Stanley Roger Smith (born December 14, 1946) is an American former tennis player, best known to non-tennis players as the namesake of a popular brand of tennis shoes.
A world No. 1 tennis player and two-time major singles champion, Smith also paired with Bob Lutz to create one of the most successful doubles teams of all time.
In 1970, Smith won the inaugural year-end championships title.
Smith's two major singles titles were the 1971 US Open and 1972 Wimbledon.
In 1972, he was the year-end world No. 1 singles player.
In 1973, he won his second and last year end championship title at the Dallas WCT Finals.
In addition, he won four Grand Prix Championship Series titles.
In his early years he improved his tennis game through lessons from Pancho Segura, the Pasadena Tennis Patrons, and the sponsorship of the Southern California Tennis Association headed by Perry T. Jones.
Career
Smith grew up in Pasadena, California and was coached mainly by Pancho Segura.
He played collegiate tennis at the University of Southern California (USC), under Coach George Toley, where he was a three-time All-American and won the 1968 NCAA Singles Championship as well as the 1967 and 1968 doubles titles.
At USC, Smith was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity's Gamma Tau chapter.
As a kid, he went to get a job as a ball boy for the Davis Cup, but was turned down because the organizers thought he was too clumsy.
In 1971 Smith and John Newcombe were joint recipients of The Martini and Rossi Award, voted for by 11 journalists and were co-ranked world No. 1 by Judith Elian.
In 1972 Smith won the 'Martini and Rossi' Award, voted for by a panel of journalists and was ranked world No. 1 by Elian, Tingay, World Tennis, Collins and Rex Bellamy.The Times (London), 13 December 1972, p. 9
In his 1979 testing autobiography, Jack Kramer, the long-time tennis promoter and great player himself, ranked Smith as one of the 21 best players of all time.Kramer considered the best player ever to have been either Don Budge (for consistent play) or Ellsworth Vines (at the height of his game).
The next four best were, chronologically, Bill Tilden, Fred Perry, Bobby Riggs, and Pancho Gonzales.
After these six came the "second echelon" of Rod Laver, Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall, Gottfried von Cramm, Ted Schroeder, Jack Crawford, Pancho Segura, Frank Sedgman, Tony Trabert, John Newcombe, Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Björn Borg, and Jimmy Connors.
He felt unable to rank Henri Cochet and René Lacoste accurately but felt they were among the very best.
In 2005, TENNIS magazine ranked Smith as 35th in its "40 Greatest Players of the TENNIS Era".
Smith was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987.
Following his playing career, Smith became active as a coach for the United States Tennis Association.
He has his own tennis academy with Billy Stearns, located on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
In 1974, Smith married Princeton University tennis player Marjory Gengler.
They later mentored South African tennis player Mark Mathabane, helping increase pressure on the South African government to end apartheid.
Smith lives in Hilton Head with his wife and four children, all of whom competed in collegiate tennis.
Tennis shoes
To non-tennis players, Stan Smith is probably best known for the line of tennis shoes which Adidas renamed after him in 1978.
Although the Adidas Stan Smith shoe is not recommended for modern tennis playing, it continues to be a widely available iconic fashion brand.Tennis.com – Blog – The Pro Shop by Bill Gray – My Adidas Grand Slam finals
Singles: 3 (2 titles, 1 runner-up)
Doubles: 13 (5 titles, 8 runner-ups)
Career finals
Note: Smith won 10 titles before the Open Era Singles: 95 (64 titles, 31 runner-ups)
* 48 Open Era titles listed by the ATP website
Doubles (54 titles, 27 runner-ups)
Grand Slam performance timeline
Singles
References
Further reading
Little Pancho (2009) by Caroline Seebohm
The Golden Age of College Tennis (2009) by George Toley
External links
