Sport: Tennis
Born: May 11, 1956
Town: Wayne, New Jersey
Gene Mayer was born May 11, 1956 in Queens and grew up in Woodmere, Long Island before the family moved to the Passaic County town of Wayne during his high-school years. Gene’s father, Alex, grew up on the border of Hungary and Yugoslavia and played Davis Cup for both, distinguishing himself as one of the top doubles players in Europe before World War II. He emigrated to America in 1950 with a law degree but, eventually, he saw he could make a good living coaching tennis. By the 1970s, Alex Mayer was recognized as one of the game’s top coaches, with a list of star pupils that included Vitas Gerulaitis, Dick Stockton, Peter Fleming and Virginia Wade.
Not surprisingly, Gene and his four-years-older brother, Sandy, were star tennis players by the time they were in grade school. Gene distinguished himself as a top junior, winning the Orange Bowl tournament in 1965 and 1966. He was the champion of his age group six times as a junior and was 13 before he lost a match to a boy his own age.
After the move to New Jersey, Gene instantly became the star of the Wayne Valley High School varsity. As a sophomore and junior, he was unbeaten in singles and doubles for the Indians. He used a two-handed forehand, which was unusal for that era. Gene did not boast a power game, but he had soft hands and possessed an arsenal of shots that enabled him to surgically pick apart opponents. He was particularly fond of the drop shot, which he often employed when a standard put-away was possible, just together inside an opponent’s head—or to keep from getting bored.
A straight-A student, Gene received a scholarship offer from Stanford University. He graduated early, skipping his senior year, and began to make a name for himself on the West Coast. Later, he admitted he would have stayed on the East Coast and attended Columbia University, but it didn’t have a tennis team in the early 1970s.
In 1973, Sandy won the intercollegiate tennis championship and then upset Ilie Nastase at Wimbledon to reach the semifinals of the oldest of the game’s Grand Slams. While still in college, Gene became a Top 25 player on the men’s tour and won the doubles at Wimbledon in 1975 with Gerulaitis. He graduated from Stanford in 1976.
Gene won his first pro singles tournament in 1978 and also won the French Open doubles that year with Hank Pfister for his second Grand Slam title.
After recovering from a potential career-ending horse-riding accident, Gene became super-serious about adding more victories to his résumé. A sign that he had turned the corner was that he rarely lost to a lower-ranked player. Gene and Sandy played doubles together frequently and won the French Open crown in 1979. It marked the first time in half-century that brothers had taken a Grand Slam doubles title.
Gene’s return game, anchored by his signature forehand, took away the main weapon from hard-serving opponents like Roscoe Tanner, whom Alex Mayer had coached for a time. Early in 1981, Gene scored victories over John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg, and strung together a series of tournament wins and other strong showings at second-tier tour events. From #100-and-something, his world ranking soared to a career-best #4.
In the years that followed, Gene continued to show well in singles and doubles. In 1983, he won a pair of singles titles, defeating Guillermo Vilas in one final and Johan Kriek in the other. Those were the final two championships of his career—in all, he won 14 singles crowns and 15 doubles titles. Gene also played Davis Cup, like his father, helping the US win the 1982 finals by defeating French star Henri Leconte.
After leaving the pro tour, Gene got into coaching and sports marketing, forming Two Handed Enterprises. He was also a great advocate for wheelchair tennis.
In 1993, Gene won the US Senior Open singles titles and, a year later, reunited with Pfister to win the Senior doubles crown. In the annals of tennis, Gene is still considered, along with Pancho Segura, as the foremost practitioners of the two-handed forehand.