Kenneth Robert Rosewall was born on 2 November 1934 in Sydney. His father Robert was a grocer in Penshurst, and when Ken was one the family moved to Rockdale, where his father bought three clay tennis courts. Ken started playing as early as three. A natural left-hander, he was taught by his father to play right-handed, and he developed one of the finest backhands the game has seen.
In 1953, aged 18, he won the Australian Championships, beating Mervyn Rose, and the French Championships. With his fellow Australian Lew Hoad, with whom he was linked in doubles and in the public mind, he came within three wins of the doubles Grand Slam that year. In 1956 Hoad beat him in the Wimbledon final, but Rosewall stopped Hoad's own Grand Slam bid in the US final. In 1957 he turned professional to take on the professional king, Pancho Gonzales.
For more than a decade he played the professional tour, where he won the French Pro eight times, seven of them in a row from 1960 to 1966, and Wembley five times; his 15 professional major titles are a record. When open tennis arrived in 1968 he won the first open tournament, at Bournemouth, and the first open major, the French Open, both against Rod Laver.
His longevity was unique. He won the 1970 US Open at 35, and at the 1972 Australian Open, aged 37 years, two months and one day, he beat Mal Anderson to become the oldest major champion of the Open Era, 19 years after his first Australian title. In 1974, at 39, he reached both the Wimbledon and US Open finals, losing each to Jimmy Connors. Wimbledon, where he played four finals over 20 years, was the one major singles title he never won. He won eight major singles titles and nine major doubles titles, and 147 singles titles in all.