Owen Davidson, an Australian tennis player who won 13 Grand Slam doubles titles, including eight with Billie Jean King, while establishing himself among the most accomplished mixed doubles players in history, died May 12 at a care center. He was 79.
The cause was cancer, said Isabel Suliga, his longtime friend and caretaker. Mr. Davidson lived nearby in the Woodlands, a planned community north of Houston.
dominant doubles players of the 1960s and early ’70s. While he never advanced past the semifinals of a major singles tournament, he won two Grand Slam titles in men’s doubles and 11 in mixed doubles, more than any player but Doris Hart and Margaret Court .Mr. Davidson, who was known as “Davo,” was part of a generation of powerhouse Australian players that included fellow Hall of Famers Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, John Newcombe, Ken Rosewall and Fred Stolle.
When they first started training together, practicing in Melbourne in 1964 in a two-on-one drill with Emerson, Mr. Davidson “sent me around the court like a pinball,” she wrote. “After five minutes I thought I was going to collapse — and that was just the first day.“I’ve always said the Australian men made me No. 1,” she continued, “and those sessions were an important part of it.”
In all, they won one French championship, three U.S. titles and four trophies at Wimbledon, where their title victories included an epic 1971 triumph over Court and Riessen, 3-6, 6-2, 15-13., “and at 13-all, I said to him, ‘Owen, let’s get out of here.’ And so we did,” winning the next two games.In 1967, Mr. Davidson became only the third player to ever win a calendar-year Grand Slam in mixed doubles.
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