- Born
- Birth nameLeonard Roscoe Tanner
- Roscoe Tanner was born in Chattanooga and with Sandy Mayer helped to lead Stanford University's rise to the number 1 spot in collegiate tennis in 1973. Tanner played number one singles, with Mayer playing number two. The team also featured Rick Fisher, Stanley Pasarell, Jim Delaney, James "Chico" Hagey, Gery Groslimond, Pat DuPre, and Paul Sidone.
Tanner is best remembered for his devastating left-handed serve, his victory at the 1977 Australian Open (January) and 5-set loss to Björn Borg in the 1979 Wimbledon finals.
Of the winning 1973 Stanford tennis team, Tanner, Mayer and DuPre were all brothers in the Zeta Psi fraternity. Tanner defeated Haroon Rahim 10-8 in the 5th set to win the 1970 United States Amateur Championships (Men's Tennis).
Tanner is best remembered for his dominating serve. Thrown very low and struck with a lunge involving the whole body, his first serve was among the fiercest on the circuit of his day, perhaps behind only that of Victor Amaya of Chile. During his loss to Borg in the 1979 Wimbledon championships he is credited with close to thirty aces. Though Borg defeated him at Wimbledon, several months later at the U.S. Open Tanner had his revenge, outing Borg in the fourth round.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tennis player - Roscoe Tanner is a retired American tennis player, who turned professional in 1972 and reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 4 on July 30, 1979.
Tanner was famous for his big left-handed serve, which was clocked at 153 mph at Palm Springs in 1978 during the final against Raúl Ramírez. He is also known for winning the men's singles title at the first of two Australian Open tournaments held in 1977. Tanner won the tournament held in January, Vitas Gerulaitis won the December tournament. Tanner reached the Wimbledon final in 1979, losing to Björn Borg in five sets.
He won the Davis Cup in 1981 playing with John McEnroe, Elliot Teltscher and Peter Fleming on a team captained by Arthur Ashe that defeated Argentina in the final, played at Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Bazza the Beast
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