In his 1979 autobiography Jack Kramer, the long-time tennis promoter and great player himself, included Trabert in his list of the 21 greatest players of all time[1]
Trabert was a standout athlete, a starter on the basketball team and 1951 University Intercollegiate singles championship winner at the University of Cincinnati.
Trabert's record in 1955 was one of the greatest ever by an American tennis player. He won the three most prestigious tournaments in amateur tennis - the French, Wimbledon, and American championships - en route to being ranked World No. 1 among the amateurs for that year. Only Grand Slam winners Don Budge and Rod Laver have ever achieved the same feat. Trabert's own chance at a Grand Slam was stopped with a loss in the semi-finals at the Australian championships. Trabert won 18 tournaments in 1955, compiling a match record of 106 wins to 7 losses.
An extremely athletic right-hander who mostly played a serve and volley game, Trabert also won the French singles in 1954 and the U.S. championship in 1953. In fact, he won the only five Grand Slam event finals he appeared in. He won the French doubles in 1950, 1954, and 1955. Trabert, along with Vic Seixas, was an American Davis Cup team mainstay during the early 1950s, during which time the Americans reached the finals 5 times, winning the cup in 1954. It was their only victory over the dominant Australian teams during the decade.
Having reached the top amateur ranking in '55, Trabert turned professional in 1956. He was beaten on the head-to-head tour by the reigning king of professional tennis Pancho Gonzales, 74 matches to 27. He beat Gonzales for the French Pro Championship in 1956, however, and beat Frank Sedgman for the same title in 1959. He was runner-up to Sedgman in the London Indoor Pro in 1958; in the U.S. Pro Championships he was runner-up to Alec Olmedo in 1960.
Forty years after his matches with Gonzales, Trabert told interviewer Joe McCauley "that Gonzales' serve was the telling factor on their tour � it was so good that it earned him many cheap points. Trabert felt that, while he had the better groundstrokes, he could not match Pancho's big, fluent service."[2]
In 2004, Trabert announced that the Wimbledon Championships he was commentating that year would be his last.
Trabert was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 1970.
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