Frederick John Perry (18 May 1909 – 2 February 1995) was a championship-winning English tennis and table tennis player who won 10 Majors including eight Grand Slams and two Pro Slams. Perry won three consecutive Wimbledon Championships from 1934 to 1936 and was World No. 1 four years in a row. Perry is the last British player to win the men's Wimbledon championship, in 1936,[1] and was the last British player to win a Men's singles Grand Slam title until Andy Murray won the US Open in 2012.

When Fred was a boy he lived briefly at Bolton and then at Liverpool. Towards the end of the First World War the family moved to London, and it was while living at Brentham, near Ealing, that Fred's sporting talents began to blossom.

He played football and cricket but his great passion was table tennis. It was not until he was 14 that he started playing tennis, inspired by watching the game at Devonshire Park, Eastbourne.

In 1950 he founded Fred Perry Sportswear with Theodore Wegner, and worked hard to turn it into one of the world's best-known sportswear brand names.

From 1948 he was a member of the BBC's radio commentary team at Wimbledon, and from 1977 a founder member of the panel of former champions established by the International Tennis Federation to nominate the men's world champion.

Perry was acclaimed across the tennis world, but was not universally admired in his homeland, and was widely ostracised by the tennis establishment for turning professional after completing a hat-trick of Wimbledon singles triumphs. After becoming disillusioned with the class-conscious nature of the Lawn Tennis Club of Great Britain, the working-class Perry moved to the United States before becoming a naturalised US citizen in 1938. In 1942, he was drafted into the US Air Force during the Second World War.

Grand Slam Record

Australian Championship

• Singles Champion 1934
• Doubles Champion 1934

French Open

• Singles Champion 1935
• Doubles Champion 1933
• Mixed Doubles Champion 1932

Wimbledon

• Singles Champion 1934-36
• Mixed Doubles Champion 1935-36

US National Championship

• Singles Champion 1933-34, 1936
• Mixed Doubles Champion 1932

Career Achievements

• Davis Cup Team Member 1931-36

References and Resources

• http://www.tennisfame.com/hall-of-famers/fred-perry
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Perry
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8126053.stm
• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fred-perry-wimbledons-true-champion-dies-at-85-1571215.html
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/5899245/Fred-Perry.html
• http://www.fredperry.com