Norman Brookes

Sir Norman Brookes

Brookes and his wife, Mabel, in 1914
Full name	Norman Everard Brookes
Country	Australia
Born	(1877-11-14)November 14, 1877 Melbourne
Died	September 28, 1968(1968-09-28) (aged 90) Melbourne
Height	5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Weight	150 lb (68 kg)
Turned pro	Grand Slam debut in 1905
Retired	1928
Plays	Left Handed (1-handed backhand)[1]
Int. Tennis HOF	1977 (member page)
Singles
Highest ranking	No. 1 (1907)
Grand Slam Singles results
Australian Open	W (1911)
French Open	2R (1928)
Wimbledon	W (1907, 1914)
US Open	QF (1919)
Doubles
Grand Slam Doubles results
Australian Open	W (1924)
French Open	-
Wimbledon	W (1907, 1914)
US Open	W (1919)
Last updated on: 23 May 2012.

Sir Norman Everard Brookes (14 November 1877 – 28 September 1968) was an Australian tennis champion and president of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia.

Biography

Brookes was born in Melbourne, to a father, William Brookes, who had become rich from gold mining in the Bendigo area. He received a private education at Melbourne Grammar School. On leaving school, he went to work as a clerk at the paper mill where his father was managing director, and was on the board himself within eight years.

Brookes married 20-year-old Mabel Balcombe Emmerton, the daughter of Harry Emmerton, a solicitor, on 19 April 1911 at St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne. They had three daughters.

During World War I he served as commissioner of the Australian branch of the British Red Cross in Egypt.

He died in South Yarra in 1968.

Tennis career

As a youth Brookes played regularly on the court of the family mansion in Queens Road, Melbourne and nearby, at the Lorne St courts, he studied the strokes and tactics of leading players.

Brookes was the first non-Briton to win the men's singles at Wimbledon. He won the men's singles twice, first in 1907 and again in 1914. He also won the doubles in each of those years with New Zealander Anthony Wilding, whom he beat in the 1914 singles Final. He was a major figure in establishing the Australian Open (known as the Australasian Championship until 1927), which he won in 1911. Brookes is considered to have been a World No. 1 player in the 1900s.

Brookes played 39 Davis Cup matches for Australia/New Zealand and the Australian Davis Cup Team between 1905 and 1920.

Brookes was instrumental in the development of Kooyong as a tennis centre. In 1926 he became the first president of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia, a post he held for the next 28 years.

Australian rules football career

Brookes was also an Australian rules footballer in his youth, playing two matches for Victorian Football League club St Kilda Football Club in 1898, kicking two goals.^[2]

Honours

Norman Brookes was knighted "in recognition of service to public service" in 1939.^[3] Lady Brookes (C.B.E. in 1933) became Dame Mabel Brookes in 1955 for her work in charities and social causes.

The trophy for men's singles at the Australian Open, the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup, is named in his honour.

He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1977.

In 1981 he was honoured on a postage stamp issued by Australia Post depicting a cartoon image by Tony Rafty.^[4]

Grand Slam record

Australian Championships

• Singles champion: 1911
• Doubles champion: 1924

Wimbledon

• Singles champion: 1907, 1914
• Singles finalist: 1905, 1919
• Doubles champion: 1907, 1914

U.S. Championships

• Doubles champion: 1919

Notes

External links

• ADB biography
• W. H. Frederick, 'Brookes, Sir Norman Everard (1877–1968)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 7, Melbourne University Press, 1979, pp 427–428.
• Dame Mabel Brookes, Memoires (Macmillan, 1974)
• International Tennis Hall of Fame
• Norman Brookes at the Davis Cup