Henry Christian Hopman

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(12 August 1906 – 27 December 1985) was an Australian

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

player and coach.

Early life

Harry Hopman was born on 12 August 1906 in

Glebe A glebe (, also known as church furlong, rectory manor or parson's close(s)) is an area of land within an ecclesiastical parish used to support a parish priest. The land may be owned by the church, or its profits may be reserved to the church. ...

, Sydney as the third child of John Henry Hopman, a schoolteacher, and Jennie Siberteen, née Glad. His family then moved to

Parramatta Parramatta (; ) is a suburb (Australia), suburb and major commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney. Parramatta is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district, Sydney CBD, on the banks of the Parramatta River. It is co ...

. Hopman started playing tennis at the age of 13 and, playing barefoot, won an open singles tournament on a court in the playground of Rosehill Public School where his father was headmaster. He was later a student at

Parramatta High School Parramatta High School (abbreviated as PHS and colloquially known as Parra High) is a Education in Australia#Government schools, government-funded Mixed-sex education, co-educational dual modality partially Selective school (New South Wales), ac ...

where he played tennis and

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

Davis Cup

Hopman was the successful captain-coach of 22 Australian

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is organised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and contested annually between teams from over 150 competing countries, making it the world's largest annual ...

teams from 1939 to 1967. With players such as

Frank Sedgman Francis Arthur Sedgman (born 29 October 1927) is an Australian former world No. 1 tennis player. Over the course of a three-decade career, Sedgman won five Grand Slam singles tournaments as an amateur as well as 9 Grand Slam doubles tourname ...

Ken McGregor Kenneth Bruce McGregor (2 June 1929 – 1 December 2007) was an Australian tennis player from Adelaide who won the Men's Singles title at the Australian Championships in 1952. He and his longtime doubles partner, Frank Sedgman, are generally ...

Lew Hoad Lewis Alan Hoad (23 November 1934 – 3 July 1994) was an Australian tennis player whose career ran from 1950 to 1973. Hoad won four Major singles tournaments as an amateur (the Australian Championships, French Championships and two Wimbledons ...

Ken Rosewall Kenneth Robert Rosewall (born 2 November 1934) is an Australian former World number one male tennis player rankings, world No. 1 professional tennis player. Rosewall won 147 singles titles, including 23 majors: a record 15 Major professional te ...

Rod Laver Rodney George Laver (born 9 August 1938) is an Australian former professional tennis player. Laver was ranked as the World number 1 ranked male tennis players, world number 1 professional player indisputably for five years from 1965 to 1969, ...

Neale Fraser Neale Andrew Fraser, (3 October 1933 – 2 December 2024) was an Australian champion tennis player. Fraser is the most recent man to have completed the triple crown (i.e. having won the singles, doubles, and mixed doubles titles at a Grand S ...

John Newcombe John David Newcombe AO OBE (born 23 May 1944) is an Australian former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the world No. 1 in both men's singles and men's doubles. Newcombe won a combined 26 major titles: seven in singles, a former ...

Fred Stolle Frederick Sydney Stolle, Order of Australia, AO (8 October 1938 – 5 March 2025) was an Australian amateur world No. 1 tennis player and commentator. He was born in Hornsby, New South Wales, Australia. He was the father of former Australian Da ...

Tony Roche Anthony Dalton Roche Order of Australia, AO Order of the British Empire, MBE (born 17 May 1945) is an Australian former professional tennis player. A native of Tarcutta, Roche played junior tennis in the New South Wales regional city of Wagga ...

Roy Emerson Roy Stanley Emerson (born 3 November 1936) is an Australian former tennis player who won 12 Grand Slam singles titles and 16 Grand Slam doubles titles, for a total of 28 Grand Slam titles. All of his singles Grand Slam victories and 14 of his ...

, Ashley Cooper,

Rex Hartwig Rex Noel Hartwig (2 September 1929 – 30 December 2022) was an Australian tennis player. Early life Rex Hartwig was born on 2 September 1929 in Culcairn, New South Wales. Both parents played tennis and at age 10 he won a local tournament wit ...

Mervyn Rose Mervyn Gordon Rose AM (23 January 1930 – 23 July 2017) was an Australian male tennis player who won seven Grand Slam titles (singles, doubles and mixed doubles). Career Rose was born in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, and turned professiona ...

and

Mal Anderson Malcolm James Anderson (born 3 March 1935) is an Australian former tennis player 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 ranking o ...

, he won the cup an unmatched 16 times. In late 1951, when it appeared that Davis Cup player Frank Sedgman was about to turn professional, Hopman used his column in the ''

Melbourne Herald ''The Herald'' was a morning – and later – evening broadsheet newspaper published in Melbourne, Australia, from 3 January 1840 to 5 October 1990. It later merged with its sister morning newspaper ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' to form the ''Her ...

'' to lead a fundraising campaign designed to keep Sedgman in the amateur ranks. Enough money was raised to purchase a petrol station in the name of Sedgman's wife-to-be and Sedgman remained an amateur for one more year. As Joe McCauley writes in ''The History of Professional Tennis'', "For some reason, the pious Hopman, a strong opponent of the paid game, did not regard this as an infringement of Sedgman's amateur status."

Journalism

Hopman was also a journalist, joining the ''

'' in 1933 as a sportswriter. He provided sporting commentary. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, this became his focus until he was once again coaxed into tennis coaching. As an example of Hopman's journalism, Kramer writes that Sedgman, by then a successful touring professional, once "volunteered to help train the Aussie Davis Cup team. Hopman accepted the offer, and then he took Sedg aside and told him that what Hoad and Rosewall needed was confidence. So he told Sedg to go easy on them, which he gladly did. After a few days, Hopman wrote an exclusive in his newspaper column revealing how his kids could whip Sedgman and how this proved once again that amateurs were better than the pros."

Legacy

The

Hopman Cup The Hopman Cup is an international tennis tournament that plays mixed teams (one male and one female) on a country-by-country basis. It was first held in Perth, Western Australia each year from 1989 to 2019, played on indoor hardcourt, before b ...

was named in his honour. Until her death in mid-2018, his widow Lucy Hopman travelled to

Perth, Western Australia Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

each year for the tournament. Hopman was inducted into the

International Tennis Hall of Fame The International Tennis Hall of Fame is located in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. It honors both players and other contributors to the sport of tennis. The complex, the former Newport Casino, includes a museum, 13 grass tennis courts, an ...

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is a seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island, United States. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and nort ...

, in 1978. Tennis great

Jack Kramer John Albert Kramer (August 1, 1921 – September 12, 2009) was an American tennis player of the 1940s and 1950s, and a pioneer promoter who helped drive the sport towards professionalism at the elite level. Kramer also ushered in the serve-an ...

, who was also a successful promoter of the professional tour, writes in his 1979 autobiography that Hopman "always knew exactly what was going on with all his amateurs. He had no children, no hobbies, and tennis was everything to him. Hopman always said he hated the pros, and he battled

open tennis The racket sport traditionally named lawn tennis, invented in Edgbaston, Warwickshire, England, now commonly known simply as tennis, is the direct descendant of what is now denoted real tennis or royal tennis, which continues to be played today a ...

to the bitter end, but as early as the time when Sedgman and McGregor signed, Hopman was trying to get himself included in the deal so he could get a job with pro tennis in America." Kramer, who admits that Hopman "has never been my favorite guy", goes on to say: "The minute one of his stars would turn pro, Hopman would turn on him. No matter how close he'd been to a player, as soon as he was out of Hopman's control, the guy was an outcast. 'It was as if we'd never existed' Rosewall said once."

Personal life

Hopman was first married to Nell Hall, with whom he won four

mixed doubles Mixed doubles or mixed pairs is a form of mixed-sex sports that consists of teams of one man and one woman. This variation of competition is prominent in curling and racket sports, such as tennis, table tennis, and badminton (where it is known ...

finals. The marriage took place on 19 March 1934 at St Philip's Anglican Church in Sydney. She died of an intracranial tumour on 10 January 1968. Hopman emigrated to the United States in 1969 and became a successful professional coach, at Port Washington Tennis Academy, of future champions such as

Vitas Gerulaitis Vytautas "Vitas" Kevin Gerulaitis (July 26, 1954 – September 17, 1994) was an American professional tennis player. He was ranked world No. 3 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in 1978. Gerulaitis won the men's si ...

and later

John McEnroe John Patrick McEnroe Jr. (born February 16, 1959) is an American former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the world No. 1 in men's List of ATP number 1 ranked singles players, singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) ...

. Hopman later opened the Harry Hopman's International Tennis camp in Treasure Island then

Largo, Florida Largo is the third largest city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States, as well as the fourth largest in the Tampa Bay area. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 82,485, up from 77,648 in 2010 United States Census, 2010. Larg ...

, with his second wife, Lucy Pope Fox, whom he married on 2 February 1971. He was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(MBE) in the

1951 New Year Honours The 1951 New Years Honours were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of King George VI to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. They were announced on 1 January 1951 for the Brit ...

for services to sport, and promoted to Commander of the Order (CBE) in the

1956 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1956 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. They were announced on 2 January 1956 to celebra ...

, again for services to sport (particularly tennis). Hopman died of a heart attack on 27 December 1985.

Tournament record

Australia Davis Cup

Player

* 1928, 1930, 1932

Captain

* 1938–1939, 1950–1969 ** Winner: 1939, 1950–1953, 1955–1957, 1959–1962, 1964–1967 **Runner-up: 1938, 1954, 1958, 1963, 1968

Italian Championship

* Mixed Doubles 1934

Grand Slam finals

Singles: 3 (3 runner-ups)

Doubles: 7 (2 titles, 5 runner-ups)

Mixed doubles: 8 (5 titles, 3 runner-ups)

Grand Slam singles performance timeline

References

Sources

* ''The Game, My 40 Years in Tennis'' (1979), Jack Kramer with Frank Deford () * ''The History of Professional Tennis'' (2003), Joe McCauley
Rich Hillway, tennis historian

External links

* * * * *

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hopman, Harry Australian Championships (tennis) champions Australian expatriate sportspeople in the United States Australian male tennis players Australian tennis coaches Australian Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Tennis players from Sydney International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees United States National champions (tennis) 1906 births 1985 deaths People from Parramatta Grand Slam (tennis) champions in mixed doubles Grand Slam (tennis) champions in men's doubles Grand Slam (tennis) champions in boys' doubles Australian Championships (tennis) junior champions People educated at Parramatta High School Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductees Sportsmen from New South Wales 20th-century Australian sportsmen