Jan-Erik Lundqvist (born 14 April 1937) is a Swedish former international

tennis player 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 ...

. During the entire 1960s he was Sweden's best tennis player. At the height of his career, he won at least 35 international titles and played 91

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 ...

-matches from 1957 to 1970. Lundqvist was ranked among the 10 best amateur players (rankings made by leading tennis journalist

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 ...

at the ''

Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...

'') in the world during most of the 1960s, reaching as high as world No. 3 in 1964. Lundqvist declined professional offers from

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 ...

in 1960 and 1965.

Davis Cup anchor

The Swedish Davis Cup team with Lundqvist as anchor reached the Inter-Zonal final against Mexico in 1962 and Australia in 1964. Lundqvist is the most successful Davis Cup single player Sweden has ever had with his 47 wins.

35 international titles in 46 finals

In 1964 he won, among other titles, Italian Open and was ranked number 3 in the world after

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 ...

and

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 ...

. In 1965 Lundqvist was appointed the best indoor player in the world after winning the National Indoor Championships (now the U.S. National Indoor Tennis Championships), French Open Indoors (1962, 1963, 1966), German Open Indoors, and Scandinavian Indoor Championships (1960, 1963, 1967, 1970). Other major championships that Lundqvist won was the British Hard Court Championships in 1965 and 1967, the Pacific Coast Championships in 1962, the South American Outdoor Championships (nowadays the ATP Buenos Aires) in 1962 and the

Swedish Open The Swedish Open is a professional tennis tournament held in Båstad, Sweden. It is played on outdoor clay courts in July. The men's event (sponsored by Skistar) is an ATP Tour 250 tournament on the ATP Tour. The women's event (sponsored by ...

in 1963.

Grand Slam tournaments

Lundqvist reached the semi-finals twice (1961 and 1964) at the

French Open The French Open (), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a tennis tournament organized by the French Tennis Federation annually at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. It is chronologically the second of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam ...

. Both times he lost to the Italian player Nicola Pietrangeli. During 1958-1965 the official documentations say that Lundqvist participated 7 times in the

, 6 times in

The Championships, Wimbledon ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

, 1 time in

US Open (tennis) The US Open Tennis Championships, commonly called the US Open, is a hardcourt tennis tournament organized by the United States Tennis Association annually in Queens, New York City. Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam tennis events, held after the ...

and 1 time in

Australian Open The Australian Open (stylized ΛO) is a tennis tournament organised by Tennis Australia annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. It is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Sl ...

Tennis career

As a tennis player, Jan-Erik was known for his aggressive playing style hitting the ball a long distance in front of the body. He had a very good first serve, and he could hit surprisingly hard sliced and totally unreachable stop balls. He had his best successes on clay and indoor courts. He had in his strongest form in the beginning of the 1960s with few superiors on clay, defeating players such as Manuel Santana, Nicola Pietrangeli,

and Neale Fraser.

References

External links