Brian Teacher

 

Brian Teacher

Country	United States
Residence	San Diego, California
Date of birth	December 23 1954 (1954--) (age 52)
Place of birth	Omaha, Nebraska
Height	6'3 (190 cm)
Weight	175 lbs (79 kg)
Turned Pro	-
Plays	Right-handed
Career Prize Money	$1,426,514
Singles
Career record:	335 - 235
Career titles:	8
Highest ranking:	7 (19-Oct-81)
Grand Slam results
Australian Open	W (1980)
French Open	-
Wimbledon	-
U.S. Open	-
Doubles
Career record:	220 - 172
Career titles:	16
Highest ranking:	28 (2-Jan-84)
Infobox last updated on: January 22, 2007.

Brian David Teacher was born in San Diego, California, on (December 23, 1954) and was a 6' 3" right handed professional American male tennis player.

He was World # 7 in 1981.

Tennis career

Teacher learned both tennis and swimming at the age of five, but concentrated solely on tennis after ear and throat troubles caused him to give up swimming.

In 1972 he won the Boys' 18 singles and doubles titles.

The following year, Teacher enrolled at the University of California-Los Angeles where he was an All-American from 1973-76, won the Pacific 8 singles and doubles championship in 1974, and was a member of UCLA's NCAA championship teams in 1975-76.

In 1976, just shy of graduating from UCLA with a degree in economics, Teacher turned pro.

In 1977 he won his first singles title, and reached the finals in both the South Australian and New South Wales Opens.

In 1978, Teacher created a sensation at the Seiko World Super Tennis Tournament in Tokyo, by upsetting UCLA graduates Jimmy Connors and Arthur Ashe, losing only in the finals to Bjorn Borg, 6-3, 6-4.

Teacher is best remembered for his victory at the Australian Open in 1980. He won the Open in straight sets (7-5, 7-6, 6-2) over Kim Warwick of Australia, becoming the first Jewish male to win a singles title in a Grand Slam event since the 1950s.

He won eight career singles titles, and 16 in doubles.

Style of play

He was a terrific player on faster surfaces, where he could use a serve-and-volley attack.

Hall of Fame

Teacher was inducted in 2001 into the ITA Intercollegiate Tennis Hall of Fame.[1]

Grand Slam singles finals

Wins (1)

Year	Championship	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1980	Australian Open	Kim Warwick	7-5, 7-6, 6-2

Singles titles (8)

Legend Grand Slam (1) Tennis Masters Cup (0) Grand Prix (7)

Titles by Surface Hard (2) Grass (2) Clay (0) Carpet (4)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	1977	Jackson, U.S.	Carpet	Bill Scanlon	6-3, 6-3
2.	1978	Taipei, Taiwan	Carpet	Tom Gorman	6-3, 6-3, 6-3
3.	1979	Newport, U.S.	Grass	Stan Smith	1-6, 6-3, 6-4
4.	1980	Australian Open, Melbourne	Grass	Kim Warwick	7-5, 7-6, 6-2
5.	1981	Columbus, U.S.	Hard	John Austin	6-3, 6-2
6.	1982	Dortmund WCT, Germany	Carpet	Wojtek Fibak	6-7, 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4
7.	1983	Munich WCT, Germany	Carpet	Mark Dickson	1-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-3
8.	1983	Columbus, U.S.	Hard	Bill Scanlon	7-6, 6-4

Runner-ups (15)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	1976	Newport, U.S.	Grass	Vijay Amritraj	6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1
2.	1977	Adelaide, Australia	Grass	Victor Amaya	6-1, 6-4
3.	1977	Sydney Outdoor, Australia	Grass	Roscoe Tanner	6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-7, 6-4
4.	1978	Tokyo Indoor, Japan	Carpet	Björn Borg	6-3, 6-4
5.	1980	Los Angeles, U.S.	Hard	Gene Mayer	6-3, 6-2
6.	1980	Hong Kong	Hard	Ivan Lendl	5-7, 7-6, 6-3
7.	1980	Taipei, Taiwan	Carpet	Ivan Lendl	6-7, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6
8.	1980	Bangkok, Thailand	Carpet	Vijay Amritraj	6-3, 7-5
9.	1980	Sydney Outdoor, Australia	Grass	Fritz Buehning	6-3, 6-7, 7-6
10.	1981	San Francisco, U.S.	Carpet	Eliot Teltscher	6-3, 7-6
11.	1982	Maui, U.S.	Hard	John Fitzgerald	6-2, 6-3
12.	1983	Dallas, U.S.	Hard	Andrés Gómez	6-7, 6-1, 6-1
13.	1984	Bristol, England	Grass	Johan Kriek	6-7, 7-6, 6-4
14.	1984	Gstaad, Switzerland	Clay	Joakim Nyström	6-4, 6-2
15.	1985	Livingston, U.S.	Hard	Brad Gilbert	7-6, 6-4

Miscellaneous

• After he retired he completed his undergraduate work, and went on to business school at the University of Southern California.

• He has two daughters with wife Lori: Noel and Kelly.

• The book Superlearning 2000 (update on the 1979 original version) attributes the rise in Teacher's career during 1980 to his experiments with suggestive accelerated learning methods, which were introduced to him by Powell Blankenship, a tennis teacher in San Diego.

Links

• Official ATP Profile
• Jews in Sports bio

Australian Open men's singles champions*

* Open Era • (1969) Rod Laver • (1970) Arthur Ashe • (1971-72) Ken Rosewall • (1973) John Newcombe • (1974) Jimmy Connors • (1975) John Newcombe • (1976) Mark Edmondson • (1977 [Jan]) Roscoe Tanner • (1977 [Dec]) Vitas Gerulaitis • (1978-79) Guillermo Vilas • (1980) Brian Teacher • (1981-82) Johan Kriek • (1983-84) Mats Wilander • (1985) Stefan Edberg • (1986) No competition • (1987) Stefan Edberg • (1988) Mats Wilander • (1989-90) Ivan Lendl • (1991) Boris Becker (1992-93) Jim Courier • (1994) Pete Sampras • (1995) Andre Agassi • (1996) Boris Becker • (1997) Pete Sampras • (1998) Petr Korda • (1999) Yevgeny Kafelnikov • (2000-01) Andre Agassi • (2002) Thomas Johansson • (2003) Andre Agassi • (2004) Roger Federer • (2005) Marat Safin • (2006-07) Roger Federer

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