5 greatest Australian tennis players of all time

#1 Rod Laver

The Australian Open is held at the Rod Laver Arena, named for the tennis legend

The name is synonymous with tennis. Laver is not just one of Australia’s greatest – he is regarded as one of the most iconic players to have played the game. The 11-time singles Grand Slam winner won every single Slam on multiple occasions.

Laver’s biggest singles success at Grand Slams came at Wimbledon, where he won 4 titles. He won 3 at his home Slam – the Australian Open, and two each at the US Open and Wimbledon, and has been most successful at the doubles on his home hard court, winning that title 4 times.

The now 79-year-old was coached by another legendary Australian player – then-Davis Cup captain Harry Hopman, in whose honour the Hopman Cup was named.

He is one of a number of players who had immense success both before and during the (current) Open Era of tennis. Making his debut in 1963, Laver was part of the winning Davis Cup side that year, and was considered the world’s no. 1 player by 1965, winning 17 titles that year.

Then, with the advent of the Open Era and professionals being permitted to play Grand Slams again, Laver won Wimbledon in 1968 to become the first Open Era champion at the tournament.

That year, he was officially ranked World No. 1 – and the next year, took his second Calendar Slam, also winning 18 of the 32 professional tournaments he played, and setting the record for most titles in a single tennis season. It is a title that, nearly 50 years on, is still held by Laver himself. He’d win 15 the following year.

One of the ‘older’ players in the Open Era, he won 74 titles – of which 69 were taken when he was older than 30, which is considered past a tennis player’s prime.

Top-ranked both before and after official rankings came into play, successfully defending titles before and during the Open Era, and with near-unsurpassed success across surfaces, Laver has gone down in history as one of the legends of the game.