Australian tennis\u00a0is mourning the passing of\u00a0Mal Anderson MBE\u00a0whose career took him from a dirt court on a Queensland farm to\u00a0Davis Cup\u00a0and\u00a0Grand Slam\u00a0glory.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just loved tennis from the earliest age,\u201d he once reflected. \u201cI was addicted to it and it became my life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anderson played in Australia\u2019s golden post-war age during which he won the US singles title (1957) and three major doubles titles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOn his day Mal was capable of playing any shot in the book and he had a fantastic serve,\u201d said\u00a0Roy Emerson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anderson grew up on a cattle station at Theodore\u00a0in Queensland where his father built a court on the property out of dirt and ant nests.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a boy he played against the Laver brothers who had a similar court built on their family property near Rockhampton.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anderson loved to recall watching\u00a0Trevor and Bob Laver telling their little brother\u00a0Rod\u00a0to get off the court when he scampered on to have a hit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As he developed as a player, Anderson was sent to Grammar School in Rockhampton where he was coached by\u00a0Charlie Hollis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His breakthrough came in 1956 when he reached the semifinals of the Australian Championships where he lost to\u00a0Ken Rosewall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The following year he collected the Australian mixed doubles title with\u00a0Fay Muller, won the French doubles championship with\u00a0Ashley Cooper\u00a0and then defeated Cooper to take the singles in New York.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although unseeded at the United States Championships, Anderson dominated the tournament defeating three seeds and dropping only two sets on his way to the title.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the triumph he married\u00a0Daphne Emerson\u00a0(sister of Roy) \u2013 a partnership that produced three children, nine grand-children and a growing number of great-grandchildren.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The year ended with a defence of the Davis Cup at Kooyong against the United States where Anderson defeated both\u00a0Barry MacKay\u00a0and\u00a0Vic Seixas\u00a0in five sets \u2013 something he credited to Captain\u00a0Harry Hopman.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would say you may not be the best player, but you can be the fittest,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n
After a brief professional career, Anderson ran a successful tennis and squash centre in Brisbane before returning to the court for a twilight of his career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1972 (although semi-retired) he was runner-up to\u00a0Ken Rosewall\u00a0at the\u00a0Australian Open\u00a0after ousting\u00a0John Newcombe\u00a0in five sets in an exhausting quarterfinal. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The following year he played in the early rounds of the Davis Cup that Australia eventually won and teamed with John Newcombe to win the doubles title at the Australian Open.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After retiring, Anderson mentored many young players including\u00a0Pat Rafter,\u00a0Scott Draper,\u00a0Wally Masur\u00a0and\u00a0John Fitzgerald.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI was really sad to hear of Mal\u2019s passing. He was one of those people who helped shape my tennis from very early on,\u201d\u00a0Pat Rafter said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe took me overseas for the first time, over to Wimbledon, and introduced me to what the professional game looked like and what it meant to carry yourself properly around it. For a young Aussie kid coming through, that was a pretty special thing to have someone like Mal do for you.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI still remember being at Queen\u2019s Club in London and hearing the reception he got when his name was announced \u2013\u00a0the whole place stood up for him. That told you everything about the respect people had for him, not just here in Australia but around the world.<\/p>\n
“He was a true legend of the game, but more importantly he was a terrific bloke \u2013\u00a0humble, generous with his time and always happy to help younger players along.<\/p>\n
\u201cTennis in Australia has lost one of its greats, and a lot of us have lost a mate and mentor. I feel very lucky to have known him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scott\u00a0Draper recalled how Anderson taught him and other players how to give back to the sport and realise the game was bigger than them.<\/p>\n
\u201cMal was someone I looked up to from a very young age. I had my first tennis lesson from Mal at five. Our family spent every weekend playing tennis at his centre, it was a home away from home,\u201d Draper said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my teens, I was part of the Mal Anderson high-performance squad with my brother Mark.\u00a0Mal was the epitome of fitness and professionalism\u00a0and\u00a0role-modelled the highest standards, inspiring all of us to be better.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI was lucky to travel with him on his Mal Anderson Exhibition tours, which are an incredible legacy. He took tennis to the regions and took young wannabes like me with him. We learned how to coach and play exhibition matches. Mal was a joy to be around, humility personified and always took genuine interest in your life. A great bloke\u00a0and\u00a0his legacy will definitely live on in me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wally\u00a0Masur explained\u00a0how Anderson led by example and showed him what it meant to be a professional and the Australian way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI first met Mal when he took 10 youngsters on a satellite circuit around country NSW\u00a0in about 1979,\u201d\u00a0Masur\u00a0said.\u00a0\u201cIf you were out of the tournament he made you run at 6.30am, punishing runs that usually brought up the contents of my stomach. He did every one of those runs with us and did them easily.<\/p>\n
“Then it was four or five hours on the practice court, and he hit for every minute of those hours. Never a critical word, just encouragement and he was with you every step of the way. I\u2019ll leave it to his peers to judge where he sits in the pantheon of Australian tennis greats, but what a gentleman and an inspiration he was to a young player trying to make the tour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Davis Cup captain John Fitzgerald said Anderson was a very special person to anyone who knew anything about tennis.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe played a sliding-door role in my life when I was one of about 10 young guys (Fitzgerald was 17) who he took on a five-week Satellite Tour in the eastern states around 1978\/79,” Fitzgerald said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe taught me what it took to train and work if you wanted to be a player. It was a light-bulb realisation for me and helped my direction enormously. That was when the penny dropped for me on what is involved if you want to be successful in this sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anderson never lost his love for the country and spent years touring regional Queensland conducting coaching clinics and inspiring generations of young players. \u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2022, during the centenary celebrations of his hometown Theodore \u2013 200 kilometres south of Rockhampton with a population of just 451 \u2013 Anderson gifted his 1957 US Open trophy, along with a Davis Cup and a doubles trophy won with John Newcombe, to the Theodore Tennis Club.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When asked to reflect on his life he said his success followed his passion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have the love for it and want to work hard for it you can achieve,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
MAL ANDERSON\u00a0<\/p>\n
DAVIS CUP
1957 \u20131958, 1972-1973: 13 wins 6 losses\u00a0<\/p>\n
GRAND SLAM TITLES (4)\u00a0
Singles: US 1957\u00a0
Doubles:\u00a0France 1957, Australia 1973
Mixed doubles:\u00a0Australia 1957\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian tennis\u00a0is mourning the passing of\u00a0Mal Anderson MBE\u00a0whose career took him from a dirt court on a Queensland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,320252,72820,320253,85,747],"class_list":["post-663112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mal-anderson","tag-news-article","tag-qld-news-article","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}