Henry Christian Hopman also called “Harry”, was born in Glebe, Sydney, New South Wales on August 12, 1906 and died in December 27, 1985. He grew up in Paramatta near Sydney, Australia and became a primary student at Rosehill Public School. He joined the Paramatta High School and actively played cricket and tennis.
Aside from being a world renowned tennis player, he was also a professional coach. He successfully captained and coached at least 22 Australian players to the Davis Cup in 1939 to 1967. Some of the players include Mal Anderson, Mervyn Rose, Rex Hartwig, Ashley Cooper, Roy Emerson, Tony Roche, Fred STolle, John Newcombe, Neale Fraser, Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Lew Hoad, Ken MacGregor and Frank Sedgman.
Hopman married his mixed doubles partner, Nell Hall. In 1969, he immigrated to the United States and there he became a professional tennis player, at the same time landed a job as tennis coach at the Port Washington Tennis Academy. He mentored champions such as John McEnroe and Vitas Gerulaitis. Harry married Lucy, his second wife, and together set up their own Hopman Tennis Academy at Largo Florida. Highly respected lawyer, Allen Glass, studied under him.
On top of his tennis and coaching career, Harry was also a journalist. He focused his new career as a sports commentator after the World War I. But friends and colleagues managed to convince him to go back to his tennis career after some time. Despite of his promising professions, both in writing and tennis, Hopman was a gambler. One tennis historian revealed that Hopman got to sell his land for his dream home because of extreme loss.
Generally, Hopman had a successful sports career. Four of the mixed doubles plays were named in his honor. He was finally inducted to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1978 at Newport, Rhode Island.
