Bromwich John

John Bromwich remained one of Australia's leading tennis players throughout his playing career, which lasted both before and after World War II , during which he served in the army, was wounded and contracted malaria during the New Guinea campaign. ^[2] He played in the Australian Championship finals three times before the war and four after it, winning once in each period. At the Wimbledon tournament in 1948, Bromwich was one step away from the title, but failed to realize three match-balls in the five-set final match with Bob Falkenburg ^[2] . At the US Championships, he played three times in the semifinals - twice before the war and once after it. In the list of the ten strongest tennis players in the world, annually compiled by the Daily Telegraph newspaper , Bromwich appeared twice before the war and three times after, for a total of five times in a row from 1938 to 1948 (from 1940 to 1945 the list was not compiled): in 1939 he took second place in this list ^[3] .

Nevertheless, Bromwich achieved his main glory in the men's doubles. Since 1938, he won the Australian Championship eight times in a row together with senior compatriot Adrian Quist , which to this day remains the tournament record ^[4] . Only in 1951, Bromwich and Quist gave the palm to the future owners of the classic Grand Slam in male pairs - Frank Sedgman and Ken McGregor . This defeat was preceded by the success of 1950, when Bromwich himself won three of the four Grand Slam tournaments - the Australian Championship with Quist, the Wimbledon tournament with Sedgeman and the US Championship with another Australian Bill Sidwell . In total, he won 13 victories in Grand Slam tournaments in male pairs. In addition, he won four times in the mixed double - twice at Wimbledon and once in Australia (where he lost five more times in the finals) and in the USA. In three of his four victories, his partner was American Louise Braff .

Bromwich was one of the leading players in Australia's pre-war and post-war national team in the International Tennis Challenge Cup (now known as the Davis Cup ). He played six times with the national team in the finals of this tournament and twice won his main trophy with her. The first time this happened in 1939, when he and Quist lost after the first day of the final match in the USA with a score of 2-0. The start of the doubles meeting was also unsuccessful for them - they lost in the first set and lost in the second 3-1. But then Bromwich demonstrated what the US team player Ted Schroeder called “the most phenomenal two and a half sets of the doubles I've seen in my life”, and pulled out a victory in the third game, and after Quist equalized the score on the third day , brought the matter to a common victory, convincingly defeating Frank Parker ^[4] . The second time he won the Davis Cup in his last year at the Australian national team - in a triumph for himself in 1950, again in the USA. In total, Bromwich played 24 matches for the Australian national team, winning 20 of 21 matches in doubles, and in singles, winning 19 of 30 games.

Bromwich spent his last final at the Grand Slam tournament in 1954, when he reached the finals of the Australian mixed doubles with Beryl Penrose for the sixth time in his career. In 1984, his name was included in the lists of the International Tennis Hall of Fame , simultaneously with the name of Quist, and two years later - in the lists of the Hall of Sports Glory of Australia. He died in October 1999; his longtime partner Quist outlived him by less than a month.

Tennis commentator and historian Bad Collins writes that Bromwich had one of the most unusual playing styles in tennis history. Left-handed from birth, he served the ball with his right hand, but he played with one hand on the left and two on the right. The strings on his racket were always pulled very loosely, and his favorite trick was to direct the ball directly to the opponent’s feet, which, with his masterly mastery of the racket, was possible regularly. In general, he could repeatedly send the ball to a pre-selected sector of the court. Characteristic in this respect was the decisive game of the final of the International Challenge Cup against Frank Parker in 1939. Before the game, team captain Fred Perry told Bromwich that if he at least once gave the ball to Parker under his right hand, then let him do it five thousand times. Bromwich followed the coach’s advice, bombarding Parker with balls under his right hand from the start of the game. As a result, they played the first point for two minutes, the first game - 13, and after that Parker forehand stopped working ^[5] .

Singles (2 + 6)

Men's Doubles (13 + 3)

Mixed Doubles (4 + 7)

• John Bromwich // Bud Collins' Tennis Encyclopedia / Bud Collins , Zander Hollander (Eds.). - Detroit, MI: Visible Ink Press, 1997 .-- P. 456-457. - ISBN 1-57859-000-0 .

• John Bromwich at Australia Sports Hall of Fame website
• John Bromwich at the International Tennis Hall of Fame website
• Singles Results in Tennis Archives Database
• All Grand Slam Tournament Finals in the Grand Slam Archives Online Directory
• Profile on the Davis Cup website