Bob Falkenburg, a member of the Tennis Hall of Fame who won the singles championship at Wimbledon in 1948 in a thrilling comeback in the fifth set, and also won a pair of Grand Slam men’s doubles titles, then forged a second career as a manager and launched fast food stores in South America, died on Thursday (6) at his home in Santa Ynez, California. He was 95 years old. The death was confirmed to the Associated Press agency by his daughter Claudia.
Falkenburg was ranked among the top ten tennis players in the United States at age 17 and remained in that elite category for another five years.
His greatest achievement was at Wimbledon (London) in 1948, when he was losing by three match points to John Bromwich of Australia. Relying on powerful backhands and a strong serve, he bounced back and won his only major singles championship. A year later, Falkenburg won the first two sets against Bromwich in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, but Bromwich won the last three.
Falkenburg joined Don McNeill as men’s doubles champions at the US Nationals at Forest Hills in 1944 and Jack Kramer in the doubles at Wimbledon in 1947.
The International Tennis Hall of Fame, which inducted Falkenburg in 1974, called him “a player who thinks, who took calculated risks when others might play for safety”.
“He was confident that his powerful serve would not let him down and that his advances to the net would lead to victory,” he said.
Falkenburg’s brother Tom and sister Jinx Falkenburg competed at the US Nationals. But Jinx was best known for her show business career. She was a model and film actress, then joined her husband and manager, Tex McCrary, on the popular radio and TV chat show “Tex and Jinx”.
Bob Falkenburg entered his last Grand Slam tournament in 1955 after moving to Brazil with his wife, Brazilian Lourdes Mayrink Veiga Machado, whom he married in 1947. He played for Brazil in the 1954 and 1955 Davis Cups.
According to the Tennis Hall of Fame, Falkenburg once recalled that on one of his trips from the United States to Brazil he was “distressed at not getting a decent hamburger or milkshake”.
He founded the first snack bars and ice cream shops in South America in 1952, in the Copacabana neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, calling them Bob’s. Their mini-chain consisted of about a dozen outlets when the Falkenburgs, having moved to Southern California in 1970, sold Bob’s to Nestle’s Libby operation in 1974.
Bob’s has had multiple owners since then and has expanded to over 1,000 stores in Brazil and beyond South America.
Robert Falkenburg was born on January 29, 1926 in Manhattan (New York) and grew up in Los Angeles (California). His father, Eugene, an engineer, and mother, Marguerite (Crooks) Falkenburg, played at amateur tennis events, and Bob began wielding a racket at private clubs when he was 10 years old.
He won a junior tennis tournament for the Bel-Air Country Club in 1937 and, as a student at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, won the US Interscholastic singles title in 1942; he also teamed up with his brother to win the title that year. Later, he was a good amateur golfer and won the Brazilian amateur championship three times.
After serving in the US Army Air Forces during World War II, Falkenburg won the 1946 intercollegiate singles and doubles championships while studying at the University of Southern California.
In addition to his wife and daughter, he is survived by a son, Robert, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, according to the AP. Both Tex and Jinx (her birth name was Eugenia; her mother gave her the nickname) McCrary died in 2003.
Describing Falkenburg’s impressive comeback in the last set at Wimbledon in 1948, The New York Times reported that “Wimbledon championship fans have seen much better tennis than today’s game, but they have rarely witnessed a more exciting one.”
As for Falkenburg’s game-ending serve, 7-5, the Times reported that “there was a clear, loud pop”.
“Bromwich froze as the serving ace passed him,” wrote the Times. “When, a few minutes later, the Duchess of Kent in the royal box presented the coveted trophy to Falkenburg, he looked as surprised as he was pleased.”
Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves
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