ABSTRACT
The Harry Hopman era in amateur lawn tennis began at Forest Hills in 1950, when the Australian Davis Cup team, under Hopman's captaincy, squeezed out a 3-2 victory over the United States in the challenge round. Harry Hopman was a first-rate tennis player back in the Jack Crawford era. An only child, his tennis-loving father often took him to his neighborhood tennis club where he taught him tennis from the age of 5. Vic Seixas was always a perfect gentleman on and off the tennis court, and followed Jack Kramer as the second William M. Johnston Award winner in 1948. The childless Hopmans were devoted to each other and to tennis. In the first place, tennis in his Australia was an extremely egalitarian game and recognized as a major sport. Most important of all, the class of gentlemen who ran tennis in 1933 still valued manners above money.
