy (November 22, 1913 – November 14, 2016) was a U.S. No. 1 tennis player primarily known for playing in doubles matches with partner Billy Talbert. He was born in Washington, D.C., and turned 100 in November 2013. [4] During his career he won five Grand Slam doubles tournaments and was a member of the winning Davis Cup team on three occasions.
Mulloy played collegiate tennis for the Miami Hurricanes at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.
While he was the tennis coach at the University of Miami, Mulloy recruited Pancho Segura for the tennis team. Segura won three straight NCAA singles titles in 1943, 1944, and 1945. Segura went on to enjoy a successful professional tennis career, competing against the top touring professional players from 1947 until his retirement in 1962.
Mulloy was inducted into the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame in 1967 as part of its inaugural class of inductees. [5]
Mulloy won the Newport Casino Championships in 1946 defeating Ted Schroeder in the final in four sets.
Mulloy reached the U.S. Championships men's singles final in 1952, losing to second-seeded Frank Sedgman in three straight sets. He reached the U.S. No. 1 ranking the same year and was ranked world No. 6 by Harry Hopman in 1947 and world No. 7 by American Lawn Tennis Magazine in 1949. [3] [6]
The pair of Mulloy and Talbert won the U.S. men's doubles title in 1942, 1945, 1946, and 1948. He also won the Wimbledon doubles with Budge Patty in 1957, at age 43.
Mulloy was a Davis Cup team member in 1946, 1948–1950, 1952–53 and 1957, winning the Cup on three occasions against Australia. His Davis Cup record stands at 11 wins and 3 losses. [7] Mulloy, who served as the commanding officer of USS LST-32 during World War II in the Mediterranean Theater, was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1972.
In 2015 Mulloy was awarded a French Legion of Honor knighthood for his service in the US Navy in relation to operations in Italy and Provence. As such he became the oldest first time recipient of the order ever since it was created by Napoleon.
Mulloy was a 1936 graduate of the University of Miami, and tennis coach at the school. He also was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. He recruited to Miami and played doubles with George Toley, who went on to win 10 NCAA team titles at the University of Southern California. Probably Mulloy's greatest contribution to tennis was advancing the popularity of senior tennis. He played the senior circuit around the world into his nineties, and established the Mulloy Cup for international competition between men tennis players 80 years of age and over. He won over 127 national championships and 25 international titles in 75 years of playing competitive tennis.
As of 2006, Mulloy was still participating in and winning senior matches.
Among his other career highlights he won the Miami Invitational Tennis Championships in 1954 against Art Larsen.
In 1938, Mulloy married Madeleine L. Cheney (1917–1993), with whom he had two daughters, Diane Mulloy Mazzone and Janice Mulloy Poindexter. [8] He married his second wife, Jacqueline Mayer, in 2008, when he was 95 years old. [9] Mulloy was a vegetarian and avoided alcohol, coffee, sugary drinks and tea. [10] [11]
Mulloy died in Miami on November 14, 2016, from stroke complications, aged 102, survived by his second wife, his daughters, four grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. [9] [12]
Result | Year | Championship | Surface | Opponent | Score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Loss | 1952 | US National Championships | Grass | ![]() | 1–6, 2–6, 3–6 |
Result | Year | Championship | Surface | Partner | Opponents | Score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Loss | 1955 | US National Championships | Grass | ![]() | ![]() ![]() | 5–7, 7–5, 2–6 |
Loss | 1956 | Wimbledon | Grass | ![]() | ![]() ![]() | 6–2, 2–6, 5–7 |
Mulloy wrote an autobiography, The Will To Win, that was published in 1960. In 2009, he released an update to his autobiography, titled As It Was, with an introduction by Billie Jean King. According to the book, Mulloy is enshrined in a record nine Halls of Fame. [13] [14] [9]
Francisco Olegario Segura Cano, better known as Pancho "Segoo" Segura, was a leading tennis player of the 1940s and 1950s, both as an amateur and as a professional. He was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, but moved to the United States in 1940. Throughout his amateur career he was listed by the USTA as a "foreign" player resident in the U.S. As a professional player, he was referred to as the "Ecuadorian champ who now lives in New York City". After acquiring U.S. citizenship in 1991 at the age of seventy, Segura was a citizen of both countries.
Francis Arthur Sedgman is an Australian former world No. 1 tennis player. Over the course of a three-decade career, Sedgman won five Grand Slam singles tournaments as an amateur as well as 22 Grand Slam doubles tournaments. He is one of only five tennis players all-time to win multiple career Grand Slams in two disciplines, alongside Margaret Court, Roy Emerson, Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams. In 1951, he and Ken McGregor won the Grand Slam in men's doubles. Sedgman turned professional in 1953, and won the Wembley World Professional Indoor singles title in 1953 and 1958. He also won the Sydney Masters tournament in 1958, and the Melbourne Professional singles title in 1959. He won the Grand Prix de Europe Professional Tour in 1959.
Jacques Marie Stanislas Jean Brugnon, nicknamed "Toto", was a French tennis player, one of the famous "Four Musketeers" from France who dominated tennis in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was born in and died in Paris.
Stanley Roger Smith is an American former professional tennis player. A world No. 1 player and two-time major singles champion, Smith also paired with Bob Lutz to create one of the most successful doubles teams of all-time. In 1970, Smith won the inaugural year-end championships title. In 1972, he was the year-end world No. 1 singles player. In 1973, he won his second and last year end championship title at the Dallas WCT Finals. In addition, he won four Grand Prix Championship Series titles. In his early years he improved his tennis game through lessons from Pancho Segura, the Pasadena Tennis Patrons, and the sponsorship of the Southern California Tennis Association headed by Perry T. Jones. Smith is a past President of the International Tennis Hall of Fame and an ITHF Life Trustee. Outside tennis circles, Smith is best known as the namesake of a line of tennis shoes made by Adidas.
Marion Anthony Trabert was an American amateur world No. 1 tennis champion and long-time tennis author, TV commentator, instructor, and motivational speaker.
Vincent Richards was an American tennis player. He was active in the early decades of the 20th century, particularly known as being a superlative volleyer. He was ranked World No. 2 as an amateur in 1924 by A. Wallis Myers, and was ranked joint World No. 1 pro by Ray Bowers in 1927 and World No. 1 pro by Bowers in 1930.
Alejandro "Alex" Olmedo Rodríguez was a tennis player from Peru with American citizenship. He was listed by the USTA as a "foreign" player for 1958, but as a U.S. player for 1959. He helped win the Davis Cup for the United States in 1958 and was the No. 2 ranked amateur in 1959. Olmedo won two Majors in 1959 and the U.S. Pro Championships in 1960, and was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987.
Anthony Dalton Roche AO MBE is an Australian former professional tennis player.
Eric Clifford Drysdale is a South African former tennis player. After a career as a highly ranked professional player in the 1960s and early 1970s, he became a tennis announcer.
Thomas Samuel Okker is a Dutch former tennis player who was active from the mid-1960s until 1980. He won the 1973 French Open Doubles, the 1976 US Open Doubles, and two gold medals at the 1965 Maccabiah Games in Israel. He was ranked among the world's top-ten singles players for seven consecutive years, 1968–74, reaching a career high of world No. 3 in 1974. He also was ranked world No. 1 in doubles in 1979.
Rafael Osuna Herrera , nicknamed "El Pelón", was a former world No. 1 tennis player, the most successful player in the history of Mexico and an Olympian. He was born in Mexico City, and is best remembered for his singles victory at the U.S. Open Championships in 1963, winning the 1960 and 1963 Wimbledon Doubles championships, the 1962 U.S. Open Championships doubles, and for leading Mexico to its only Davis Cup Final round appearance in 1962. He is the only Mexican to date to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, in 1979.
William Franklin Talbert was an American tennis player and administrator.
Edward John Patty, better known as Budge Patty, was an American world no. 1 tennis player whose career spanned a period of 15 years after World War II. He won two Grand Slam singles titles in 1950. He was the second American male player to win the Channel Slam and one of only three as of 2024.
Neale Andrew Fraser, was an Australian champion tennis player. Fraser is the most recent man to have completed the triple crown, which he did in 1959 and 1960 at the U.S. National Championships. He won the 1960 Wimbledon championships. Fraser was ranked world No. 1 amateur tennis player in 1959 and 1960 by Lance Tingay and Ned Potter.
Malcolm James Anderson is an Australian former tennis player who was active from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. He won the singles title at the 1957 U.S. National Championships and achieved his highest amateur ranking of No. 2 in 1957. He became a professional after the 1958 season and won the Wembley World Professional Tennis Championships in the 1959 season. In the Open Era, he was runner-up at the 1972 Australian Open.
Richard Dennis Ralston was an American professional tennis player whose active career spanned the 1960s and 1970s.
Rex Noel Hartwig was an Australian tennis player.
Enrique Jorge Morea was an Argentine tennis player.
George Andrew Toley was an American collegiate tennis coach at the University of Southern California from 1954 to 1980. His teams won ten NCAA team championships, nine individual titles and twelve doubles titles, and included stars such as Alex Olmedo, Rafael Osuna, Dennis Ralston, Joaquín Loyo-Mayo, Raúl Ramírez, Stan Smith, Bob Lutz and Marcelo Lara.
Edward 'Ed' Rubinoff is an American former tennis player who was active in the 1960s. He won the 1952 singles title at the Orange Bowl junior tennis tournament, and the 1953 mixed doubles title the following year. At the US Open, he was a mixed doubles finalist three times. At the 1969 Maccabiah Games in Israel, he won a gold medal in mixed doubles with Julie Heldman.