A century ago, John Hawkes completes rare "triple crown" at Australasian Championships

One hundred summers ago, when men wore flannel trousers and used wooden racquets strung with catgut, John 'Jack' Hawkes had a week other players could only dream about.

In the space of seven days at the 1926 Australasian Championships in Adelaide, Hawkes won the men’s singles, men’s doubles and mixed doubles titles. Only Frenchman Jean Borotra (1928) and Australian Jack Crawford (1932) have since matched his feat of winning all three titles.

A century later his son John was in the stands at the Australian Open recalling with "great pride" his father’s achievements.

"Tennis was an amateur sport when he played and international travel was difficult, but he made his family very proud," he said.

Hawkes learned to play tennis on a backyard court at Corio Bay in Victoria, often being tutored by Norman Brookes who was a family friend. Like Brookes, Hawkes was a left hander, who used the same technique of twisting his arm around to use the same face of his racquet for both forehand and backhand.

At Geelong College he was a standout athlete – captaining the cricket team and winning the Victorian schoolboys under-19 tennis championships five times. Selection for the Davis Cup team came at the age of 22.

The esteemed tennis writer Paul Meltzer, who saw all the great players of this era, wrote that Hawkes was a crowd favourite who "had a curving and kicking left-handed American Twist service and quick volleying reflexes; he played half his groundstrokes from square-on to the net, and from that stance he could hit the ball down the line or crosscourt with complete impartiality".

Hawkes was part of the Australian Davis Cup team that scored a famous victory over the fabled French ‘Musketeers’ in the Inter-Zonal Final in Boston in 1923. He defeated Jacques Brugnon in the singles and teamed with James Anderson to take the doubles over Brugnon and Rene LaCoste – winning 9-7 in the fifth.

Three years later he had his golden run at the Australasian Championships where he teamed with Gerald Patterson to win the doubles and Esna Boyd to claim the mixed. A mark of his dominance was that in 12 matches, he won 33 of 36 sets – including a thumping victory over Jim Willard in the singles’ final 6-1 6-3 6-1.

HONOUR ROLLS: Australian Open champions

The News described Hawkes playing "with such wonderful accuracy and judgement … that he completely broke up Willard’s game. The latter appeared to be playing very poor tennis because Hawkes did not give him a chance to bring off any of his pet shots".

The one-sided result was upended the following year when Hawkes met Patterson in the men’s final at Kooyong – a match still regarded as one of the epic contests in Australian tennis history.

The final lasted almost three and a half hours and ended with Patterson winning 3-6 6-4 3-6 18-16 6-3. During the marathon fourth set, Hawkes had five championship points but couldn’t find the winning shot.

The following year, Hawkes and Patterson reached the final of the doubles at Wimbledon and weeks later he teamed with American Helen Wills to win the United States mixed doubles title – the last of his nine grand slam crowns.

After retiring from the game, he worked for the family hardware business, Hawkes Brothers, in Geelong but continued his association with tennis as an administrator.

Jack Hawkes died in 1990 at the age of 90. A century after his extraordinary performance, his name is listed on the wall of champions that current players see beneath Rod Laver Arena – all hoping for just a slice of his fortune.

Click here to read article