Tennis Champion
In 1934 he won the NCAA singles and the doubles championships while playing for the University of Southern California where he lettered at USC for three years (1934-36-37).
Mako was especially successful as a doubles player with his partner and friend Don Budge. They competed in 7 Grand Slam finals, 4 of which they won. In 1936 Gene Mako and Alice Marble won the finals at the US Mixed Doubles Championships against Sarah Palfrey and Don Budge (6:3 and 6:2).
From 1935 to 1938 Mako was member of the United States Davis Cup team, which this team won in 1937 (against the United Kingdom) and in 1938 (against Australia).
Mako was in the U.S. Top Ten in 1937 and 1938 (reaching as high as No. 3), and was ranked World No. 8 by A. Wallis Myers of The Daily Telegraph in 1938. That year he reached the U.S. final at Forest Hills versus his double partner, Don Budge, who was in pursuit of the first Grand Slam. Unseeded, Mako reached his only major singles final on victories over sixth-seed Frank Kovacs and the third and first foreign seeds, Franjo Punčec and John Bromwich.
During the Second World War Mako served on the United States Navy. He continued to play tennis at that time. He also played professional basketball while stationed in Norfolk, Virginia.
In 1973 Mako was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. In 1999 he was elected to the University of Southern California (USC) Athletic Hall of Fame.
Mako has a long-time interest in art as evidenced by his Gene Mako Galleries, Los Angeles, California.
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Famous quotes containing the words tennis and/or champion:
“[My one tennis book] was very, very old. It had a picture of Bill Tilden. I looked at the picture and that was how I learned to hold the racket.”
—Maria Bueno (b. 1939)
“What a terrible thing has happened to us all! To you there, to us here, to all everywhere. Peace who was becoming bright-eyed, now sits in the shadow of death; her handsome champion has been killed as he walked by her very side. Her gallant boy is dead. What a cruel, foul, and most unnatural murder! We mourn here with you, poor, sad American people.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)