{"id":16836,"date":"2019-01-11T11:13:32","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T00:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/?p=16836"},"modified":"2019-01-22T16:22:31","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T05:52:31","slug":"thiele-mcpherson-and-kerr-join-sa-legends-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/news\/2019\/01\/11\/thiele-mcpherson-and-kerr-join-sa-legends-club","title":{"rendered":"Thiele, McPherson and Kerr Join SA Legend&#8217;s Club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At the SA Player&#8217;s Club WTC Function on Sunday 6 January, three South Australian former tennis greats were inducted to the South Australian Legend&#8217;s Club.<\/p>\n<p>Congratulations to Gwen Thiele, Peter McPherson and Grant Kerr on your induction!<\/p>\n<p>The South Australian Legend&#8217;s Club was formed to recognise its past and present international champions of the game.<\/p>\n<p>About 60 of the state&#8217;s\u00a0former International, District, Pennant or State League tennis players from the past 70 years gathered for the special event.<\/p>\n<p>Guests were also treated to a tour of the new Memorial Drive Redevelopment and a special visit from Henri Leconte, who shared some great stories about his playing career and what has changed in tennis over the years.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you to all who attended. Stay tuned for the next SA Player&#8217;s Club function &#8211; or to be added to the email database please contact <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/contacts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tennis SA.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In case you missed it,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/photos\/2019\/01\/11\/photo-gallry-the-sa-players-club-function\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click here to view photos from the event.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>GWEN THIELE<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Competed regularly in Australian Championships 1946-1965.<\/li>\n<li>Runner-up Womens Doubles with Nell Hopman 1955.<\/li>\n<li>Runner-up Mixed Doubles with Tom Warhurst.1952.<\/li>\n<li>Outstanding Pennant Player for more than 20 years.<\/li>\n<li>Manager of State Junior Teams e.g. Wilson Cup on multiple occasions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Unfortunately Gwen is no longer with us, but close friend Jan MacDonald accepted the SA Legends&#8217; Club Pin on her behalf.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PETER MCPHERSON<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Competed in international standard events 1960-1968.<\/li>\n<li>Defeated Mark Cox and Wilhelm Bungert before losing to Bob Hewitt 3rd round Vic Champs 1962.<\/li>\n<li>Won 1st round Aust Champs and lost to Arthur Ashe in 2nd round 1967.<\/li>\n<li>Lost to Fred Stolle 3tight sets SA Champs 1966 and to Arthur Ashe 12-10 6-3 SA Champs 1965.<\/li>\n<li>Outstanding Pennant Player in SA and was regarded as the No2 behind the great Barry Phillips-Moore.<\/li>\n<li>Longtime supporter of SA Tennis as the State Manager of Nike and as a professional coach.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>GRANT KERR<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Competed in international standard events 1956-1972 both in Australia and overseas.<\/li>\n<li>Won 1st round Aust Champs before losing to Warren Woodcock in 4 sets1959.<\/li>\n<li>Won 1st round SA Champs 1972 before losing to Cliff Letcher 7-6 6-3.<\/li>\n<li>Reached 3rd round Roland Garros qualis 1970.<\/li>\n<li>Won 1st round Chichester before losing to Ross Case in 3 sets.<\/li>\n<li>Another great Pennant Player and was competitive well into his 40s.<\/li>\n<li>Longtime supporter of SA Tennis both as a sponsor and manager of Pennant teams.<\/li>\n<li>Highly regarded as coach and mentor to leading players e.g. Kevin Swanson, Mike Ford.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>L to R &#8211; Steve Baldas, Jan MacDonald and Barry McMillan<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/news\/2019\/01\/11\/thiele-mcpherson-and-kerr-join-sa-legends-club\/attachment\/af7p5535lr\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16837\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16837\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/files\/2019\/01\/AF7P5535LR.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/files\/2019\/01\/AF7P5535LR.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/files\/2019\/01\/AF7P5535LR-360x230.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/files\/2019\/01\/AF7P5535LR-200x128.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><em>L to R &#8211; Steve Baldas, Peter McPherson and Barry McMillan<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/news\/2019\/01\/11\/thiele-mcpherson-and-kerr-join-sa-legends-club\/attachment\/af7p5540lr\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16838\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16838\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/files\/2019\/01\/AF7P5540LR.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/files\/2019\/01\/AF7P5540LR.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/files\/2019\/01\/AF7P5540LR-360x230.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/files\/2019\/01\/AF7P5540LR-200x128.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><em>L to R &#8211; Steve Baldas, Grant Kerr and Barry McMillan<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/news\/2019\/01\/11\/thiele-mcpherson-and-kerr-join-sa-legends-club\/attachment\/af7p5556lr\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16839\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16839\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/files\/2019\/01\/AF7P5556LR.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/files\/2019\/01\/AF7P5556LR.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/files\/2019\/01\/AF7P5556LR-360x230.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/files\/2019\/01\/AF7P5556LR-200x128.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the SA Player&#8217;s Club WTC Function on Sunday 6 January, three South Australian former tennis greats were inducted to the South Australian Legend&#8217;s Club. Congratulations to Gwen Thiele, Peter McPherson and Grant Kerr on your induction! The South Australian Legend&#8217;s Club was formed to recognise its past and present international champions of the game. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5870,"featured_media":16840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5870"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}