TENNIS
By BLAKE METCALF-HOLT
LOCAL tennis legend Murray French is being remembered.
French died suddenly at the end of May, age 83.
Regarded as one Gippsland’s greatest to ever grace the court, French began his tennis journey in Yallourn, where he was a dominant force in Latrobe Valley ranks, but shot to even further success as a veteran-age player.
Initially, and beginning in the 1950s, French won Latrobe Valley Singles Championships 25 times, split between Yallourn and Morwell, all the way through to 1988, a record that still stands among the region, before moving into the veterans age group where he represented Australia nine times, including at the World Team Championships and World Doubles Championships.
From the period of 1999 to 2003, French consistently ranked among the top five senior-ranked tennis players in the world, and was Australian captain at these world championships in 1999, 2002 and 2004.
He won Australian Veterans Tennis Championships in 2004 (additional runner-up/final appearances in 1999, 2003 and 2006) and Australian Veterans Doubles Championships in 1998 (as well as winning the 130 combined in the same year), 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 – competing primarily alongside Sale’s Tom Downie.
French also won the Victorian and Queensland Singles Championships four times each, and was a torch carrier for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He was inducted into the Latrobe Sporting Hall of Fame in 2015.
French began his journey with ball and racket in hand at the Yallourn Tennis Club when he was 12-years-old, invited down by his friends’ father Arthur Tibballs, which along with French’s father taking him to the Yallourn Open around the same time, prompted the beginning of a 60-year obsession.
In 2015, French reflected on his time at the Yallourn Tennis Club in a piece contributed to the Virtual Yallourn website.
“Every evening in the summer, it would be a race to get home and down to the courts,” he wrote.
“There would be 40 kids with the same idea and if you weren’t quick enough, you would miss out on a court – us kids would only have the courts until 4.45pm, then we would have to vacate the courts for the seniors.
“We all knew our place and everything was wonderfully organised and everyone enjoyed themselves.
“I remember just being there and enjoying an atmosphere that taught me so much.”
French quickly became regarded as the best among his peers, with former Latrobe City Mayor, Darrell White regularly facing off against him from the other side of the net.
Speaking to the Express after his passing, White weighed similar comparisons to tennis stars like Rafael Nadal, due to French’s considerable height and length, to accompany his natural ability.
“He had the ideal build for a tennis player, he was bout six-foot-one, but he had a good reach as well,” he said.
“You’d think you’d be getting a ball down past him on the side-line, but he just put his long arm out with the racket and just volley it over.
“He was also lithe … skinny as a rake, he didn’t carry extra weight (and) he did a lot of extra fitness training as a part of his regime to achieve his potential.
“He had the stamina for those long, drawn out matches, he had the energy levels to see it through … (as well as) the temperament for the game, he was tenacious and a great competitor.”
As French got older, stronger, and even more confident in his game, he rose through local and regional competitions to arrive at the heralded Victoria Country Week, alongside White.
The duo, along with fellow Morwell gun Dick Wilson, began at the event in 1963/64, and won A Grade pennants every year until 1969/70.
“Dick arrived at the right time for us to be able to have a complete team, so we had this team that had the potential to do pretty well at Country Week, but none of us realised that we were going to have that sequence from ’64 to ’70… (it was) very memorable,” White said.
Newborough’s Mike Andrijczak featured in five of those victories from 1966 to 1970, and the four teammates recently got back together prior to French’s passing, with the Morwell Historical Society holding an exhibition for the Morwell Tennis Club.
To add to an exceptionally brilliant life in tennis, French was also a prolific ruckman for Yallourn Football Club in five seasons from 1961 to 1965, playing 77 senior games.
In his final year of football, French took home club best-and-fairest honours (off the back of three previous runner-up acknowledgments).
He was runner-up for the Trood Award and Rodda Medal for the best player in the Latrobe Valley Football League (the highest standard locally) in the same year.
He also played representative level for LVFL in 1965, playing alongside Sale’s Bill Stephenson (88 games for St Kilda), with former Carlton and Richmond player Frank Munro as coach.
French was selected to Yallourn Football Club’s pennant side in 2019 as one of their best players from 1954 to the club’s merger with Yallourn North in 1976.
A decorated sporting career was only eclipsed by the character he presented in the community as a well-respected teacher, whilst he also returned to his roots and coached juniors locally deep into his twilight years.
