Allan Kendall

Allan Kendall
Full nameAllan Crawford Kendall
Country (sports) Australia
Born(1928-09-29)29 September 1928
Orange, New South Wales
Died17 December 2013(2013-12-17) (aged 85)
Sydney, New South Wales
Singles
Grand Slam singles results
Australian Open2R (1950)
French Open2R (1959)
Wimbledon2R (1959)

Allan Crawford Kendall (29 September 1928 — 17 December 2013) was an Australian broadcaster and tennis player.[1]

Kendall, born in the New South Wales town of Orange, was a nephew of tennis player Jack Crawford.[2] His father, Victor, ended up running a tennis club in Albury where the then Margaret Smith (Court) trained.[1]

Attending Scots College in Sydney from 1943, Kendall was the 1946 NSW schoolboys singles champion. He was a junior doubles champion at the Australian Championships with Rex Hartwig in 1947.[1]

Kendall received blues in lawn tennis, squash and table tennis while studying at the University of Sydney.[1]

During the 1950s and 1960s he competed on the international tennis tour.[1]

Kendall, who got involved in the arts during university, founded the Australian version of BBC children's television show Play School. He got the idea after a visit to BBC studios in 1964 and retired from tennis to begin working for the ABC.[1] When the show premiered on the ABC in 1966 he was the inaugural producer.[3]

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Allan Kendall: Ace at tennis was smash on children's TV". Sydney Morning Herald. 30 January 2014.
  2. ^ "Allan Kendall Astounds Critics". Border Morning Mail. 17 January 1945. p. 5 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ^ "TELEVISION Week of good interviewing". The Canberra Times. 22 July 1966. p. 13 – via National Library of Australia.