{"id":18549,"date":"2023-05-24T23:20:05","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T15:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=18549"},"modified":"2023-05-24T23:23:48","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T15:23:48","slug":"vale-doug-napier-1937-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2023\/05\/24\/vale-doug-napier-1937-2023","title":{"rendered":"Vale Doug Napier 1937 &#8211; 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Tennis West is deeply saddened by the news of Doug Napier passing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Doug was a former Tennis West Board of Directors, instrumental in running the WA Open, being Chairman of the State Selectors and regularly travelling as a manager of state junior teams.<\/p>\n<p>Doug joined the Hensman Tennis Club in 1949 and had a long and distinguished playing career with Hensman Park, WA and Australia.\u00a0 He holds the record for the most singles titles at Hensman, was at one stage the number 1 ranked player in WA, represented WA in the Linton Cup where he recorded a victory over Rod Laver in 1956, played in the Australian Open Men&#8217;s Singles Championship, and was selected to represent Australia on numerous occasions\u00a0in international veteran events. He also represented Hensman Park in State League until the age of 46.\u00a0 He possessed a brilliant left handed serve and volley game, was a great thinker on the court, had a great competitive\u00a0attitude and in addition, was lauded for his fairness and sportsmanship by his peers.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to a stellar playing career, Doug held numerous roles on the Hensman Board over a long period including a significant stint as President and was awarded Life\u00a0Membership in 1987 (along with wife, Margaret).\u00a0 He was also the club coach for a long period of time.<\/p>\n<p>His legacy as a player and a volunteer\/administrator is immense not just at Hensman, but in the wider tennis community.\u00a0 At his heart, he was a true &#8220;tennis tragic&#8221; who passionately loved the game whether being on the court or hanging around watching others play&#8230;. particularly his grandchildren!!<\/p>\n<p>Our condolences to the Napier family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tennis West is deeply saddened by the news of Doug Napier passing. Doug was a former Tennis West Board of Directors, instrumental in running the WA Open, being Chairman of the State Selectors and regularly travelling as a manager of state junior teams. Doug joined the Hensman Tennis Club in 1949 and had a long [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6359,"featured_media":18550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}