General William Stephen (Buster)
Farrer
Male
South Africa
1936-12-08
King William's town, South Africa


About

Farrer has been known as "Buster" since early childhood.[1] His parents excelled at sport: his father captained the Border cricket team, and his mother won the South African under-18 singles tennis championship.[2]

He attended Dale College, near the family home in King William's Town, excelling in sport and captaining the school cricket team in his final year, 1954.[3] He made his first-class cricket debut for Border in the Currie Cup in the 1954?55 season a few days after his 18th birthday. Playing against North-Eastern Transvaal, he scored 77 in his only innings.[4] He began studying at Rhodes University in Grahamstown for a BA in Physical Education in 1955.

After seven more matches for Border in 1954?55 and 1955?56 without reaching 50, he decided to concentrate on his tennis career.[5]
Farrer represented South African Universities at tennis.[6] In 1956 he was offered a trip to England with a group of young South African tennis players. He accepted, and abandoned his university studies.[7]

After several minor tournaments in England, he played in the singles, men's doubles and mixed doubles at the 1956 Wimbledon Championships.[8] In the singles he beat Dick Potter (Australia) in the first round, 6-4, 6-1, 6-4, but lost to Staffan Stockenberg (Sweden) in the second round, 6-4, 6-2, 12-10.[9] He and Ivor Phillips of South Africa won the first round of the men's doubles against the Egyptian pair Mohamed Badr-el-din and Kamel Moubarek, 6-4, 6-1, 6-4, but lost in the second round to Stockenberg and Ulf Schmidt (Sweden), 6-2, 6-2, 11-9.[10] In the mixed doubles he partnered Estelle van Tonder of South Africa to the third round, where they lost to the British pair Gerry Oakley and Pat Hird, 8-6, 6-2.[11] Phillips and van Tonder were members of Farrer's touring group.

It was his only Wimbledon, simply because he couldn't afford regular long trips away playing amateur tennis. On his return he took a job in a sporting goods store in Johannesburg run by the former Yugoslavian tennis player Franjo Kukuljevi?.[12] He improved his tennis in the Johannesburg club competition but was unable to reach the South African Davis Cup team. After he returned to King William's Town to help his father with his growing sporting goods store, he gave up regular tennis because the local standard was so low, and concentrated on cricket.[13]

Although he was right-handed at batting and bowling at cricket, he played tennis and squash left-handed.



Media


Archive statistics 1956 - 1960
2
41
20


Tournament wins 1958 - Natal Championships (Amateur)
1957 - Eastern Transvaal (Amateur)


Tournaments South African Championships - 1960 Western Province - 1960 Natal Championships - 1959B South African Championships - 1959 Southern Transvaal Championships - 1959 Border Championships - 1959 South African Championships - 1958 Natal Championships - 1958 Border Championships - 1958 Commercial Open - 1958 South African Championships - 1957 Southern Transvaal Championships - 1957 Western Province - 1957 Eastern Transvaal - 1957 Eastern Province - 1957 Wimbledon - 1956 South African Championships - 1956 Kent Championships - 1956 Northern Lawn Tennis Association Tournament - 1956 Priory Club - 1956 London Hard Courts - 1956 Shirley Park - 1956 Guildford Hardcourts - 1956

3 thoughts on “player

  1. Hello! I’d like to bring to your attention that after recent updates to the site, the player search has become less efficient. Specifically:

    1. A single search now returns no more than 30 results.
    2. The alphabetical order of the results is gone.
    3. As far as I understand, it’s now impossible to find a player by two or three letters, while three-letter last names are very common (for example, Lee, Dod, etc.; Tommy Ho can only be found by his full name).
    4. It’s also impossible to find a player by their last name and first initial if they also have a middle initial. E.g., searching for “A. White” returns results like “A. White” and “T.A. White,” but not “A.G. White”. This was previously the exact opposite, and it would be great to combine the previous and current options so that the same search for “A. White” would return all three results.
    5. Results now also include last names/first names that contain last names/first names from the search. E.g., the query “Bell” returns results like “Campbell,” while the query “Clint” returns results like “McClintock.” This is debatable, as it could, on the other hand, find players with double last names or players with last names close to the ones you search (like “Carroll” – “O’Carroll”). However, it’s probably better to eliminate cases like the second example, where a word in the query is the middle of the returned result. Because if someone searches for a player using the query “Clint,” a player with the last name “McClintock” is unlikely to be relevant and would clutter the results.

    I hope these issues are resolved, as I believe this would help many site users. Thanks in advance!

  2. Regarding point 4, I’d like to add that a similar problem exists with full names. For example, Reginald Arthur Gamble can be found by searching for “Arthur Gamble,” but not “Reginald Gamble.”

  3. New South Wales Hard Court Championship 1924

    Round 1:
    E.A. Busby vs. S.L. Barden 6-1 4-6 6-1
    C.V. Todd vs. A. Lloyd (AUS) 6-0 6-0
    A.G. Gavin vs. Dr. H.T. Illingworth 4-6 6-2 9-7
    B. Whiteley vs. J.W. Elliott walkover
    A. Fitzgerald vs. R.M. Kidston 6-4 3-6 6-4
    G.J. Perry bye
    S. Cameron bye
    G. Collins bye
    A.N. Peach bye
    W.J. Matchett vs. E. Orth 7-5 5-7 6-4
    P. Laverack vs. W.M. Blekemore 6-4 3-6 6-3
    Ron P. Bulman vs. R.O. Palmer 6-1 6-1

    1. S.L. Barden (AUS)

    2. J.W. Elliott (AUS)

    3. E. Orth (AUS)

    4. W.M. Blekemore (AUS)

    5. Ron P. Bulman (AUS) is in your database R.P. Bulman

    6. R.O. Palmer (AUS)

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