Pancho Gonzales' tale was a true rags-to-riches story, for he taught himself how to play tennis, having been brought up in a deprived area of Los Angeles following his birth on May 9th 1928.

He owed much of his success to his physique, for he was much taller than most of his contemporaries but also extremely athletic, being likened to a big cat.

Having spent a year in detention after being arrested for burglary at the age of 15, tennis was the making of Gonzales and he became the world's best player during the 1950s although most of his titles came in his home country of the United States.

Pancho Gonzales won the equivalent of the US Open in 1948 and 1949 and then turned professional, but took a while to prove himself in the paid ranks.

He even took a couple of years out of competitive tennis from 1951-53, but it did him good, for when he returned in 1954 he began to establish himself as the world's greatest player.

Until the early 1960s Pancho Gonzales had the measure of rivals such as Ken Rosewall, Lew Hoad and Tony Trabert, and he stuck around until the start of the Open era in 1968, featuring in an epic five-hour Wimbledon clash in 1969 against Charlie Pasarell that speeded up the introduction of
tie-breaks.

A notoriously difficult character throughout his career and a renowned 'loner' who defied a lifestyle not conducive to that of a professional sportsman, Pancho Gonzales married and divorced six times. He died on July 3rd 1995.