player – Tennisarchives.com

General First namePeter
LastnameFährmann (Fahrmann)
GenderMale
CountryGerman Democratic Republik
Date of birth1937-02-10
Place of birthBorna, Sachsen, Germany

About

The following piece was translated and slightly adapted from the Wikipedia entry in German on Peter Fährmann, which can be accessed here:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_F%C3%A4hrmann

Along with Horst Stahlberg, Werner Rautenberg and Konrad Zanger, Peter Fährmann was one of the best tennis players in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the 1950s and 1960s. In the GDR and in the reunified Germany, Fährmann won 60 national championships. Those successes are a testament to his endurance.

From 1953 to 1955, Fährmann had the edge over his competitors at the indoor junior championships in the GDR. The left-hander was always an unpleasant opponent, especially for his doubles partner Werner Rautenberg. This meant that these two often fought for second place in the singles rankings in the GDR.

In doubles, Fährmann and Rautenberg harmonized very well and won the men’s doubles titles seven times outdoors at the East German Tennis Championships. They also showed their prowess on the international stage at the Romanian Championships, where they defeated the pairings of Günther Bosch and Alexandru Bardan in 1961, and one year even defeated Ion Țiriac and Ilie Năstase in the semi-finals.

Fährmann also became a feared opponent for the top Czechoslovakian player Pavel Korda. In 1961 and 1962, Korda had no chance against the public’s favourite in Zinnowitz. The one-sided 6-2, 6-0 and 6-1 victory in their first encounter must have been an outstanding performance by Fährmann because Korda had beaten Christian Kuhnke and Wimbledon semi-finalist Michael Sangster earlier in the same season.

As well as taking part in the international tournaments in Egypt on several occasions, Fährmann’s biggest trip abroad was to the Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO) in Jakarta in 1963. In the men’s doubles event Fährmann and his Yugoslavian partner Nikola Spear made it to the second round, where they lost 6-3, 6-3 to the eventual winners, the Soviets Toomas Leius and Sergei Likhachev.

In 1965, when Fährmann accepted the post of coach at the Ernst Thälmann heavy engineering works in Magdeburg, a golden age began for the Motor Mitte Club in that particular city. In the following years, and up to the end of the GDR, Motor Mitte Magdeburg won the team championship cup seven times. Fährmann remained head coach at Motor Mitte Magdeburg until 1990.

Spared serious injury, Peter Fährmann was involved with the senior tennis teams in Duisburg and Karlsruhe after reunification. With the Hamborn 07 sports club in Duisburg he managed to win seven European Championships.

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