Brian
Gottfried won 25 career Singles and 49 Doubles titles,
including 3 Grand Slam Doubles championships.
He was ranked among the World’s Top
Ten (ATP) players from 1976 to 1978—third in 1977—and
ranked in the World’s Top 20 through the early 1980s.
He
and Raul Ramirez captured the Wimbledon Doubles Championship
in
1976 and French Open Doubles titles in
1975 and 1977. They were Wimbledon
runners-up in 1979 and French Open
runners-up in 1976 and 1980. Gottfried
and Ramirez also won four consecutive
Italian Open Doubles titles from 1974
to 1977. The twosome won the WCT
World Doubles title in 1975 and 1980.
In 1979, Brian captured the ATP professional
Doubles championship with Ilie
Nastase.
Days after he won the 1977 French
Open Doubles crown with Ramirez,
Gottfried was runner-up in the French
Open Singles to Guillermo Vilas. He
was the first American to reach the finals
at Roland Garros Stadium in 22
years. In April of that year, Newsweek
magazine labeled him “the best male tennis player
in the world.” Brian
reached the finals of 15 tournaments in
1977, winning 5.
Tennis magazine named Gottfried
professional Rookie of the Year in 1973.
From 1976 to 1978 and in 1982, he was
a member of the U.S. Davis Cup team.
As a junior player, Brian won the
1962 National 12-and-under Doubles
title with Jimmy Connors and repeated
the victory the following year with
Dick Stockton. In 1964 he won the 12-
under Singles crown. In 1970, as a Trinity
University freshman in Texas, Brian
won the U.S. National Junior Outdoors
Singles Championship, one of 14 Junior
titles he would win while at Trinity,
where he was an All-America in 1971
and 1972.
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