Woodies to be inducted into Hall of Fame

Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde, the world’s most successful ever doubles pair, will be inducted into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame in 2010.

Affectionately nicknamed the Woodies, Woodbridge and Woodforde will be welcomed into the Hall of Fame in a special ceremony at Rod Laver Arena on Australia Day, when bronze statues of the pair will be unveiled.

The statues will later be installed in Garden Square at Melbourne Park alongside those of other Australian tennis greats.

The celebrated Woodies partnership began in 1991 and resulted in an astounding 11 Grand Slam titles, 61 ATP doubles titles, a gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and a silver medal in Sydney in 2000.

They won the French Open once, the Australian Open and US Open twice, and Wimbledon a record six times – from 1993 to 1997 and again in 2000.

They were the ATP Doubles Team of the Year four times, and represented Australia together in three Davis Cup finals, helping Australia to victory over France in Paris in 1999.

Todd Woodbridge was born in Sydney and developed an interest in the game as a toddler while accompanying his mother to midweek ladies.

He started out as a successful junior player, winning seven junior Grand Slam doubles titles and the World Youth Cup (now Junior Davis Cup) twice, in 1986 and 1987.

He was an inaugural member of the Australian Institute of Sport and one of his early coaches was the esteemed Ray Ruffels.

In 1997 he reached a career-high singles ranking of 19 after reaching the semifinals of Wimbledon, and he won singles titles in Coral Springs (USA) in 1995, and in Adelaide in 1997.

Following Woodforde’s retirement in 2000, Woodbridge went on to win another three Wimbledon doubles titles (2002–04) with Swede Jonas Bjorkman. He won a further nine titles with Bjorkman, including the Australian Open in 2001 and the US Open in 2003. He also won six mixed doubles Grand Slam titles.

Woodbridge is a distinguished Davis Cup player and holds Australian Davis Cup records for the most wins in doubles (22), the most ties played (32), and most years played (13).

His off-court activities include a stint as President of the ATP Player Council in 2001–02.

Adelaide-born Mark Woodforde also reached a career-high singles ranking of 19, and won four singles titles – Philadelphia, Auckland, and Adelaide twice, in 1988 and 1989.

In 1988 he teamed with the explosive John McEnroe to win doubles titles in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and in 1989 he and McEnroe combined to win the US Open.

Woodforde won five Grand Slam mixed doubles titles – Australian Open 1992 and 1996 with Nicole Provis (now Bradtke, and Woodbridge’s sister-in-law), the US Open in 1992, also with Provis, the French Open in 1992 with Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and Wimbledon in 1993 with the legendary Martina Navratilova.

His off-court activities include co-chairing, with Woodbridge, the ATP Charities in 1997.

Both Woodforde and Woodbridge were awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 1997 for services to sport as gold medallists at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.