As the Junior Championships get under way on Saturday, 53 is the big number hovering over the seven British competitors in the boys’ singles draw.
The nation had to wait 77 years for Andy Murray to become Britain’s first Wimbledon men’s singles champion since Fred Perry.
The last time the nation hailed a home-grown boys’ singles victor was in 1962, when Stanley Matthews Jr beat Aleksandr Metreveli of Georgia in a tight three-setter, 10-8, 3-6, 6-4.
Matthews – the son of football’s ‘Wizard of the Dribble’, the legendary Sir Stanley Matthews whose birth centenary is celebrated this year – was coached by former BBC commentator John Barrett. “Stanley was a good mover and had a good match temperament,” he said. “His father brought him up expecting him to be a sportsman.”
From the age of seven, he followed his father and played football, showing talent but was too often on the wrong end of nasty kicks from bigger, more aggressive boys. “They all wanted to say they had ‘stopped Stanley Matthews’ and I went off the game,” he recalls, with the hindsight that comes from being 69 years of age.
A switch to tennis paid off, as did a move to London at the age of 14 to train under the auspices of the Lawn Tennis Association – aided by his father’s zeal for fitness training. When at home, young Stanley would be woken at 6.30am to go training on Blackpool beach and practise deep breathing exercises.
A notable serve and volleyer, he enjoyed a stellar junior career, which peaked with the Wimbledon boys’ title in 1962. The triumph at the age of 17 came at the tail end of a veritable feast of British junior promise in the competition’s first decade.
The Wimbledon junior championships had begun in 1947 as an invitational event on hard courts. In 1949, the boys’ and girls’ events were held in public on the outside grass courts during the second week, as it has been run ever since. It was not until 1975 that the boys’ and girls’ events attained Championship status; seeding was introduced two years later. In 1998, a Qualifying competition was introduced.
Throughout the fifties, five young Brits triumphed playing for a trophy that was called the ‘Miniature Cup’: John Horn in 1950, Bobby Wilson in 1952, Billy Knight in 1953, Mike Hann in 1955 and Jimmy Tattersall in 1957. Matthews was British Junior National Champion from 1960 to 1962 – and still holds the record for being the only three-time winner of the title.
As a senior, he went on to play all four Grand Slams and notched up 11 consecutive Wimbledon Championships, reaching the second round twice, in 1963 and 1969. With a stronger serve, he says he would have done better on the Tour. “I was a pretty good volleyer. I was steady from the baseline. I could move.”
His career highlight came in 1972 when he beat Ilie Nastase to reach the third round at Roland Garros. “Whenever I see Nastase now, he says, ‘Matthews, you have a winning record against me!’ And it’s true. I do, because we only played once.”
After 11 years on the senior Tour, he settled in Connecticut after a spell coaching young players, including John McEnroe and Vitas Gerulaitis, at Harry Hopman’s Port Washington Tennis Academy. Today he runs the Four Seasons Racquet Club in Wilton, CT, but is back at the All England Club for Wimbledon for the first time in 30 years, as keen to restate his father’s legacy and help the Sir Stanley Matthews Charity Foundation as to reminisce about tennis.
A film celebrating his father’s life is in the pipeline, a reminder of the powerful influence that still resonates from his name. Sir Stanley, passionate about developing the game in South Africa, ignored apartheid and racial segregation. Hailed as the “black man with the white face”, he was recognised as the first sportsman to pioneer international charity work with his largely unknown but extensive annual coaching of underprivileged children.
Four times since his 1962 Wimbledon boys’ singles' triumph, Stanley Matthews Jr has received a flurry of phone calls asking how he would feel to see his record go when other British boys have reached the junior singles' final. There was Stephen Warboys in 1971 who was defeated by Robert Kreiss; Buster Mottram the following year who lost to Bjorn Borg, and Miles Kasiri who was overwhelmed by Gael Monfils in 2004. “The last time was Liam Broady four years ago, and my answer was, ‘I hope he wins and you can stop calling me,’” he jokes.
At the start of this year's Junior event, the boys' No.12 seed Mikael Ymer, brother of Elias, who fell to Ivo Karlovic in the men’s first round, impressed with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Chan-Yeong Oh from South Korea.
Sadly for British fans there was no win for home players to celebrate. However, Ryan James Storrie, from Dorchester, battled for over two hours against Nuno Borges, of Portugal, before falling just short, losing 9-7 in the decider.
The seeded players generally progressed to the second round with relative ease but No.10 seed Tereza Mihalikova was on the wrong end of the upset of the day, losing 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 to Russia's Aleksandra Pospelova.
2015 is Sir Stanley Matthews Centenary year. Follow Sir Stanley Matthews official page on Twitter @SSMseven and Facebook www.facebook.com/ssm.seven