Tennis ACT was saddened to hear of the passing of Tennis ACT Life member Ken Willis.\u00a0 Willis was an extraordinary administrator of tennis in the ACT and in 2016 his contribution was recognised when he was one of three inaugural inductees into the Tennis ACT Walk of Fame.<\/p>\n
A celebration of Ken\u2019s life will be held on Friday 6 October from 2.30pm \u2013 4.30pm at Next Gen Canberra, 1 Riggall Pl, Lyneham.<\/p>\n
About Ken Willis<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Ken Willis was born in 1922 in Yass to parents\u00a0John Arthur<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Nina May<\/strong>. At 15 he moved to Canberra to start working in the public service, and in 1941 he enlisted in the air force for WWII as a crew member in Bomber Command 460 Squadron, surviving 31 missions over Europe.<\/p>\n In 1945, when on leave from the air force, Ken returned to Yass.\u00a0 One of his sister\u2019s friends,\u00a0Joan Shumack<\/strong>, invited him to a social tennis afternoon at a nearby property.\u00a0 Joan was a tennis player and Ken a footballer and cricketer who had never picked up a racquet.\u00a0 That afternoon would change his life forever, uncovering a passion for tennis and, as a consequence, Ken found himself a great life partner in Joan.<\/p>\n In 1946, Ken and Joan were married and moved to Canberra. In 1950,\u00a0Turner Tennis Club <\/em>was established and it became the social hub of the community. Ken was a founding member, Vice-president, President and pennant player for the Club.<\/p>\n In 1954, Ken left the public service and opened his own sports and toys business.<\/p>\n That year, he also became the Secretary of the\u00a0ACT Lawn Tennis Association<\/em>, under the Presidency of\u00a0Charles Boag<\/strong>.\u00a0 He held the position until 1963, when he then took over as President up until 1977.\u00a0 Under his Presidency, registered tennis players more than doubled.\u00a0 With the growth of the city, Ken could foresee the expansion of tennis in Canberra.\u00a0 He was instrumental in moving the tennis headquarters from Manuka to the development of the\u00a0National Tennis and Squash Club<\/em>\u00a0which opened in 1970 in Lyneham.<\/p>\n Ken was also a driving force in the establishment of\u00a0Tennis Seniors<\/em>\u00a0locally and nationally, with the first\u00a0Australian Senior Championships<\/em>\u00a0in Australia held in Canberra in 1972.<\/p>\n In 1977, his outstanding contribution to the\u00a0ACT Lawn Tennis Association<\/em>\u00a0was recognised as an Honorary Life Member.\u00a0 The following year, Ken received an\u00a0Order of Australia Medal\u00a0<\/strong>for his services to tennis.\u00a0 In 1979, he became the Chairman of the Board of the\u00a0National Tennis and Squash Centre<\/em>.<\/p>\n In 1983, he was named\u00a0Australian Tennis Veteran of the Year<\/strong>.\u00a0 The club lounge at the\u00a0National Tennis and Squash Club<\/em>\u00a0was named in Ken\u2019s honour in 1990, and from 1992-98 he was the Patron of the\u00a0ACT Tennis Association<\/em>.<\/p>\n Ken was recognised at the 75th<\/sup>\u00a0Anniversary of the\u00a0ACT Tennis Association<\/em>\u00a0in 1998, receiving the award for the most outstanding contribution to the Association. In 2000, he received the ACT Sports Medal for services to tennis. When receiving these awards, Ken always said it was not only his contribution but a team effort and the team members were as equally deserving of the award.<\/p>\n The work by Ken and his team members was always voluntary.\u00a0 They enjoyed tremendous satisfaction from working hard and contributing to a sport they all loved, resulting in life-long friendships that still stand today.<\/p>\n Ken was a regular club player in Canberra for some 50 years and was noted for his enthusiasm and commitment.\u00a0 It is claimed he had \u201ca serve that was so slow he could get to the net before the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n Ken and Joan were married for 70 years.\u00a0 They had two children, Peter and Susan, along with three grandchildren, Yoshi, Stephanie and Elizabeth.<\/p>\n Ken played tennis until his 90th birthday.\u00a0 Ken passed away in September 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tennis ACT was saddened to hear of the passing of Tennis ACT Life member Ken Willis.\u00a0 Willis was an extraordinary administrator of tennis in the ACT and in 2016 his contribution was recognised when he was one of three inaugural inductees into the Tennis ACT Walk of Fame. A celebration of Ken\u2019s life will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5789,"featured_media":12212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5789"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}