|
Frederick John Perry (May 18, 1909 - February 2, 1995) was an English
tennis player and three-time Wimbledon champion. Born in Stockport, Cheshire,
England, his father was elected to the British House of Commons as a Labour
Party member.
Early successes
Perry was a table tennis world champion before taking up
tennis at the relatively late age of 18. He had exceptional speed from his
table tennis days and played with the Continental grip, attacking the ball
low and on the rise. He was the first player to win all four Grand Slam singles
titles, though not all in the same year, and the first player to win those
four titles consecutively (although once again not in the same year). He
is currently the youngest player to have achieved the Career Grand Slam,
doing so at the age of 26. Perry is the last British player to win the Wimbledon
men's singles title, winning it three times in a row and becoming an English
icon.
A statue of Fred Perry at the All England Lawn Tennis Club
in Wimbledon 1933 Perry helped lead his team to victory over France in the
Davis Cup, which earned Great Britain the Davis Cup for the first time in
21 years.
Sporting legacy
Perry is considered by some to have been one of the greatest
male players to have ever played the game. Kings of the Court, a video-tape
documentary made in 1997 in conjunction with the International Tennis Hall
of Fame, named Perry one of the ten greatest players of all time. But this
documentary only considered those players who played before the Open era
of tennis that began in 1968, with the exception of Rod Laver, who spanned
both eras, so that all of the more recent great players are missing.
Inside the Church Road gate at the All England Lawn Tennis
Club in Wimbledon, London, a statue of Fred Perry was erected in 1984 to
mark the 50th anniversary of his first singles championship. In his birthplace,
a special 14 mile (23 km) walking route, Fred Perry Way, was built by the
city of Stockport and officially opened in September 2002.
Perry was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of
Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 1975. He died in Melbourne, Australia.
Fred Perry clothing brand
The Fred Perry brand of clothing has been popular for many
years. It is best known for the laurel logo on the left breast of its polo-style
shirts. In the mid-1950s and through the early 1960s many considered the
Fred Perry brand of male tennis shirts to be the best available. The laurel
logo on the shirt was stitched into the fabric, for instance, rather than
being merely being ironed on, as with the Cochet crocodile featured on competing
Lacoste apparel. Later the brand became popular with skinheads, mods, and
other youth sub-cultures.
|
