Norman Brookes

Sir Norman Brookes was an Australian tennis player from Melbourne who became the first non-British player and the first left-hander to win the men's singles title at Wimbledon, in 1907, and won it again in 1914. He also took the 1911 Australasian Championships, giving him three Grand Slam singles titles, and he won the Wimbledon doubles with Anthony Wilding in both of his singles years. Brookes was a long-serving member of the Australasian and Australian Davis Cup teams, playing 39 matches between 1905 and 1920 and sharing in five winning campaigns. Born in St Kilda, the son of a wealthy paper-mill executive, he balanced tennis with a business career and skipped most overseas events. He helped build Kooyong into a major tennis centre and served as the first president of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia from 1926 to 1955. The Australian Open men's trophy is named in his honour, and he entered the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1977.