O.W.Sidwell may not be a household name in Tennis, yet Bill who resides in Sydney aged 88, was a great player in the 1940′s era with Adrian Quist, Geoff Brown and John Bromwich.
Today, Bill still leads an active 88 year olds life, playing and organising veterans golf events. Sounding, nowhere near his age we are indeed fortunate that Bill can recount some of his amazing tennis experiences.
At aged 15 a friendship between Bill’s father and the then Managing Director owner of Slazenger Australia, David Blacklock, helped Bill into his first job. Normally, this may sound typical for a young lad in the thirties, however Bill started school at 3, completed his leaving certificate at 15 and majored in advanced mathematics and accounting. To Slazenger, these skills applied to business modelling and management were very desirable and Bill stayed on with Slazenger for 47 years from 1935 to 1982.
No doubt with the Slazenger experience close at hand, Bill who started playing when he was 7, became a very good tennis player. In the picture right, post war 1945, the Allied forces played a UK charity match hosted by Queen Mary. Bill found it quite amusing that the US flew in one of their top players, Archie Henderson, especially for the match, however Bill won in four sets. Bill at the rear is talking with Queen Mary. He was ranked #1 in the British Empire.
1947 was a stellar year, most notably in doubles and Bill came close on three occasions to win 3 of the Grand Slam doubles events. Unfortunately as runner up at Wimbledon with Anthony Mottram, the US Open with Bill Talbert and the French Open with Tom Brown.
The important breakthough came in in 1949 playing with John Bromwich, where they won the US Open Doubles against Frank Sedgman and George Worthington 6-4,6-0, 6-1 which was Bill’s only finals win despite many attempts.
For Australia, in the Davis Cup, Bill played in the 1948 team with Colin Long and Quist in Havana to defeat Cuba, followed by a 4-1 win over Mexico and a very close Inter Zone final against Czechoslavakia 3-2.
Bill considers his Win over Drobny and Cernik (Czechoslavakia) as his pivotal matches. Drobny was ranked #5 in the World and the first rubber 4 set tussle must have been nerve racking 6-3,6-2,9-11,14-12. At two rubbers all Bill’s final match against Cernik was critical for a win which he did in 3 sets, however it was the Drobny match which gave the “under-dog” Australian side an edge. Unfortunately, the USA team were very strong and we lost 5-0 in the New York Challenge Round.
Bill recounts that the Challenge round against the USA had created a media frenzy and that a TV station had negotiated film rights with the USA team. Adrian Quist not happy with this imbalance in finances stormed off to the USA camp to negotiate half the proceeds for the Australian side. Being subsidised only $5 per day for expenses, by tennis authorities made it very enticing for players to cross over to chase larger pay packets of the professionals.
The 1949 team which introduced Frank Sedgman into the side with Bromwich saw Bill in the USA Challenge Round, again to lose to the USA team of R.Gonzales, F. Schroeder, Bill Talbert and Gardner Malloy 4-1. The only win being doubles between Bill and Bromwich over Talbert and Malloy.
In 1949, Bill was ranked #10 in the World according to the USLTA records. At the 1950 Wimbledon event Geoff Brown and Bill teamed up for the doubles and made the finals to be defeated by the other Australian Team John Bromwich and Adrian Quist.
After this sensational effort both Bill and Geoff left the game to concentrate on Slazeneger business.
The picture right shows Bill in action against F.Parker at Wimbledon 1949.
The picture below right shows Bill and Geoff Brown in action against Drobny and USA Bob Faulkenburg also at Wimbledon in 1949.
We will add more information about Bill as we research this era of Australian tennis with his son Terry.
Thanks for the photos and stories from the Sidwell family.
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