Owen Davidson, who won eight grand slams with Billie Jean King, dies at 79

Owen Davidson, an Australian tennis player who formed a dominant mixed doubles team with Billie Jean King in the 1960s and ’70s, winning eight Grand Slam titles with her, along with five doubles titles with other partners, died Friday in the Houston suburb of Conroe. He was 79.

The cause was cancer, his longtime friend Isabel Suliga said.

Davidson came of age during a heyday for Australian tennis, with peers such as Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Roy Emerson, John Newcombe and Margaret Court.

Unlike those players, Davidson did not have significant success in singles tennis, never advancing beyond the semifinals of a Grand Slam tournament. But his congeniality, sportsmanship, lob-inducing serve and adroitness in volleys made him one of the sport’s strongest doubles players.

From 1965-74, he won 11 major mixed doubles titles and two men’s doubles titles. In 1967, he swept every major mixed doubles event, winning the Australian Open with his countrywoman Lesley Turner Bowrey and then winning the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open with King.

Davidson and King trained together starting in 1964 in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, with Australian great Mervyn Rose. On her first day in camp, King felt sent around the court “like a pinball” fielding shots from Davidson, she recalled in her 2021 autobiography, “All In.”

“I’ve always said the Australian men made me No. 1, and those sessions were an important part of it,” she wrote.

The duo won their first Grand Slam in 1967 at the French Open.

“I played mixed with so many great players, but I couldn’t win with the others,” King recalled in a phone interview, mentioning leading men she had partnered with, including Newcombe and Dennis Ralston.

She and Davidson, conversely, struck a harmonious balance between her optimism and competitiveness and his steadiness and modesty. “He wasn’t Mr. Exuberant,” she said. “He’s more Steady Eddy.”

Davidson’s athletic strengths included his powerful overhead on his weak right side; his serve, which King compared to a cricket bowler’s delivery; and his team play at the net.

“He let me take a lot of volleys that most guys would not,” King said. “They would get in and try to take the volley first.”

That was particularly useful during the duo’s epic faceoff against Court and Marty Riessen at Wimbledon in 1971.

Davidson and King lost the first set 3-6 and won the next one 6-2. The final set remained undecided after 27 games.