{"id":16281,"date":"2020-05-26T08:48:24","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T22:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/?p=16281"},"modified":"2020-05-21T09:50:46","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T23:50:46","slug":"remembering-peter-roberts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/news\/2020\/05\/26\/remembering-peter-roberts","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Peter Roberts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennis ACT was saddened to hear of the passing of Peter Roberts at the age of 94,<\/strong> earlier this month.\u00a0 Our condolences go out to his family.\u00a0 Peter was inducted into the Tennis ACT Walk of Fame in 2019 and owned one of the most outstanding playing records in ACT history.\u00a0 We take a look back at his achievements.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Initially playing at Northbourne and Reid courts and then Braddon for many years Peter established an enviable tennis record from the late 1940s until retiring with severe tennis elbow in the mid-1960s.<\/p>\n

He played No.1 for Braddon the perennial Division 1 pennant winners and led the winning Canberra Citizens Cup teams against Queanbeyan and Goulburn.<\/p>\n

His first Resident title was in 1949 in mixed doubles with Margaret O\u2019Sullivan. He then proceeded to win seven Resident singles titles, nine doubles (most with brother Cres), another mixed title and an ACT Open Doubles (again with Cres).<\/p>\n

In 1952 Peter won the singles, doubles and mixed titles on the same day. It was also in 1952 that Peter won the ACT singles titles in badminton and table tennis.<\/p>\n

Peter well and truly consolidated himself as the top Canberra tennis player of the 1950s \u2013 in addition to his Resident titles he was a regular No.1 for Canberra in the Sydney Country Week tournament, won six Eden-Monaro titles and 14 Far South Coast titles along with numerous titles in other country tournaments.<\/p>\n

The breadth of Peter\u2019s all-round sporting prowess is the stuff of legends. In addition to the ACT championships<\/strong> in tennis he was also the ACT champion in table tennis and badminton and runner- up in squash. In snooker and billiards he was Canberra City club champion; and, an A grade representative in hockey, basketball, cricket and baseball. He was an expert trout fisherman, hunter, shooter and in later years, a quality bowler.<\/p>\n

Peter\u2019s prodigious sporting talent is perhaps best summarised by the world champions he played against in various sports.; Jack Crawford, Neale Fraser, Lew Hoad, Roy Emerson, Frank Sedgman and Ken Rosewall in tennis, Walter Lindrum, in billiards, Hashim Khan in squash and in table tennis Michael Szabados.<\/p>\n

Peter\u2019s strengths were his natural eye for the ball, placement and all-court craftmanship. Peter had a second-to -none ability to sum up an opponent\u2019s game, take advantage of their weaknesses and with his all-round skills and stamina, win the day.<\/p>\n

At the 75th Anniversary of the Tennis Association in 1998 Peter was one of six finalists in the category of \u201cBest Male Player\u201d in the Association\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

In acknowledging Peter\u2019s sporting achievements it would be remiss not to mention his character. Whilst a fierce competitor he was noted for his good sportsmanship and fair play. A natural raconteur, he loved to reminisce, to share a joke and a drink with others, especially his lifelong friends. He loved the bush and the land. Burial in a natural bush setting, farewelled by a bush ballad and a toast of his favourite drink, a rum and milk, was a fitting celebration of a life well led. Vale Peter Roberts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tennis ACT was saddened to hear of the passing of Peter Roberts at the age of 94, earlier this month.\u00a0 Our condolences go out to his family.\u00a0 Peter was inducted into the Tennis ACT Walk of Fame in 2019 and owned one of the most outstanding playing records in ACT history.\u00a0 We take a look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5789,"featured_media":16286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16281","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\/16281","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=16281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}