John W. Frost (born October 23, 1934) is an American scholar and former touring tennis player.
Tennis career
In 1949, Frost won the U.S. National Boys' (15-and-under) Championships at
Kalamazoo, Michigan
Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 73,598. It is the principal city of the Kalamazoo–Portage metropolitan are ...
[Monterey Peninsula Herald Aug 8, 1949] and the U.S. National Juniors' (18-and-under) three years later(1952).
[Kalamazoo Gazette Aug.4, 1952] Following his win, he was awarded a spot on the four-man U.S.
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 ...
team to play against Canada.
[Chicago Daily News. Aug 4, 1952] In the Fall he entered
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
, and in his senior year, 1956, he played in the final of the
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...
Singles Championship, losing to
Alex Olmedo
Alejandro "Alex" Olmedo Rodríguez (March 24, 1936December 9, 2020) was a tennis player from Peru with American citizenship. He was listed by the USTA as a "foreign" player for 1958, but as a U.S. player for 1959. He helped win the Davis Cup f ...
of U.S.C.
[Kalamazoo Gazette Aug.1, 1956] A decade later he was inducted into the
Stanford Athletics' Hall of Fame.
Following military service, Frost played the international tennis circuit between 1958 and 1963, competing in six
Wimbledon Championships
The Wimbledon Championships, commonly called Wimbledon, is a tennis tournament organised by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in collaboration with the Lawn Tennis Association annually in Wimbledon, London. It is chronologically the ...
and getting out to the 4th round in 1960, before losing to Nicola Pietrangeli. He won the Irish
[Irish Independent July 13, 1959] and Wiesbaden
[Naugatuck Daily News May 19, 1958] (including the mixed doubles with Maria Bueno) and was in the finals of the South African,
[Monterey Peninsula Herald April 14, 1960,] the Canadian,
[L'Action Catholique July 30-Aug. 5, 1953,] the Norwegian
[Aftenposten June 6, 1959] and the Good Neighbor.
[Miami Herald April 11–13, 1959] During the course of his career he had singles wins in major grass court tournaments over all-time greats
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, ...
,
[Irish Times July 11, 1958] 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 ...
[San Francisco Chronicle June 18, 1960] and
Vic Seixas
Elias Victor Seixas Jr. ( ;
''Los Angeles Times''. August 30, 1923 – July 5, 2024 ...
[Los Angeles Times August 12, 1954] and over numerous international Davis-Cup mainstays on various surfaces:
Luis Ayala,
[Newport Daily News August 12, 1954] Thomaz Koch
Thomaz Koch (born 11 May 1945) is a former tennis player from Brazil. He won one Grand Slam title in mixed doubles at the 1975 French Open. In singles he was a quarterfinalist in singles at the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. National Cham ...
,
Mario Llamas
Mario Llamas (30 March 1928 – 17 June 2014) was a tennis player from Mexico.
Career
Llamas was a regular fixture on the Mexico Davis Cup team, appearing in a total of 21 ties during his career. He won 21 of his 44 rubbers, 15 of them in singl ...
,
[The Florida Times-Union April 11, 1958] Antonio Palafox,
[San Francisco Examiner August 13, 1959] Giuseppe Merlo, Istvan Gulyas, Bob Mark, Frew McMillan, Christian Kuhnke,
[San Francisco Chronicle July 5, 1959],] Bob Hewitt,
[Monterey Peninsula Herald July 22, 1960] Gordon Forbes,
[Monterey Peninsula Herald April 14, 1960] Warren Woodcock,
[Miami Herald April 12, 1959] Billy Knight,
[San Francisco Chronicle August 8, 1956] Ron Holmberg,
[Monterey Peninsula Herald July 28, 1961] Dennis Ralston,
[Monterey Peninsula Herald July 27, 1961] Barry Mackay,
[http://www.tennisarchives.com."Jack Frost" (1957)]"Jack Douglas"
[Aftenposten June 6, 1959,] and Tom Brown.
[http://www.tennisarchives.com."Jack Frost" (1957).]
Frost beat Whitney Reed at Newport on grass in 1961, the year in which Reed achieved the number one ranking in the U.S.,
[Newport Daily News Aug. 17, 1961] and in 1954 he defeated Straight Clark at Forest Hills in one of the longest matches played there in the
Major professional tennis tournaments before the Open Era, pre-open era.
[Tennis U.S.A. March 1969]
Frost participated in the winning of several major doubles titles: Southampton (with Giammalva over Richardson and Holmberg),
[Monterey Peninsula Herald Aug. 3, 1958] Puerto Rico (with Richardson over Contreras and Llamas), and a semi-final win with John Cranston over Laver and Neale Fraser at the Irish Championships.
[Ulick O'Conor, The Fitzwilliam Story p. 86.]
A top 10 player in the United States in 1961,
[USTA Yearbook-top 10 US men's rankings] Frost was also ranked number 1 in Northern California in that year.
[Redwood City Tribune Jan. 22 1962,] He was subsequently inducted into the Northern California Tennis Hall of Fame.
In 1964 Frost conducted a four-month good-will tennis program in Ghana
[''The Ghanaian Times'', Dec. 11, 1964] on behalf of the U.S. Government and did another one in India in 1990.
[Indian Express(Pune) July 15, 1990]
Jack is retired and lives in Palm Desert, CA.
Academic
Frost received a B.A. from Stanford University, an M.A. from the
Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies, and a Ph.D. from the
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...
(June 15, 1974). Simultaneously, through a series of National Defense Foreign Language grants, he was able to become proficient in
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
and
Swahili
Swahili may refer to:
* Swahili language, a Bantu language officially used in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes.
* Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa.
* Swahili culture, the culture of the Swahili p ...
and eventually was awarded a
Fulbright Fellowship
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...
to cover a year abroad, some four months of it to be spent in
Khartoum
Khartoum or Khartum is the capital city of Sudan as well as Khartoum State. With an estimated population of 7.1 million people, Greater Khartoum is the largest urban area in Sudan.
Khartoum is located at the confluence of the White Nile – flo ...
(Sudan). Later he participated in writing an academic history of the British in the Sudan. and contributed a review to the journal of the American Historical Association. More recently he published a specialized history of the Monterey Peninsula.
[John W Frost. Monterey Peninsula's Sporting Heritage. Arcadia Press, 2007.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frost, John W (Jack)
1934 births
Living people
American male tennis players
University of California, Santa Barbara alumni
Tennis players from California
Stanford Cardinal men's tennis players
20th-century American sportsmen