1. Brad Gilbert was born on August 9,1961 and is an American former professional tennis player, tennis coach, and tennis commentator and analyst for ESPN.
32 Facts About Brad Gilbert
1. 2.
Brad Gilbert won a bronze medal at the 1988 Olympics, and both a gold medal and a silver medal at the 1981 Maccabiah Games.
3.
Brad Gilbert was born on August 9,1961, to a Jewish family in Oakland, California.
4.
Brad Gilbert played tennis for Foothill College, a junior college in Los Altos Hills, California, from 1980 to 1982, where he was coached by Tom Chivington.
5.
In 1981, Brad Gilbert became a member of the American Junior Davis Cup team.
6.
Brad Gilbert competed for the US in the 1981 Maccabiah Games in Israel, losing in the men's singles finals to Israeli Shlomo Glickstein, but winning a gold medal in doubles with Jon Levine over fellow Americans Rick Meyer and Paul Bernstein.
7.
Brad Gilbert joined the professional tour in 1982 and won his first top-level singles title later that year in Taipei.
8.
Brad Gilbert won a total of 20 top-level singles titles during his career including 1986 Pacific Coast Invitational against Aaron Krickstein, and the biggest being the Cincinnati Masters tournament in 1989.
9.
Brad Gilbert was runner-up in a further 20 singles events, including Cincinnati in 1990, where he lost to six-time Grand Slam champion Stefan Edberg, and the Paris Masters in 1987 and 1988.
10.
Brad Gilbert was runner-up at the inaugural Grand Slam Cup in 1990.
11.
Brad Gilbert was ranked among the top-ten players in the US for nine of his first ten years on the professional tour.
12.
Unlike many other professional players of his era, Brad Gilbert did not have a major offensive weapon such as an overpowering serve or forehand.
13.
Brad Gilbert hit the ball most often at a slow but accurate pace and was sometimes called a pusher.
14.
Brad Gilbert kept an open stance and did not turn much during the swing at the baseline.
15.
Brad Gilbert built his game around destroying his opponent's rhythm.
16.
Brad Gilbert forced his opponent into long rallies by hitting the ball high over the net and deep into his opponent's court.
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Brad Gilbert was one of the sport's top strategists as a player.
18.
The title of Brad Gilbert's 1994 nonfiction book, Winning Ugly, was a self-deprecating nod to his unorthodox but successful tennis career.
19.
Brad Gilbert won a bronze medal in men's singles at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
20.
Brad Gilbert is a member of the USTA Northern California Hall of Fame, and the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
21.
Brad Gilbert is a 1999 inductee into the Pepperdine Athletics Hall of Fame.
22.
Brad Gilbert was inducted in 2001 into the ITA Intercollegiate Tennis Hall of Fame, and in 1996 into the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
23.
Brad Gilbert was a 2001 inductee into the Marblehead Boosters Hall of Fame.
24.
Brad Gilbert was the coach of Andre Agassi for eight years, from March 1994 until January 2002.
25.
Agassi won six of his eight majors when Brad Gilbert was his coach.
26.
On July 26,2006, Brad Gilbert was announced as taking over the coaching duties of Scottish player Andy Murray.
27.
Brad Gilbert worked with the LTA's network of coaches and its high-performance clubs and academies.
28.
Brad Gilbert had a strong showing in her first tournaments since the change, winning the women's singles title at the Washington Open, the Cincinnati Masters shortly thereafter, and her first major win at the 2023 US Open.
29.
Brad Gilbert is the author of the book Winning Ugly, which gives tips on how an average player can defeat a more skilled opponent and better the average player's mental game.
30.
Brad Gilbert is Jewish and resides with his wife Kim in Malibu, California.
31.
Brad Gilbert owns a tennis shop in Greenbrae, California called Brad Gilbert Tennis Nation.
32.
Brad Gilbert was a close friend of tennis player and commentator Barry MacKay.