According to the Associated Press, former Wimbledon and Australian Championship winner Alex Olmedo of Peru passed away on Wednesday at the age of 84 of brain cancer. Olmedo is the only native Peruvian to win a grand slam singles title. He won the 1959 Wimbledon title and 1959 Australian Championship.
It should be noted that even though Olmedo was a native of Peru and was not an American citizen, he represented the United States in Davis Cup action. That is because at the time of the 1950s, Peru did not have a Davis Cup team, and Olmedo was allowed to represent the United States in the premier team tennis event in the world because he had lived in the United States for three years. In the 1958 Davis Cup Final, Olmedo won two singles matches and a doubles match with Ham Richardson of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as the United States blanked Italy 5-0.
In 1959, Olmedo became the first South American native to win the Australian Championship. In the final, he defeated Neale Fraser of Australia, 6-1, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3. Fraser, who won Wimbledon in 1960, and the United States Championship in 1959 and 1960, was a three-time finalist of the Australian Championship, but never a champion. Interestingly, at the 1959 United States Championship men’s final, Olmedo lost to Fraser, 6-3, 5-7, 6-2, 6-4.
In the Wimbledon Final of 1959, Olmedo won his second career grand slam singles title. There, he beat the great Rod Laver of Australia, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4, in straight sets. Laver had not won any of his 11 grand slam singles championships yet at the time he lost to Olmedo. South Americans won both the men’s and women’s singles titles in Wimbledon of 1959, as Maria Bueno of Brazil won the Wimbledon women’s singles title. Following his brilliant tennis career, Olmedo was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987.
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