Robert C. Brien (born 26 October 1944 in Sydney) was a

tennis 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 c ...

player in the 1960s and 1970s.

Tennis career

In 1963 Brien, with Greg Cotterill, won the

Australian Championships The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. ...

Boys Doubles Championship. As a 19-year-old who had been in the United States for four months, Brien reached the final at the

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state lin ...

tournament in 1964 before losing to

Herb Fitzgibbon Herbert Fitzgibbon (born July 14, 1942) is a former tennis player who was nationally ranked in the 1960s and 1970s. Fitzgibbon played four years of high school tennis for Garden City High School and never lost a match. He played collegiate tenn ...

. According to an article in the 5 July 1964, edition of ''

The Cincinnati Enquirer ''The Cincinnati Enquirer'' is a morning daily newspaper published by Gannett in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. First published in 1841, the ''Enquirer'' is the last remaining daily newspaper in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, altho ...

'', Brien had defeated

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 ...

Owen Davidson Owen Keir Davidson (born 4 October 1943) is a former 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 mixed doubles, whe ...

Tony Roche Anthony Dalton Roche AO 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 Wagga. He won one Grand Slam singles title, th ...

and Bill Lenoir. Brien played collegiate tennis at

Mississippi State University Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Univer ...

. He was an All-American in 1966 and 1967. Brien finished his collegiate tennis career with a 67–1 career winning record. In 1981 Brien was inducted into the Mississippi State University Sports Hall of Fame. Brien was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 1985.

References

Australian expatriate sportspeople in the United States Australian male tennis players Mississippi State Bulldogs tennis players Tennis players from Sydney Living people 1944 births Grand Slam (tennis) champions in boys' doubles Australian Championships (tennis) junior champions 20th-century Australian people {{Australia-tennis-bio-stub