Bunny Austin
Henry Wilfred "Bunny" Austin (26 August 1906 - 26 August 2000) was an English tennis player.
Austin was the last male tennis player from the United Kingdom to reach the final of the Gentlemen's Singles at Wimbledon, a feat he achieved in 1938 (having also been losing finalist in 1932). He was also a finalist at the 1937 French Open and a championship winner at Queen's Club. Along with Fred Perry, he was a vital part of the British team that won the Davis Cup three times from 1933-35. He is also remembered as the first tennis player to wear shorts.
Austin was brought up in South Norwood, London. The nickname Bunny came from a comic strip, Pip, Squeak and Wilfred. Encouraged by his father, who was determined that he become a sportsman, he joined Norhurst Tennis Club aged six.
While still an undergraduate at Cambridge University he reached the semi-finals of the men's doubles at Wimbledon in 1926. By the 1930s he was ranked in the world's top ten players. In his first Wimbledon men's singles final in 1932 he was beaten by Ellsworth Vines of the United States in three sets.
In the years 1933-6, he and Fred Perry helped win the Davis Cup for Britain.
Austin also pioneered the design of the modern tennis racquet by inventing the Streamline - a racquet with a shaft that splits into three segments - allowing for aerodynamic movement. The design was manufactured by Hazells and at the time was mocked in the press for looking like a snow shoe. After Austin's retirement, the design was virtually forgotten until the reintroduction of the split shaft in the late 1960s.
Austin's autobiography, written with his wife, A Mixed Double, was published in 1969.
Austin was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island in 1997.