The amateur years
Australia · born Sydney, 1925 · died 2004 · right-handed · Wimbledon mixed doubles champion 1958 and a fixture at the Championships for 16 years
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1958
Wimbledon and Australian mixed doubles titles in the same year
3
Wimbledon mixed doubles finals, 1958, 1960 and 1961
133
Matches played at Wimbledon, 1954 to 1971
16
Consecutive years in all three Wimbledon events, 1954 to 1969
2
New Zealand singles titles, 1958 and 1959
Robert Neville Howe, always Bob, was born in Sydney on 3 August 1925. He grew up in a tennis family in Pennant Hills, where the Howes had a court of their own, and he worked as a teacher in Sydney while playing as an amateur. In 1956 he became the first Australian to be seeded as a foreign entrant at the US National Indoor Championships.
His best results came in mixed doubles. In 1958 he won the Australian title with Mary Bevis Hawton at White City in Sydney and the Wimbledon title with Lorraine Coghlan, and he also won the New Zealand singles that year and again in 1959. He added French mixed titles on clay with Maria Bueno in 1960 and Renée Schuurman in 1962, and reached men's doubles finals in Paris in 1958 and 1961 and in Melbourne in 1959.
He was one of the most durable players Wimbledon has seen. He entered singles, doubles and mixed there in every year from 1954 to 1969 and played 133 matches at the Championships between 1954 and 1971. He won singles titles on clay at the London Hard Court Championships in 1954 and on grass at Nottingham in 1963. He died in Santa Ana, California, on 30 November 2004.
| Wimbledon mixed final 1958 | With Lorraine Coghlan, seeded fourth, beat Kurt Nielsen and Althea Gibson, seeded second, 6-3, 13-11 |
|---|---|
| Wimbledon mixed finals lost | 1960: with Maria Bueno lost to Rod Laver and Darlene Hard 13-11, 3-6, 8-6. 1961: with Edda Buding lost to Fred Stolle and Lesley Turner 11-9, 6-2 |
| Australian mixed final 1958 | With Mary Bevis Hawton beat Peter Newman and Angela Mortimer 9-11, 6-1, 6-2 at White City, Sydney |
| Wimbledon record | 133 matches, 1954 to 1971: singles 18-17, doubles 23-17, mixed 43-15 |
| Australian doubles final 1959 | With Don Candy lost to Rod Laver and Bob Mark 7-9, 4-6, 2-6 |
| Wimbledon | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1958 | Mixed doubles | with Lorraine Coghlan Robinson |
| New Zealand Championships | ||
| 1958 | Men's singles | |
| 1959 | Men's singles | |
| Australian Championships | ||
| 1958 | Mixed doubles | with Mary Bevis Hawton |
Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. †single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions
The person behind the player.
Pennant Hills, Sydney
The Howe family's court sat on the lower side of their property in Warne Street, Pennant Hills, and members of the local Church of England club came there for social games. The local history archive calls the Howes a very talented tennis family.
Source: Hornsby Shire RecollectsNew York, 1956
Howe, then a Sydney teacher, was the first Australian to compete at the US National Indoor Championships and to be seeded there as a foreign entrant, in 1956.
Source: Hornsby Shire RecollectsWimbledon, 1958
In the 1958 mixed final he and Lorraine Coghlan, seeded fourth, took the first set 6-3 from Kurt Nielsen and the singles champion Althea Gibson, then needed 24 games to settle the second at 13-11. Howe played with a Slazenger racket, Coghlan with a Dunlop.
Source: Wimbledon Compendium 2025 (AELTC)Wimbledon, 1954 to 1969
The Compendium records that Howe played in all three Championships events for 16 consecutive years, from 1954 to 1969, and lists him among the men who have played more than 100 matches at Wimbledon, with 133.
Source: Wimbledon Compendium 2025 (AELTC)Free membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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