player – Tennisarchives.com

General First namePeter
LastnamePokorny
GenderMale
CountryAustria
Date of birth1940-07-25
Place of birthGraz, Austria

About

Pokorny began as a 6-year-old with the tennis sport, brought numerous Styrian and Austrian youth championship titles. The Grazer - with his 12 years- competed among the youth team of the ASV Graz (U18!), then he was already 14 years old in the final of the Styrian U18 Championships and 1965, 1966 and 1968 Austrian state governor. He won over two dozen Styrian championship titles. In the years of 1965, 1966 and 1968, the Grazer took the state champion title in men's singles, over 20 more in various categories. Only the Austrian team championship title was denied him with his clubs ASV Graz and GAK. In 1963 he celebrated his Davis Cup debut against Israel (5-0) and remained until 1973 he was an integral part of the Austrian Davis Cup team. In the traditional neighborhood duel against Germany in May 1971 they narrowly lost to Germany (the runner-up of 1970!) in one of the most exciting Austrian Davis Cup ties of all time. Peter Pokorny defeated the Wimbledon finalist Wilhelm Bungert after a hard fight and awarded match balls in the fifth set. The year before, 1970, it came to a historic 3: 2 away win against the former tennis greats England where on the side of Hans Kary the then overpowering Englishmen in Edinburgh were defeated by Austrians. Only the French could stop the Austrian team (after the ÖTV the home right was bought (!)) in the home Stade Roland Garros. Speaking of Roland Garros: In the Grand Slam tournaments, his best singles result at the majors was reaching the second round at the 1971 French Open after a first round win against Bob Giltinan. In the second round he lost to Nicola Pietrangeli in four sets. At Wimbledon, he qualified for the main singles draw in 1966, 1969 and 1973 but did not manage to make it past the first round. Pokorny's best Grand Slam hihglight was a 1/8 final with a Pachta at Wimbledon in mixed doubles.

His biggest single success celebrated Pokorny with the victory at the German Indoor Championships in Bremen (one of the largest indoor tournaments of the time) in 1973 after a five-sets victory in the final against Tadeusz Nowicki and with the finals in Lyon (two of the biggest indoor tournaments in Europe at that time).

In the second half of the seventies, Pokorny dedicated himself to the profession and the family, before he returned with the Schi-Tennis World Champion title in 1980 (a second, equally bizarre world title won the Graz 2005, when he became senior tennis champion in Carinthia).

Pokorny played in 14 ties for the Austrian Davis Cup team between 1963 and 1974 and had a 8–25 win/loss record. In the years 1981 and 1982 Pokorny worked as captain for the ÖTV (Austrian Tennis Federation) Davis team and in 1983 he was 42 years (!) once again in the final of the Austrian Indoor Championships.

As a senior player Pokorny won many European and World Championships.
Pokorny has been on the Veterans Tour of the ITF (International Tennis Federation) since 1986 and is well on the way to becoming one of the most successful senior players of all time. Numerous world and European championship titles as well as innumerable national team and individual titles already make Pokorny the best Austrian tennis player in history.
To the 100 European Championship titles, of which over 40 in men's singles
12 Team World Championship titles with ÖTV selection (Austria Cup, Cramm Cup, Britannia Cup, Crawford Cup, Grant Cup)
12 World Cup men's doubles title
11 World Cup men's singles titles
3 World Cup mixed doubles titles
This unique list of success also made him the most successful Austrian senior player of all times in November 2006, and he is already among the top 3 in all international statistics, and the trend is rising.

With his club crews Peter Pokorny conquered among others:

Team championship titles in Austria, Germany and Italy
over 20 team European Cup victories.

In addition, the Grazer player took international champion titles in Austria, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Hungary, Spain and Switzerland.

On the occasion of the French Open 2008, Peter Pokorny was awarded the European Lifetime Senior Champion Award by the European Tennis Federation - an award that requires at least 5 world championships and 10 European titles!

Since March 2015, the Grazer is also an honorary member of the IC of Great Britain.

Peter Pokorny was the fourth winner to receive the ITF Seniors Lifetime Achievement Award from ITF President David Haggerty at Wimbledon in 2019 for at least 10 individual and 10 Team World titles.

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