Where famous tennis players grew up and lived

Althea Gibson1930–1946

📍 West 143rd Street, Harlem, New York, NY 10030, USA

I was born in August 1927 in Silver, South Carolina, where my parents, Daniel and Annie, were sharecroppers on a cotton farm. When I was three, after a bad harvest, we moved north to…

Andre Agassi1970–1983

📍 Las Vegas, NV, USA

Andre Agassi was born in Las Vegas in April 1970, the youngest of four children of Mike Agassi, a former Olympic boxer for Iran who worked at the Tropicana casino and hotel, and Betty. His…

Andy Murray1987–2002

📍 Dunblane, Stirling FK15, UK

Andy Murray was born in Glasgow in May 1987 and grew up in Dunblane, a small cathedral city on the Allan Water, north of Stirling, surrounded by the hills of the central Highlands. His…

Arthur Ashe1943–1960

📍 Brook Road, Richmond, VA 23220, USA

I was born in Richmond, Virginia, in July 1943. In 1947 my father, Arthur Ashe Sr., became the supervisor of Brook Field, an eighteen-acre playground for Black children on Brook Road in…

Ashleigh Barty1996–2012

📍 Ipswich QLD 4305, Australia

Ashleigh Barty was born in Ipswich, Queensland, in April 1996 and grew up in Springfield, a new, fast-growing suburb on the edge of Ipswich, west of Brisbane. Her father, Robert, is an…

Bill Tilden1893–1920

📍 Germantown, Philadelphia, PA, USA

I was born William Tatem Tilden II in February 1893 at Overleigh, my family's large Victorian mansion on McKean Avenue in Germantown, a wealthy, leafy district of Philadelphia. My father…

Billie Jean King1943–1961

📍 Long Beach, CA, USA

Billie Jean Moffitt was born in San Francisco in November 1943 and grew up in Long Beach, California, a busy port city of neat suburban streets and public parks south of Los Angeles. Her…

Björn Borg1956–1973

📍 Södertälje, Sweden

Björn Borg was born in Stockholm in June 1956 and grew up in Södertälje, an industrial town on a canal south-west of the capital, the only child of Rune, a clothing store worker and keen…

Boris Becker1967–1985

📍 Leimen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Boris Becker was born in Leimen, a small town at the foot of the Odenwald hills just south of Heidelberg, in November 1967. His father, Karl-Heinz, was an architect who designed and built…

Carlos Alcaraz2003–2018

📍 El Palmar, Murcia, Spain

Carlos Alcaraz was born in Murcia, in south-eastern Spain, in May 2003 and grew up in El Palmar, a busy town on the southern edge of the city, among orange and lemon groves and dry hills…

Chris Evert1954–1972

📍 Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA

Christine Marie Evert was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in December 1954, one of five children of Jimmy Evert, a top-ranked tennis player who became the teaching professional at the…

Evonne Goolagong Cawley1951–1965

📍 Barellan NSW 2665, Australia

Evonne Goolagong was born in Griffith, New South Wales, in July 1951 and grew up in Barellan, a small wheat-farming town in the Riverina, the third of eight children of Kenny Goolagong, a…

Fred Perry1918–1929

📍 Ealing, London W5, UK

I was born in Stockport, Cheshire, in May 1909, the son of Samuel Perry, a cotton spinner who had left school at ten, and my mother, Hannah. My father was active in the co-operative…

Ivan Lendl1960–1978

📍 Ostrava, Czech Republic

Ivan Lendl was born in Ostrava, a coal-mining and steel-making city in the north of Czechoslovakia, near the Polish border, in March 1960, the only child of two fine tennis players. His…

Jannik Sinner2001–2015

📍 Sexten, South Tyrol, Italy

Jannik Sinner was born in Innichen, in the Dolomite mountains of South Tyrol, in August 2001, and grew up in Sexten, a small German-speaking village close to the Austrian border, surrounded…

Jimmy Connors1952–1968

📍 Belleville, IL, USA

Jimmy Connors was born in East St Louis, Illinois, in September 1952 and grew up there and in nearby Belleville, working-class towns across the Mississippi from St Louis. His mother…

John McEnroe1963–1977

📍 Douglaston, Queens, NY 11363, USA

John McEnroe was born in Wiesbaden, West Germany, in February 1959, where his father, an Irish-American, was serving with the US Air Force, and soon afterwards the family moved to New York…

Li Na1982–2002

📍 Wuhan, Hubei, China

Li Na was born in Wuhan, the great industrial city on the Yangtze River in central China, in February 1982. Her father, Li Shengpeng, had been a professional badminton player whose career…

Margaret Court1942–1960

📍 Albury NSW 2640, Australia

Margaret Smith was born in Albury, a country town on the Murray River on the border between New South Wales and Victoria, in July 1942, the youngest of four children of Lawrence Smith, a…

Maria Sharapova1989–1994

📍 Sochi, Krasnodar Krai, Russia

Maria Sharapova was born in Nyagan, an oil town in western Siberia, in April 1987. Her parents, Yuri and Yelena, came from Gomel in Belarus and had moved east shortly before she was born…

Martina Navratilova1959–1975

📍 Řevnice, Czech Republic

Martina Navratilova was born in Prague in October 1956, and after her parents divorced when she was about three, her mother, Jana, a gymnast, skier and tennis player, moved the family to…

Monica Seles1973–1986

📍 Novi Sad, Serbia

Monica Seles was born in Novi Sad, then in Yugoslavia and now in Serbia, in December 1973, into an ethnic Hungarian family. Novi Sad is a handsome old city on the Danube in the flat plains…

Naomi Osaka1997–2000

📍 Osaka, Japan

Naomi Osaka was born in Osaka, Japan's great commercial city, in October 1997. Her mother, Tamaki, is from Nemuro in Hokkaido, and her father, Leonard François, is from Jacmel in Haiti…

Novak Djokovic1987–1999

📍 Kopaonik, Serbia

Novak Djokovic was born in Belgrade, then in Yugoslavia, in May 1987. His parents, Srdjan and Dijana, were both keen skiers, and they ran a pizza and pancake restaurant in Kopaonik, a ski…

Pete Sampras1978–1990

📍 Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275, USA

Pete Sampras was born in Washington, DC, in August 1971 and spent his first years in Potomac, Maryland, where at three he found an old racket in the basement and spent hours hitting balls…

Rafael Nadal1986–2005

📍 Manacor, Mallorca, Spain

Rafael Nadal was born in Manacor, the second city of Mallorca, in June 1986, into a close, sporty family that lived together in the same building in the town centre, grandparents, uncles…

Rod Laver1938–1956

📍 Rockhampton QLD 4700, Australia

Rod Laver was born in Rockhampton, Queensland, in August 1938, the third of four children of Roy Laver, a cattleman and butcher, and Melba. As a baby he was taken back to Langdale, the…

Roger Federer1981–1999

📍 Münchenstein, Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland

Roger Federer was born in Basel, Switzerland, in August 1981, and grew up in Münchenstein and neighbouring Riehen, near Basel, close to the borders with France and Germany. His father…

Serena Williams1981–1995

📍 1117 E Stockton Street, Compton, CA 90221, USA

Serena Jameka Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in September 1981, the youngest of five daughters of Oracene Price, and the youngest child of Richard Williams. When she was a small…

Stefan Edberg1966–1983

📍 Västervik, Sweden

Stefan Edberg was born in Västervik, a small, pretty town on the Baltic coast of south-eastern Sweden, in January 1966, the son of Bengt Edberg, a police officer, and Barbro. Västervik is a…

Steffi Graf1978–1986

📍 Brühl, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Steffi Graf was born in Mannheim, in south-west Germany, in June 1969. Her father, Peter, a car and insurance salesman who loved tennis and later became a coach, gave her a sawn-off racket…

Suzanne Lenglen1899–1919

📍 Nice, France

I was born in Paris in May 1899, the daughter of Charles Lenglen, who had inherited an omnibus company and grown wealthy, and his wife, Anaïs. In 1904 my father sold the business and we…

Venus Williams1980–1995

📍 Indian Wells, California, USA

Venus Ebony Starr Williams was born in Lynwood, California, in June 1980, and grew up in Compton, in Los Angeles, the elder of the two youngest daughters of Richard Williams and Oracene…

Yannick Noah1963–1971

📍 Yaoundé, Cameroon

Yannick Noah was born in Sedan, in north-eastern France, in May 1960, the son of Zacharie Noah, a Cameroonian footballer who won the French Cup with Sedan in 1961, and Marie-Claire, a…