Our Own Hall of Fame

BARRY MACKAY

PROFESSIONAL NOW

MacKay’s Sister Beat Him regularly in Early Days

DAYTON DAILY NEWS   MARCH 18, 1961

BY MARY ELLEN LYNCH

Daily News Staff Writer

     Last year’s No. 1 amateur tennis player used to lose regularly—to his sister.

     But things have changed for Dayton’s Barry MacKay, now a professional star.  In December he signed with Jack Kramer “world series” pro tour for a guarantee of $50,000 in the next three years.  (If he’s a consistent winner, MacKay can make almost twice that much.)

     When Barry was nine the family lived in a Cincinnati suburb and, on a visit to Chicago, he and his older sister, Bonnie, were cleaning up in swimming competitions.  To lure them out of the pool and home, their parents surprised both with tennis rackets and a can of balls each.

     MACKAY WAS named to the junior Davis cup team when he was just 18.  But at the University of Michigan, the tall, bashful economics major decided to give up competitive tennis after his junior year.  MacKay won the Ohio men’s championship, though, and was persuaded to continue on the courts.

      In 1957 he became national collegiate champion and the first Daytonian ever to make the Davis Cup team.  (A year earlier, MacKay was the first Daytonian ever to play in the Wimbledon tournament in England.)

     HONORS PILED up as MacKay played on tennis courts all over the world, became famous for his big serve (and at times for frequent double faults.)

     Last year MacKay completely dominated the American tennis picture, won the National Indoor Singles and National Clay Court singles, plus crowns in Italy, Texas, California and Australia.

     TO NO ONE’S surprise, he was ranked No.1 in the nation by the U. S Lawn Tennis association.

     MacKay was America’s chief hope to get the Davis cup back from Australia, but the United States failed to reach the challenge round for the first time since 1936.

     Criticized by the Australian press for temper tantrums on the court, MacKay declared: “Sure I get mad.  But I’d rather be an angry winner than a complacent quitter.”

     HE MADE the decision to turn professional in Australia and made his debut in Christchurch, New Zealand on New Year’s Eve.  At the time MacKay called amateur tennis “as now constituted” a farce.  “I think the future of the game lies in professional tennis,” he declared.

     At 25, husky-hitting MacKay’s own future lies, there, too, now.

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