Tom Brown has been playing tennis at a very high level for the Olympic Club for several decades. Tom Brown took his first tennis cup at the age of 11 playing for the Mission Playground Recreation Center. Tom’s Tennis career at Cal was interrupted by a three year stint as a mortar gunner in the Second World War.His professional career can be divided into two parts: his heyday in the 1940’s as a world-class competitor; and his remarkable senior tennis career after taking time out to earn his law degree at Boalt Hall, establish a law practice, marry in 1957, and raise four children.
After starring at Lowell and Cal, he moved up rapidly in the national rankings and was selected to the Davis Cup teams in 1946, ’50, and ’53. The post-war years, 1946 – 1950 were his signature years. In 1946 he was Wimbledon Men’s Doubles (w/Jack Kramer) and Mixed Doubles Champion (w/Louise Brough). The following year he was runner-up to Kramer in the Mens’ Singles and a finalist in the Mens’ Doubles w/Gardner Mulloy, losing to Australians Jack Bromwich and Frank Sedgman. In the 1946 U.S. Singles Championship at Forest Hills, he reached the finals, losing once again to Jack Kramer. Two years later in 1948, he won in Mixed Doubles with Louise Brough in the U.S. Nationals. Closer to home, he was four-time California Men’s State Champion.
His back-nine (to borrow a golfing term) began after two decades tending to his law practice and seeing his children to adulthood. In the late Seventies, he returned to his first love and began traveling and playing on the Grand Masters Tournament Circuit. For the rest of the century Tom established himself as one of the world’s premier senior players.
The Olympic Club is proud to have Tom Brown in its first class of the Hall of Fame.
