player – Tennisarchives.com

General First nameMervyn Gordon
LastnameRose
GenderMale
CountryAustralia
Date of birth1930-01-23
Place of birthCoffs Harbour, NSW, Australia
Date of death2017-07-23
Place of deathCoffs Harbour, NSW, Australia

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From The New York Times, 28 July 2017:

Mervyn Rose, 7-Time Grand Slam Champion in Tennis, Dies at 87

By Richard Sandomir

Mervyn Rose, an Australian tennis player who won seven Grand Slam tournament titles in the 1950s and later coached champions like Billie Jean King and Margaret Court, died on Sunday in Coffs Harbour, Australia. He was 87. His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his nephew Bradlee Rose.

Rose, a left-hander, was somewhat overshadowed in the Australian tennis elite by Ken Rosewall and Lew Hoad, and later by Rod Laver, who is considered the country’s greatest player. But he was a tough, sometimes temperamental player known for strong volleying and what was called his “chip and charge,” in which he would chip, or slice, a return and rush to the net.

In 1954, at the Australian Championships (now the Australian Open), Rose defeated Rosewall in five sets in the semifinals, avenging his loss in straight sets to Rosewall in the finals a year earlier. Rose then needed just 70 minutes to beat Rex Hartwig in the final to win his first Grand Slam singles championship. He and Hartwig also won the tournament’s men’s doubles title.

Afterward, Harry Hopman, Australia’s longtime Davis Cup captain and coach, praised Rose’s victory as a breakthrough. “At the beginning of the championship,” he said, “Mervyn was an outsider among the top men, but he came through and showed great fight to win. This win of Mervyn’s strengthens Australia’s hand for the future.”

Rose played for Hopman on six Davis Cup teams from 1950 to 1957 and was ranked No. 3 in the world in 1958, his highest ranking. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I., in 2001. Rose’s victories at the Australian Open were not his first major titles. He had won doubles at the United States National Championships (now the United States Open) in 1952 with Vic Seixas, an American, and in 1953 with Hartwig
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Rose and Hartwig also won the doubles title at Wimbledon in 1954. Rose would win two more titles: mixed doubles with Darlene Hard at Wimbledon in 1957, defeating Althea Gibson and Neale Fraser, and singles at the French Championships (also known as the French Open) over Luis Ayala of Chile in 1958.

But to Rose, nothing stood out more than his five-set victory over Nicola Pietrangeli in the final of the 1958 Italian Open. “I knew how popular he was, and I really wanted to beat him on his home court,” he told The Coffs Coast Advocate, an Australian newspaper, in 2012. “I outplayed him all match, and the crowd didn’t like to see their champion defeated, so they pelted bottles and cans at me.” In his haste to leave the court, he added, “I never got my hands on the trophy.”

At the time, the tennis world was split between amateurs and professionals. Only amateurs were allowed to compete in the four Grand Slam championships, while pros played in tournaments controlled by promoters like Jack Kramer, a former player, who was eyeing top-ranked players like Rose.

By 1958, Rose was locked in a yearlong battle with the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia over travel expenses he had received for playing at various tournaments, including Wimbledon. The association suspended Rose’s amateur status in August 1958, and later that year, he threatened to expose other Australian players who, he said, had done the same thing he had.

“I’ve got plenty of dope on our Davis Cup players,” Rose was quoted by The Sydney Morning Herald as saying. “I hate making threats, but on the other hand, I’ve probably been soft too long.” He vowed that there would be a “a few blushing faces” among the amateurs at a coming tournament. But he cooled off and did not, as he told The Herald, “blow the gaff” on fellow players.

Instead, he joined the pro tour organized by Kramer, who promised Rose that he would make at least $20,000 (about $169,000 in 2017 dollars) playing in 10 tournaments and 75 exhibition matches in 1959. He would not play in another Grand Slam for another decade, after the start of the Open era in 1968.

Mervyn Gordon Rose was born on Jan. 23, 1930, in Coffs Harbour on Australia’s east coast, to Gordon and Nelly Rose. His father was a labourer, his mother a homemaker. He graduated from Collingwood Technical College. Considered a free-spirited personality, he once smashed three rackets during a match and won a final in the rain while playing in his socks.

He is survived by his wife, the former Robyn Geran; two daughters, Debra Bouland and Yvonne Rose; seven grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and a brother, Maxwell Rose. His marriage to Coral Stuber ended in divorce.

As his playing days waned, Rose began to coach Billie Jean Moffitt – she had not yet married Larry King, a lawyer and promoter, and taken his name – after she left California State University, Los Angeles, in 1964. “Merv Rose is the reason I became the No. 1 player in the world,” King said in an emailed statement on Friday. “I spent several months working with Merv and hitting with some of the best Australian players of the time. Because of what Merv Rose did for me, I was able to fulfil my dream and become No. 1 in the world.”

Rose, who loved coaching, lamented the dearth of dominant Australian tennis players. “We haven’t had a golden player in years, especially in the women’s game,” he told The Coffs Coast Advocate in 2012. “Once upon a time, Australia had the eight best players in the world.”

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