Adrian Quist serves notice in Adelaide before being Australian tennis great, especially in doubles, in the 1930s
Adrian Quist in action and (inset, at right) with fellow South Australian tennis player Don Turnbull at a ship party on the way to England to represent Australian in the Davis Cup. On that trip in 1935, Quist, at 22, established himself as a doubles great, winning titles at both Roland-Garros (with Jack Crawford) and Wimbledon.
Inset image courtesy State Library of South Australia
South Australian Adrian Quist was a three-times Australian tennis men’s singles champion and Davis Cup player and captain but primarily remembered as a great doubles player. He won the Australian doubles title 10 years straight, the last eight with John Bromwich. Quist also held the most top-level tennis victories by any Australian until another South Australian Lleyton Hewitt surpassed that record in 2010 in Cairns.
Born on 1913 at North Adelaide to Karl and Carmel Quist, Adrian Quist’s grandfather Christian Ludwig Qwist had migrated from Denmark to the Victorian goldfields in 1853 and became a leading gold- and silversmith in Sydney. His sons Christian (sculler) and Karl (cricketer) were prominent sportsmen.
Adrian Quist was educated at Glenelg Public School and Pulteney Grammar where he excelled at cricket and captained the school’s tennis team. In 1928, he became a clerk with North British and Mercantile Insurance. Encouraged to concentrate on tennis by a visiting family friend — English cricketer E. H. Patsy Hendren — Quist had local success as a junior and was chosen for Linton Cup teams 1930-33. He won the Australian junior doubles title in 1930 and 1932, with South Australians Don Turnbull and Len Schwartz.
Quist's 1933 Australian junior singles title assured his selection for the Davis Cup team when Harry Hopman became unavailable. Quist was on the team until 1939 when Australia first won the cup in its own right, and he was playing captain in 1948. His Davis Cup record – 23 wins in 33 singles matches and 19 of 22 doubles – stood for many years.
He won Australian doubles titles with Turnbull (1936, 1937) and then John Bromwich (1938-40, 1946-50). In 1936, 1940 and 1948, he was Australian singles champion. Overseas victories included the 1935 French and Wimbledon doubles with Jack Crawford; United States (1939) and Wimbledon (1950) doubles with Bromwich; and 1960, French and United States doubles with Frenchman Jean Borotra.
A highlight of his two decades career before and after World War II was the 1939 Davis Cup tie when, with the United States two matches up, his unexpected five-set victory over Bobby Riggs enabled Australia to go on and win. While in the army during World War II, Quist played only exhibition tennis around Australia. Quist regarded his volley and overhead game as his strengths, used so well in doubles. He and Bromwich were among the first to use the serve and volley technique well suited to grass and defined the modern game.
Impressed by the less restrictive clothing worn overseas, he was an early convert to wearing shorts despite official criticism at home. He introduced to Australia the herringbone-soled Volley sandshoe, based on a yachting shoe he and Bromwich wore in the United States of America in 1939. Made by Dunlop, it became a bestseller. In 1937, Quist had been appointed a director of Dunlop Sports and moved to Melbourne and later Sydney as New South Wales manager. From 1963-67, Quist was general manager of Dunlop’s sports goods division and director of other subsidiaries taken over by the company.
He continued a role in tennis as a commentator and broadcaster, with insights during Australian Broadcasting Commission radio broadcasts of the Davis Cup. When professional tennis started to take over, Quist supported Jack Kramer’s quest to give players more control over sponsors and national and state associations. Quist saw that the tie-break system, invented by his friend Jimmy Van Alen, allowed competitors to play to an older age but criticised professionals for lack of commitment to Davis Cup.
Quist was inducted into the international tennis hall of fame (1984) and Australian tennis hall of fame, posthumously (1998).
