| Biography | Rodney George "Rod" Laver MBE (born 9 August 1938 in Rockhampton, Queensland) is an Australian former professional tennis player who holds the record for most singles titles won in the history of tennis, with 200 career titles. He was ranked World No. 1 for seven consecutive years, from 1964 to 1970 (from 1964 to 1967 in the professional circuit) and also in 1961 and 1962 (by Lance Tingay of The Daily Telegraph). He is the only tennis player to have won the Grand Slam (all four major singles titles in the same year) twice, in 1962 and 1969, and is the only male player to have done this during the open era. He also won the Pro Grand Slam in 1967. Laver won a total of 19 Major singles titles, including 11 Grand Slams and 8 Pro Slams. Rod Laver is the third player, behind Roy Emerson and Margaret Court, to win each major singles title twice in his career. He also won a total of 9 Major doubles titles including 6 Grand Slam men's doubles and 3 Grand Slam mixed doubles.
He hold the all-time male records of 22 singles titles in a season (1962) and 7 consecutive years (1964-70) winning at least 10 singles titles per season. In addition to this he won 9 Championship Series titles (197075). He was the first player to win 5 Championship series titles in one season (1970) and to reach 6 finals in a season (1970). The Championship series were precursors to the current Masters 1000. Laver won and excelled on all the surfaces of his time (grass, clay and wood/parquet), and was ranked as the best professional player in the world during the five-year period he was excluded from the Grand Slam tournaments. Laver is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time. |