Fred Perry

The house where Fred Perry was born, located at 33 Carrington Road, Stockport

Perry was born in 1909 in Stockport, where his father, Samuel Perry (1877–1954), was a cotton spinner.[8] For the first decade of his life, he also lived in Bolton, Lancashire, and Wallasey, Cheshire, because his father was involved in local politics. When living in Wallasey he attended Liscard Primary School and Wallasey Grammar School. Perry moved to Brentham Garden Suburb in Ealing, west London aged eleven years when his father became the national secretary of the Co-operative Party after World War I.[8] His father became the Labour and Co-operative Party Member of Parliament for Kettering in 1929.

Perry first began to play tennis on the public courts near his family's housing estate.[8] He was educated at Ealing Grammar School for Boys.

Fred Perry
Nationality	England
Medal record Men's table tennis Representing  England World Championships 1929 Budapest Singles 1929 Budapest Doubles 1929 Budapest Team 1928 Stockholm Doubles 1928 Stockholm Mixed Doubles 1928 Stockholm Team

In 1928–29 Perry won several medals in the single, double and team events in the World Table Tennis Championships.[9] He had exceptional speed and played with the Shakehand style, attacking the ball low and on the rise.

Along with the US, French and Australian Amateur championships, Perry won the Wimbledon men's title three times in succession between 1934 and 1936. His final triumph was a 6–1, 6–1, 6–0 victory over the German Baron Gottfried von Cramm which lasted less than 45 minutes. It became the quickest final in the 20th century and the second shortest of all time. Perry had been able to pick up the information from the Wimbledon masseur that von Cramm had been treated for a groin strain and was as a result having difficulty moving wide on the forehand.[10] During his amateur playing career he trained with Arsenal football club to focus on his fitness.[1]

Fred Perry (right) with Pat Hughes at White City in Sydney, Australia, in 1934

Perry's success attracted the adoration of the crowds at Wimbledon particularly as he contrasted sharply with the privileged background of most patrons and players associated with the All England Club at the time. The upper echelons of the British tennis establishment greeted his success more coolly, regarding him as an "upstart". After winning his maiden Wimbledon title, Perry recalled overhearing a Wimbledon committee member remark that "the best man didn't win." His All England Club member's tie, awarded to all winners of the Championships, was left for him on a chair in his dressing room.[11]

In the Davis Cup, Perry led the Great Britain team to four consecutive victories from 1933 to 1936, with wins over France in 1933, the United States in 1934 and 1935, and Australia in 1936. Perry competed in a total of 20 Davis Cup matches, winning 34 of his 38 rubbers in singles, and 11 out of 14 in doubles.[5]

After three years as the world No. 1 tennis amateur player, Perry turned professional in late 1936. This led to his being virtually ostracised by the British tennis establishment.[8] He made his professional debut on 6 January 1937 at the Madison Square Garden against the best professional player, Ellsworth Vines, winning in four sets.[12][13] For the next two years he played lengthy tours against Vines. In 1937, they played 61 matches in the United States on their big tour, with Vines winning 32 and Perry 29. They then sailed to Britain, where they played a brief tour. Perry won six matches out of nine, so they finished the year tied at 35 victories each. The following year, 1938, the big tour was even longer, and this time Vines beat Perry 49 matches to 35, while a short tour of the Caribbean and Central and South America ended at four victories a piece. Don Budge won the Grand Slam in 1938 as an amateur and then turned professional and played a series of matches against both Vines and Perry in 1939, beating Vines 22 times to 17, and beating Perry by 28 victories to 8.[14][15][16]

Perry also won the US Pro title in 1938 and 1941, held in Chicago in both years.

Fred Perry had a long career as a tennis broadcaster. He worked as a summariser and reporter for BBC Radio from 1959[17] to 1994[18] and for many years was a familiar voice during BBC radio's coverage of Wimbledon. He also commentated on TV on ITV's coverage of Wimbledon from 1956 to 1968, after which ITV stopped broadcasting the championships. ITV "employed me as a would-be counter-attraction to my old friend Dan Maskell on BBC Television. We were simply not able to compete and I wasn't unhappy when ITV gave it up as a bad job. The BBC had two channels to ITV's one, and were not inhibited by commercial breaks every fifteen minutes and the imposition of a strict time limit on the coverage, as ITV was", explained Perry in his autobiography.[19] In later years, Perry was sometimes interviewed by BBC Television during their Wimbledon coverage. In 1979 Perry spoke to Des Lynam at Wimbledon about his life in an episode of the TV series "Maestro". The programme was shown again as a tribute after his death.

Perry was one of the leading bachelors of the 1930s and his off-court romances were reported in the world press. Perry had a romantic relationship with actress Marlene Dietrich and in 1934 he announced his engagement to British actress Mary Lawson, but the relationship fell apart after Perry moved to the US. In 1935 he married American film star Helen Vinson, but their marriage ended in divorce in 1940. In 1941 he was briefly married to model Sandra Breaux. Then, in 1945, he married Lorraine Walsh, but that marriage also ended quickly. Perry's final marriage to Barbara Riese in 1952 lasted over forty years, until his death. They had two children, Penny and David. David led his father's clothing line prior to a buyout. The sister of Barbara "Bobby" Riese was the actress Patricia Roc.

In July 1937, an England vs America pro-celebrity tennis doubles match was organized, featuring Perry and Charlie Chaplin playing against Groucho Marx and Ellsworth Vines, to open the new clubhouse at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club.[20]

Perry had an older sister, Edith; they were both born in Stockport, Cheshire. Edith greatly supported her younger brother throughout his sporting achievements. Perry had a half sister, Sylvia.[21]

A statue of Fred Perry at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon

Perry is considered by some to have been one of the greatest players ever to have played the game. In his 1979 autobiography Jack Kramer, the long-time tennis promoter and great player himself, called Perry one of the six greatest players of all time.[23]

Kings of the Court, a video-tape documentary made in 1997 in conjunction with the International Tennis Hall of Fame, named Perry one of the ten greatest players of all time. But this documentary only considered those players who played before the Open era of tennis that began in 1968, with the exception of Rod Laver, who spanned both eras, so that all of the more recent great players are missing.

Kramer, however, had several caveats about Perry. He says that Bill Tilden once called Perry "the world's worst good player". Kramer says that Perry was "extremely fast; he had a hard body with sharp reflexes, and he could hit a forehand with a snap, slamming it on the rise—and even on the fastest grass. That shot was nearly as good as Segura's two-handed forehand." His only real weakness, says Kramer, "was his backhand. Perry hit underslice off that wing about 90 % of the time, and eventually at the very top levels—against Vines and Budge—that was what did him in. Whenever an opponent would make an especially good shot, Perry would cry out 'Very clevah.' I never played Fred competitively, but I heard enough from other guys that 'Very clevah' drove a lot of opponents crazy."

Perry, however, recalled his days on the professional tour differently. He maintained that "there was never any easing up in his tour matches with Ellsworth Vines and Bill Tilden since there was the title of World Pro Champion at stake." He said "I must have played Vines in something like 350 matches, yet there was never any fixing as most people thought. There were always people willing to believe that our pro matches weren't strictly on the level, that they were just exhibitions. But as far as we were concerned, we always gave everything we had."[24]

Another comment from Kramer is that Perry unwittingly "screwed up men's tennis in England, although this wasn't his fault. The way he could hit a forehand—snap it off like a ping-pong shot—Perry was a physical freak. Nobody else could be taught to hit a shot that way. But the kids over there copied Perry's style, and it ruined them. Even after Perry faded out of the picture, the coaches there must have kept using him as a model."

The Fred Perry Clothing Label

The classic Fred Perry design

In the late 1940s, Perry was approached by Tibby Wegner, an Austrian footballer who had invented an anti-perspirant device worn around the wrist. Perry made a few changes to create the first sweatband.

Wegner's next idea was to produce a sports shirt, which was to be made from white knitted cotton pique with short sleeves and a buttoned placket like René Lacoste's shirts. Launched at Wimbledon in 1952, the Fred Perry tennis shirt was an immediate success.[8] It is worth noting that initially it was only available in two colors - white and black. [25] The brand's logo is a laurel wreath. It was based on the original symbol for Wimbledon.[8] The logo, which appears on the left breast of Fred Perry garments, is stitched into the fabric of the shirt.[26]

The white tennis shirt was supplemented in the late 1950s with coloured versions for table tennis, in which white shirts are not allowed. These became popular in the 1960s as a symbol of mod culture. The brand had been associated with skinheads and the National Front in the 1970s.[27] In France, the brand is popular with both the far-right and far-left.[28]

The brand was initially run by the Perry family, namely his son David, until it was bought by Japanese company Hit Union in 1995. However, the Perry family continued to work closely with the brand, keeping Fred's legacy alive.[29][30]

The brand was the clothing sponsor of British tennis player Andy Murray from the start of his career until 2009.[31]

In September 2020, Perry stopped selling its black and yellow polo shirts across North America after they became the "unofficial uniform" of the far-right organisation, the Proud Boys,[32][33][27] and called on Proud Boys members to stop wearing their clothing.[34][35]

Gold 1; Silver 1; Bronze 4

• 1928 Stockholm: Silver Doubles; Bronze Mixed Doubles; Bronze Team.
• 1929 Budapest: Gold Singles; Bronze Doubles; Bronze Team.

Fred Perry joined professional tennis in 1937 and was unable to compete in the Grand Slams tournaments.

• List of male tennis players
• List of World Table Tennis Champions
• List of England players at the World Team Table Tennis Championships
• All-time tennis records – men's singles
• Open Era tennis records – men's singles
• Sergio Tacchini
• Lacoste

• McCauley, Joe (2003). The History of Professional Tennis.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fred Perry.

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• Fred Perry at the Association of Tennis Professionals
• Fred Perry at the International Tennis Federation
• Fred Perry at the Davis Cup
• Fred Perry at the International Tennis Hall of Fame
• Official Wimbledon website profile
• Fred Perry Official website
• Fred Perry Way route map