player – Tennisarchives.com

General First namePeter Hedley
LastnameJackson
GenderMale
CountryIreland
Date of birth1934-09-22
Place of birthBelfast, County Antrim Northern Ireland , Great Britain
Date of death2014-10-11
Place of deathBelfast, County Antrim Northern Ireland , Great Britain

About

From The Belfast Newsletter, November 17, 2014:

Peter Jackson had been a passionate sportsman since his school days, and went on to play tennis at an international level. Born on September 22, 1934, the son of a GP, he grew up on Belfast’s Antrim Road and attended Belfast Royal Academy. He failed to shine academically and instead he threw himself into sports including rugby, running and tennis. After school he took a clerical job in the linen trade for around five years, while continuing to play tennis.

He began to earn a name for himself in the sport, which helped him secure a management post with Dunlop Sports Equipment. Although he went on to compete in Wimbledon the US Open and the Davis Cup, it was in an era of almost wholly amateur sportsmanship, and he stayed in his day job throughout. He played at the US Open and at Wimbledon. But arguably the pinnacle of his career was a match he played against Yugoslavian competitor ZeljkoFranulovic in the Davis Cup.

He ultimately lost, but he gave his competitor – who was in the global Top 10 – a tough five-set match. “In Peter’s own mind, that was probably his greatest ever performance,” said brother-in-law Lyn Jamison. He retired from the sport in 1973, after he was asked to play trial matches to secure his Davis Cup place – matches Lyn said he was easily capable of winning. He was injured at the time and asked for a short spell to recover, but this was refused. Rather than continue in the face of this refusal, he opted to leave competitive tennis.

He had met his wife-to-be Margery during a tennis contest in Ballycastle, and they had wed in 1962 .After redundancy struck in 1980, he opened a clothes shop on the Saintfield Road, but it did not perform too well. He then went to work for men’s suit shops, retiring soon afterwards. In his later life his interest in golf and in jazz grew.

His health began to fail during his latter years. He had smoked from age 15, and even when he was playing tennis he would light up before and after matches. At his peak, he would have smoked between 50 and 60 per day but he cut down after a heart attack four years ago. He died in his sleep on October 10 after picking up an infection. He was 80. His funeral was five days later at Roselawn. He was cremated, and his ashes are to be interred at Ballycastle.

“He was liked by everybody; he always had a fund of stories,” said Lyn.

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