Brian Teacher

Infobox Tennis player
playername= Brian Teacher


nickname=
country= USA
residence= San Diego, California
datebirth= birth date and age|1954|12|23
placebirth= Omaha, Nebraska
height= 6'3" (190 cm)
weight= 175 lbs (79 kg)
turnedpro= -
plays= Right-handed
careerprizemoney= $1,426,514
singlesrecord= 335–235
singlestitles= 8
highestsinglesranking= 7 (19-Oct-81)
AustralianOpenresult= W (1980)
FrenchOpenresult= 3rd Round (1978)
Wimbledonresult= QF (1982)
USOpenresult= 4th Round (1978, 1980)
doublesrecord= 220–172
doublestitles= 16
highestdoublesranking= 28 (2-Jan-84)
updated = January 22, 2007

Brian David Teacher (born December 23, 1954) is a former professional American male tennis player.

He was World # 7 in 1981.

Tennis career

Teacher learned both tennis and swimming at the age of five, but concentrated solely on tennis after ear and throat troubles caused him to give up swimming.

In 1972 he won the Boys' 18 singles and doubles titles.

The following year, Teacher enrolled at the University of California-Los Angeles where he was an All-American from 1973-76, won the Pacific 8 singles and doubles championship in 1974, and was a member of UCLA's NCAA championship teams in 1975-76.

In 1976, just shy of graduating from UCLA with a degree in economics, Teacher turned pro.

In 1977 he won his first singles title, and reached the finals in both the South Australian and New South Wales Opens.

In 1978, Teacher created a sensation at the Seiko World Super Tennis Tournament in Tokyo, by upsetting UCLA graduates Jimmy Connors and Arthur Ashe, losing only in the finals to Bjorn Borg, 6–3, 6–4.

Teacher is best remembered for his victory at the Australian Open in 1980. He won the Open in straight sets (7–5, 7–6, 6–2) over Kim Warwick of Australia, becoming the first Jewish male to win a singles title in a Grand Slam event since the 1950s.

He won eight career singles titles, and 16 in doubles.

tyle of play

He was a terrific player on faster surfaces, where he could use a serve-and-volley attack.

Hall of Fame

Teacher was inducted in 2001 into the ITA Intercollegiate Tennis Hall of Fame. [http://www.itatennis.com/Hall/hall_of_fame_men.htm]

Grand Slam singles finals

Wins (1)

Runner-ups (7)

Miscellaneous

*After he retired he completed his undergraduate work, and went on to business school at the University of Southern California.

*He has two daughters with wife Lori: Noel and Kelly.

*The book Superlearning 2000 (update on the 1979 original version) attributes the rise in Teacher's career during 1980 to his experiments with suggestive accelerated learning methods, which were introduced to him by Powell Blankenship, a tennis teacher in San Diego.

Links

* [http://www.atptennis.com/5/en/players/playerprofiles/?playernumber=T011 Official ATP Profile]
* [http://www.jewsinsports.org/profile.asp?sport=tennis&ID=48 Jews in Sports bio]