The Australian tennis community is mourning the passing of former Australian Open tournament director Colin Stubs, who led the event’s move from Kooyong to Melbourne Park.
Melbourne, Australia, 15 July 2022 | Kim Trengove
The tennis community is mourning the death of Colin Stubs, a former long-time Australian Open tournament director who played a key role in steering the event from the grass courts at Kooyong to the new cushioned hard courts at Melbourne Park in 1988.
‘Stubsy’, as he was fondly known inside the tennis family, was a class act on and off the court. Born on February 27, 1941, he competed against the greats of Australian tennis and ventured onto the international circuit throughout the 1960s when there was next to no financial remuneration for aspiring players.
Stubs’ tennis career started at 16 with a win in the Victorian schoolboys’ under-19 championship. While he was finishing a four-year degree in pharmacy, Stubs reached the second round of the 1961 Australian championships.
He first traveled overseas by ship to compete on the international circuit and won a tournament in Cannes, which helped Colin and a mate buy an old VW to get about Europe.
Stubs competed at Roland Garros in 1967 and 1968 (2R), the US championships in 1968 (2R), and the Australian championships again in 1967 and ’68 (2R) but his best results were a third round appearance at Wimbledon in 1967 and upsetting Hall of Famer Dennis Ralston at Los Angeles in ’68.
From player to promoter
He retired from the tour soon after to be a pharmacist and in 1975 was invited to work as a consultant for Tennis Australia by the new president and good friend, Wayne Reid.
For many years, Stubs was both Australian Open tournament director and pharmacist, “talking to international tennis players on the phone and dispensing headache pills” to the public.
Remembers one player from those days, “you’d go to the pharmacy to find the entry cut off for the lead in tournaments at Stubsy’s Wheeler’s Hill pharmacy.”
Stubs sold his pharmacy in 1978 and expanded his sports marketing and management enterprise, cementing his role with the Australian Open.
With the players questioning the timing of the Australian championships in December and January, and increasingly reluctant to make the long trip Down Under, the event was at a crossroads.
Stubs was a key player in the reborn Australian Open. He was there for the leanest times of the AO when,…
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