One of Australian tennis’ greats, John Fitzgerald, stopped by Gunnedah last week to personally hand over free racquets to local school children.
Fitzgerald is a former world doubles’ number one and men’s doubles Grand Slam winner – having won the big four titles of the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open during the mid-1980s.
The legend of the game spoke to students at Gunnedah South Public School about the highs and lows of his professional tennis career.
He also handed over 250 free tennis racquets as part of the Hot Shots Tennis Racquet Roadshow. The Tennis Australia initiative encourages school children to pick up a racquet and play tennis as part of their health and physical education curriculum.
“I received my first racquet when I was about your age,” Fitzgerald told the Gunnedah audience.
During a brief question and answer session, the primary school students were keen to quiz the now 63-year-old about his early beginnings in the sport.
A question from Nate asked “why did you start playing tennis?”
“Because I liked it,” Fitzgerald said simply. “I was lucky to have two brothers who taught me how to play.”
Fellow South student Londyn asked “who was the toughest player to play against”.
Fitzgerald said he had faced at least 10 players who at the time had been ranked number one in the world in singles. But if he had to name one, it was former Czech-American tennis player Ivan Lendl who proved his toughest adversary.
“I beat him once but he beat me about eight times,” Fitzgerald quipped.
Asked by another student about his favourite venue to play, Fitzgerald named the historic Wimbledon as his top choice.
“That was the tournament I wanted to play in when I was a little boy,” he said.
“It was pretty special.”
One of the last questions enquired how the tennis ambassador “bounced back” after defeat.
Fitzgerald warned the youngster “you do a fair bit of losing” during a professional tennis career but it made him a better player in the long run.
“You need resilience … you need to stay strong mentally and learn from losing,” he said.
John Fitzgerald speaking to students in Gunnedah.
