Ulf "Uffe" Christian Johan Schmidt (born 12 July 1934) is a former Swedish
tennis player
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cove ...
. He competed for
AIK
AIK Fotboll (), more commonly known simply as AIK (), an abbreviation for Allmänna Idrottsklubben (meaning ''the public'' or ''general sports club''), is a Swedish football club competing in Allsvenskan, the top flight of Swedish football. The ...
from Stockholm.
He won 14 singles' tournaments, among them the
International Swedish Championships in
Båstad in 1957 and 1961. In 1958 he and
Sven Davidson
Sven Viktor Davidson (13 July 1928 – 28 May 2008) was a Swedish tennis player who became the first Swede to win a Grand Slam title when he won the French Championships in 1957, beating Ashley Cooper and Herbert Flam.
Career
Davidson also ...
won the doubles event in
Wimbledon after defeating the top seeds
Ashley Cooper and
Neale Fraser
Neale Andrew Fraser (born 3 October 1933) is a former number one amateur male tennis-player from Australia, born in Melbourne, Victoria, the son of a Victorian judge. Fraser is the last man to have completed the triple crown, i.e. having won ...
in the final. They were the only Swedish winners before the
Borg
The Borg are an alien group that appear as recurring antagonists in the ''Star Trek'' fictional universe. The Borg are cybernetic organisms (cyborgs) linked in a hive mind called "the Collective". The Borg co-opt the technology and knowledge ...
era.
His best singles result at a Grand Slam tournament was reaching the semifinal at the
1958 U.S. National Championships. Schmidt was unseeded and defeated third-seeded
in the fourth round before losing to first-seeded
Mal Anderson
Malcolm James Anderson (born 3 March 1935) is a former tennis player from Australia who was active from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. He won the singles title at the 1957 U.S. National Championships and achieved his highest amateur ranki ...
in the semifinal. At the
Wimbledon Championships
The Wimbledon Championships, commonly known simply as Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely regarded as the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London, since 1877 and is pla ...
he reached the quarterfinals in 1956 and 1957.
Schmidt was ranked World No. 8 for 1958 by
Lance Tingay
Lance Tingay (15 July 1915 – 10 March 1990) was a British sports journalist, historian, and author of several tennis books. For many years his annual ranking of top tennis players was "the only one that counted" before ATP rankings were introduc ...
of
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
(and No. 10 in 1961).
He played 102
Davis Cup matches for
Sweden (1955–1964) and won 66 of them.
Grand Slam finals
Doubles (1 title)
References
External links
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People from Nacka Municipality
Swedish male tennis players
Wimbledon champions (pre-Open Era)
1934 births
Living people
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in men's doubles
Sportspeople from Stockholm County
{{Sweden-tennis-bio-stub