World doubles grand slam champ/No.3 Ken McGregor in 1950s quits tennis to add to family's Adelaide football fame
Ken McGregor as world grand slam tennis doubles champion and during his Adelaide football days. Top right: His father Bruce, a football champion. Bottom right: Ken McGregor, the third generation of the family to play top-grade football with the Adelaide Crows.
Ken McGregor, with partner Frank Sedgman, won an unmatched seven world tennis doubles grand slam titles in a row in 1951-52, was in Australia’s Davis Cup-winning teams 1950-52 and ranked world No.3 in 1953 – but returned that year to playing Australian rules football in Adelaide.
McGregor resumed playing with West Adelaide club in the famed footsteps of his father Bruce who had won South Australian football league’s Magarey Medal for best and fairest player in 1926 and 1927 and West Adelaide to a premiership in the latter year.
Young Ken McGregor was an allrounder, excelling in cricket, Australian football, tennis and playing lacrosse. But with his height, powerful serve and overhead smash, McGregor was persuaded to move from Adelaide to Melbourne in the late 1940s by Australia's legendary Davis Cup tennis captain Harry Hopman, who teamed him with Sedgman in in 1950 when Australia won the Davis Cup victory against the United States of America at Forest Hills, New York.
At the Australian titles in 1950, McGregor beat top seed Jaroslav Drobny in an early round before losing the final against Sedgman. In the next year’s titles, McGregor beat Adrian Quist and Arthur Larsen before losing the final to American Dick Savitt. Savitt also beat him in the Wimbledon singles final. McGregor later mused that his weakness in that game was: "Thinking about playing football when I should have been thinking about playing tennis.” McGregor won the 1952 Australian championships, beating Savitt and Sedgman in the last two rounds.
In 1953, McGregor and Sedgman signed up to Jack Kramer’s professional tennis tour, making them ineligible to compete in the amateur grand slam tournaments and Davis Cup. The fledging professional circuit saw McGregor spending the next five months driving around the United States in a station wagon with Sedgman and his young wife Jean. McGregor also competed in long matches against Pancho Segura and Pancho Gonzales who had him struggling on fast courts.
McGregor bowed out of tennis at age 25 and quickly made an impact back in Adelaide in Australian rules football with West Adelaide, playing in grand finals in 1954, 1956 and 1958 and converting his big tennis overhead to one of the best marks in the football league. He also made the South Australian football team in 1958 but his career was cut short by a severe knee injury.
In 1999, McGregor was inducted into the international tennis hall of fame in Newport, Rhode Island, and Australian tennis hall of fame in 2000. The Ken McGregor Foundation was started by Tennis SA, governing body of tennis in South Australia, to assist the next generation of international tennis players.
The McGregor football heritage went into a third generation with another Ken McGregor being selected as a first-round draft selection in 1998 by the Adelaide Australian Football League club for a 10-year career with the Crows in the national competition.