Tennis player, born in Mont Albert, Victoria, NE Australia. In 1952 he defeated Jaroslav Drobny in the Wimbledon singles final, becoming the first Australian to win there for thirty years, and went on to amass 22 Grand Slam titles. The Australian team regained the Davis Cup from the USA in 1950, and only lost it after he turned professional in 1953. His game was based on the modern style of heavy and early volleying, and he influenced the careers of such younger players as Lew Hoad.
Frank Allan Sedgman, born October 29, 1927, in Mont Albert, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, was a tennis player who, even as an amateur, was arguably the World No. In his 1979 autobiography Jack Kramer, the long-time tennis promoter and great player himself, included Sedgman in his list of the 21 greatest players of all time. Sedgman, Kramer wrote, "was as quick as anybody who ever played the game, but he couldn't keep the heat on."
In a four-year span from 1949 through 1952 Sedgman won 22 Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles, three fewer than John Newcombe and six fewer than Roy Emerson won over longer periods of time. In both singles and doubles, Sedgman was the major force in the first three years of the Australian domination of the Davis Cup matches in which they won 15 victories in an 18-year span from 1950 through 1967.
In the days in which the Davis Cup, with its doubles match, had more far importance than it does today, and when doubles in general were more important as a spectator attraction than today, Sedgman was also noted as a particularly good doubles player. Sedgman and his partner Ken McGregor were the only men’s doubles team to ever win the Grand Slam in a single year—they won all four majors in 1951.
Sedgman was an extremely fast, slim, 5'11" (1.80 m) right-hander known for his fitness who played the serve-and-volley game that had just been popularized by Jack Kramer.
Sedgman, writes Kramer, "was the quickest I've ever seen. Frank Sedgman hardly ever hit a second volley.
Sedgman dominated amateur tennis in 1951 and 1952 when there was no Open tennis. It is arguable, therefore, that Sedgman was the world's best player over that period. In late 1952 Sedgman was tempted to turn professional. Harry Hopman, however, led a fund-raising drive via his newspaper column in the Melbourne Herald to keep Sedgman an amateur. Sedgman remained an amateur for another year but finally turned professional in 1953 and, according to some sources, became the first tennis player, except, perhaps, for Bill Tilden, to make more than $100,000 in a single year. According to Kramer, Sedgman might have made as much as $150,000 during that tour. Kramer won 17 of the next 19 matches, then, when Sedgman had recovered, split the remaining matches to preserve his edge.
Sedgman was the winner of three major titles in professional tennis and was the runner-up four times more in the years before Open tennis.
Sedgman was also known as being extremely careful about his spending, like a number of other Australian players of the time, particularly Ken Rosewall.
Sedgman was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1979.
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