Kenneth Norman Fletcher (15 June 1940 – 11 February 2006) 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 who won numerous doubles and mixed doubles Grand Slam titles.

Biography

He was born in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

, Queensland, Australia to parents Norm and Ethel Fletcher. He was educated at St Laurence's College and showed early promise as a championship tennis player there. Fletcher won the 1963 Kent Championships on grass at Beckenham, defeating

Owen Davidson Owen Keir Davidson (4 October 1943 – 12 May 2023) was an Australian professional tennis player of the 1960s and 1970s. Alongside Billie Jean King, Davidson won eight grand slam mixed doubles titles. In 1967 he won a calendar year slam for m ...

in the semifinal and Martin Mulligan in the final. Fletcher won the 1966 British Hard Court Championships at Bournemouth on clay, defeating

Tom Okker Thomas Samuel Okker (born 22 February 1944), nicknamed "the Flying Dutchman", is a Dutch former tennis player who was active from the mid-1960s until 1980. He won the 1973 French Open Doubles, the 1976 US Open Doubles, and two gold medals at the ...

in the final. Also in 1966, he defeated John Newcombe at Wimbledon in the third round in five sets, but lost the quarterfinal to eventual champion Manuel Santana also in five sets. His greatest success as a tennis player came in 1963, when he became the only man to win a calendar year Grand Slam in mixed doubles, partnering fellow Australian Margaret Court. He reached the final of the Australian Open in 1963, losing to Roy Emerson. After this achievement, he went on to record mixed doubles championships in the Australian Open in 1964,

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 ...

in 1964 and 1965, and Wimbledon in 1965, 1966, and 1968. All of his mixed doubles Grand Slam titles were in partnership with Smith Court. He also achieved a Grand Slam title in men's doubles in the 1964 French Open, playing with Emerson. At the Wimbledon men's doubles championship, he was a finalist with Robert Hewitt in 1965, the champion in 1966 partnering John Newcombe, and a finalist again in 1967 with Emerson. In total, Fletcher won 27 international tennis titles. He was ranked World No. 10 in 1966 by Lance Tingay of ''The Daily Telegraph''. Ken was a larrikin by nature, and many of his exploits feature in Hugh Lunn's books, especially ''Over the Top with Jim'' and ''Head Over Heels''. In later years, he was instrumental in gaining significant funding for medical research in Australia, through his association with Chuck Feeney. In 2008, Hugh Lunn published ''The Great Fletch'', a book on Ken's life around the globe. Fletcher died of cancer at the age of 65 and was buried at the Mount Gravatt Lawn Cemetery, Brisbane. In January 2012, Ken Fletcher was inducted into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame. In 2013, the Ken Fletcher memorial was erected in the park, outside the Queensland Tennis Centre, named in his honour. He is the only player in the history of tennis, to win a grand slam, in mixed doubles in 1963, that is not enshrined in 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 ...

Biography

Grands Slam finals

Singles: 1 (1 runner-up)

Doubles: 9 (2 titles, 7 runners-up)

Mixed doubles: 11 (10 titles, 1 runner-up)

References

External links

Further reading