Between the wars
Japan · born Takamatsu, 1904 · died 1967 · Japan's first Wimbledon champion, in the 1934 mixed doubles with Dorothy Round
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1934
Wimbledon mixed doubles title with Dorothy Round, unseeded
1st
Japanese player to win a Wimbledon title
15-5
Wimbledon mixed doubles record, 1929 to 1934
6
Wimbledons in a row, 1929 to 1934
1930
South of England singles title at Eastbourne
Tatsuyoshi Miki, known in Britain as Ryuki, was born in Takamatsu on 11 February 1904 and played for the tennis team of the Kobe Higher Commercial School. He reached his first final at the Japan International Championships in 1924. He joined the trading house Ataka and Company, which sent him to London in the late 1920s.
In England he played a full amateur circuit. He won at St George's Hill in Weybridge three years running from 1929, the South of England Championships at Eastbourne in 1930 and a string of county and seaside events. He played Wimbledon six times in a row from 1929 to 1934, reaching the third round of the singles four years running, and he played Davis Cup for Japan in 1932.
His great success came in mixed doubles with Dorothy Round, whom he coached and partnered from 1931. They reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon in 1933 and won the title unseeded in 1934, the first Wimbledon title for a Japanese player. Miki gave up tournament tennis after 1934 and died in Tokyo on 9 January 1967.
| Wimbledon mixed final 1934 | With Dorothy Round, unseeded, beat Bunny Austin and Dorothy Shepherd Barron 3-6, 6-4, 6-0; earlier beat Harry Lee and Freda James 6-3, 6-2 in the semi-final |
|---|---|
| Wimbledon mixed, earlier years | 1930: fourth round with a British partner listed only as Thomas. 1933: quarter-final with Round, lost to Norman Farquharson and Mary Heeley 8-10, 3-6 |
| Wimbledon singles | Third round four years running, 1930 to 1933, losing to Greg Mangin, Jean Borotra, Wilmer Allison and Ellsworth Vines; record 9-6 |
| Wimbledon doubles | Quarter-finals in 1932 and 1934; in 1932 with Jiro Sato beat the second seeds Jack Crawford and Harry Hopman |
| Wimbledon | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1934 | Mixed doubles | with Dorothy Round Little |
| Eastbourne | ||
| 1930 | Men's singles South of England Championships | |
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.
Kobe and London, 1920s
As a student Miki was asked by Tomiko Ataka, daughter of the owner of Ataka and Company, to be her tennis coach. He joined the firm and was sent to London, officially to assist the local representative but in practice as a companion to Eiichi Ataka, the heir to the company, who was studying the piano there.
Source: Wikipedia, citing Keiko Itoh, The Japanese Community in Pre-War Britain (2001)1931 to 1934
Miki coached Dorothy Round as well as partnering her in mixed doubles from 1931. In 1934 she won the Wimbledon singles, and the same fortnight the pair won the mixed.
Source: Wikipedia, citing the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Wimbledon Compendium 2025Wimbledon, 1934
Miki and Round were unseeded. They won seven matches, including a semi-final against Harry Lee and Freda James, and came from a set down in the final to beat Bunny Austin and Dorothy Shepherd Barron, taking the last set 6-0.
Source: AELTC player archiveWimbledon, 1934
Miki won his title in a sickly year: a virus that became known as the Wimbledon Throat spread through the locker rooms and caused many retirements.
Source: Wimbledon Compendium 2025 (AELTC)Europe, 1932
Playing doubles with Jiro Sato in the 1932 European Zone, Miki won all three of his Davis Cup rubbers, including in the semi-final tie against Italy, which Japan lost 3-2.
Source: Wikipedia, citing the Davis Cup official siteFree membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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