Local Tennis Great Richard Russell Gets OD

Not many persons can boast of winning a match in one of the major tennis Grand Slam tournaments, more so without conceding a point, or of beating American tennis legend Arthur Ashe.

These are among the accomplishments of Douglas Anthony Richard Russell, who is regarded as one of Jamaica’s best tennis players and a major contributor to the development of the sport locally.

On Monday (October 17), the 77-year-old was conferred with the Order of Distinction in the Rank of Officer (OD) at the National Honours and Awards Ceremony held at King’s House.

He was recognised for his decades of exemplary sportsmanship as well as display of citizenship that led to the growth of the sport of tennis in Jamaica.

Mr. Russell was among 221 outstanding Jamaicans honoured during the National Heroes Day ceremony.

“It is a great honour, not only for me but for tennis and for Jamaican tennis players,” he tells JIS News.

Chronicling his journey in the sport, Mr. Russell says his first major accomplishment was at the age of 16, when he became the nation’s youngest national champion, winning the All-Jamaica Tennis Championship for seniors while attending Kingston College.

He had only started playing tennis two years earlier.

“I was foremost a cricketer. My history teacher, who was in charge of under-14 tennis, took me and a few others off the cricket field and said: ‘You have to play tennis for half an hour between 2:30 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. to represent the school in the Gibson Cup’. I cried every day because I had no interest in tennis. Anyhow, they entered me in the All-Jamaica Under-14 the following month in 1960. My father came and he was in tears to see me playing in the finals, which I won,” Mr. Russell recalls.

“My father said you know what… I am going to put in a tennis court and insisted I play every day. He even put up a wall for me to [hit] against for half an hour before I got to school in the mornings. It was two years of playing tennis every day, playing on the wall every day, and I became the youngest national champion of Jamaica at age 16,” he says proudly.

Seeing the potential in his son, the elder Russell engaged accomplished Australian tennis player Harry Hopman as coach, which saw the younger Russell living in that country for a year and a half, returning to Jamaica as a tennis powerhouse.

He excelled in the sport and is the only Jamaican to progress past the first round at all four tennis Grand Slam tournaments – Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open.

He is perhaps best known for winning a first-round match in the Australian Open at 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 over Richie Chopra from India in 1966.

Outside of Grand Slam competition, he had a noted win over Dennis Ralston in 1972 at an invitational tournament in Puerto Rico, and in1975, he took part in the inaugural Nations Cup (now the World Team Cup), as a member of the Caribbean team.

He has won more than 12 matches in the Davis Cup.

“The most famous win was against America’s Arthur Ashe and Charles Passarel in 1966 in Kingston. The Americans were then the best players in the world, and we started on a Saturday, and over two days, for about four hours we played. We had to come back on Sunday for the fifth set,” Mr. Russell tells JIS News.

He was 20 years old at the time.

“When I walked into the stadium on the Sunday morning…when I looked, the place was completely packed and I was in shock. I’ve never seen a crowd like that at tennis ever in the history of Jamaican tennis.

“Around 2,000 people were there and we ended up winning that match. They passed a hat around and got 1,000 pounds raised for us, which put us in a world tour and that really propelled us on the international scene,” Mr. Russell says.

For his achievements, Mr. Russell was inducted into the Black Tennis Hall of Fame in 2019.

He is a founding member of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), became director of Tennis Jamaica in 2012, and was the 2011-2012 chairman of the all-island high school tennis championships.

He was director of Tennis at the Half Moon Club for 25 years and was responsible for bringing tennis legends Illie Năstase, Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors, Pancho Gonzales and Pancho Segura to participate in celebrity events at the Montego Bay venue.

He is Chairman/Director of the Russell Tennis Academy, which has training many national youngsters in the sport, to include his three sons, Craig, Rayne and Ryan.

“Jamaica’s future in tennis is tremendously bright because we have the talent,” says Mr. Russell, who spends his days at home in Spring Farm, St. James.

“This country has developed and I think the future looks bright for us. There’s no better place on earth, and that’s how I feel about this great country,” he adds.