Kenneth Gandar-Dower - Sporting Career

Sporting Career

Gandar-Dower became a leading tennis player, competing in a number of tournaments throughout the 1930s, including Wimbledon and the French Championships. He was nicknamed "The undying retriever" for his ability to run large distances during matches.

At the 1932 Queen's Club Championship in London Gandar-Dower had his greatest tennis success when he defeated Harry Hopman in three sets. Newspaper reports stated that he "had Hopman perplexed with his unorthodox game and the number of astonishingly low volleys from apparently impossible positions."

Gandar-Dower also won the British Amateur Squash championships in 1938 and continued to play cricket competitively throughout the 1930s.

Gandar-Dower twice won the principal trophy in Eton Fives - the Kinnaird Cup - in 1929 and 1932, and was in the defeated pair in the 1931 final.

Gandar-Dower caused a reputation for himself in real tennis through his tactic of getting to the net as quickly as possible and volleying everything in sight. This was frowned upon by traditionalists and it was considered that Gandar-Dower "disrupted the game for a while".

Read more about this topic:  Kenneth Gandar-Dower

Famous quotes containing the words sporting and/or career:

    The Boston papers had never told me that there were seals in the harbor. I had always associated these with the Esquimaux and other outlandish people. Yet from the parlor windows all along the coast you may see families of them sporting on the flats. They were as strange to me as the merman would be. Ladies who never walk in the woods, sail over the sea. To go to sea! Why, it is to have the experience of Noah,—to realize the deluge. Every vessel is an ark.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.
    Ruth Behar (b. 1956)