Rise To Prominence

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28794, 15 January 1959, Page 11

Rise To Prominence

Howe, notable for his doublehanded backhand, rose from obscurity to become the seventh ranked player in Australia as a result of a self-financed tour from 1954 to 1956. He was promoted to sixth on the Australian list when it was issued last April, behind Cooper, Anderson, Fraser, Rose and Emerson. Cooper, .Anderson and Rose have since turned professional. He has earned a reputation, on his travels as one of the world’s finest doubles players with a variety of partners, both male and female. In the last four years Bob Howe has played tennis in 28 countries and has visited several more. Howe’s touring began in 1954 as the result of a chance visit of a touring South African . tearp to th«* New South Wales town of

Armidale where he was teaching. Howe, who had played tennis since he was four and who was the leading player in Armidale, beat Abe Segal, a member of the South African Davis Cup team. When the South Africans told Howe of their travels on the European circuit he decided to give it a go and he played his first match in England at the Sutton tournament the same afternoon he left the ship. He has not failed to play at Sutton since.