Few people have embodied the notion of tennis as a sport for life more whole-heartedly than Lorne Main.

The Canadian, who passed away last year at the age of 89, was a gifted junior and Grand Slam competitor in the sport’s amateur era, but it was the second chapter of his tennis career that brought him international acclaim as one of the world’s most successful Seniors players, winning over 40 World Championship titles between 1986 and 2016.

Main’s accomplishments were recognised by the ITF in 2012 when he became the first recipient of the Outstanding Achievement Award in Seniors Tennis at the World Champions Dinner in Paris. This week, the ITF announced that the Men’s Over-85 World Team Championship trophy will be named in his honour, making him both the first Canadian to have an ITF Seniors trophy named after him, and the first player so honoured for their exploits on the Seniors scene.

“We're really honoured that the ITF and Tennis Canada has been involved in moving this forward and dedicating the trophy to Dad,” Kevin Main, one of his four children, told ITFTennis.com. “This would have been a significant event in his life, because it speaks to tennis being a lifetime sport. His journey started at nine years old, and it ended when he was almost 90 – eight decades playing tennis.”

Lorne Main was born in Vancouver, British Columbia in July 1930. In an era dominated by single-handed strokes, he played with two hands on both his backhand and forehand, an even rarer sight then than it is today. A year after he began playing tennis, aged 10, he entered the city championships – for players under 18.

“I thought, that's a little brazen!” Kevin Main said. “In the first round he played the reigning champion and took him to three sets. That was an interesting story about his competitive spirit. He had that for all of his life.”

So began the journey of a lifetime. By age 16, Main was Canada’s top-ranked junior and earned a scholarship to University of California Berkeley, where he played as their No.1 in 1949 before committing to tennis full-time. He represented Canada in Davis Cup from 1949 until 1955, later serving as captain from 1958 to 1961.

'He couldn't really make a living playing tennis. In those days there wasn’t any prize money – Spalding used to pay him $75 a week'

In another era, the name Lorne Main might have featured in Grand Slam coverage for a decade or more. He played in 11 majors in the 1950s, reaching the third round at Wimbledon, Roland Garros and the US Championships in 1954. That same year, he won the biggest title of his career in Monte Carlo – then, as now, considered one of the jewels in the clay court circuit. But with tennis still an amateur sport, like many players, Main found it hard to make ends meet.  

“He couldn't really make a living playing tennis,” Kevin Main explained. “In those days there wasn’t any prize money, so you got paid by the sponsor – he was sponsored by Spalding and used to get $75 a week. He would travel and live off that and play the tournaments.

“He did get a small amount of prize money for winning in Monte Carlo, maybe $100 or something. But Spalding increased his deal to $150 a week – it doubled his pay! But it really wasn't enough for him to make a living out of the sport, so he stepped away from tennis.”

Having hung up his racquets in the late 1950s, Main began work in newspaper and magazine advertising back in Canada. In his own words from a profile in 2015: “In those days it was a lot of lunch hours, a lot of martini drinking, things like that. I guess it just got a little out of hand with the drinking.” Main’s wife, Ivy, died of pancreatitis in 1974. “We were both alcoholic, and she didn’t get a second chance and I did,” he added. He quit drinking soon after, and was sober the rest of his life.

As he got his life back on track with the help of family and friends, Main returned to tennis as a coach, mentor and tennis pro in Montreal. One of his former players, Tennis Canada Chair Jennifer Bishop, remembers her first coach fondly.

“He was very dedicated to the sport, very wise, very kind,” Bishop said. “And probably what I remember most about Lorne is the twinkle in his eye – people who know him the most will know exactly what I’m talking about. I remember playing matches and looking over at Lorne seeing that twinkle – it was almost as if he was saying, ‘You’ve got this, kid’.

“I was very nervous and anxious, coming from a small centre on the east coast of Canada, travelling and competing in larger cities and big tournaments. I remember one time we were on the road at a tournament and he bought me this little green-and-white t-shirt that said ‘I’m gonna win!’ He made me wear it for every match in that tournament until I could convince him that I believed it.”

'What I remember most about Lorne is the twinkle in his eye – people who know him will know exactly what I’m talking about'

In 1986, Main made his debut at the ITF Seniors World Championships in Portschach, Austria in the 55-and-over category. By now he was playing single-handed forehands and backhands, but the switch had no ill effect on his game as he reached the final. Awaiting him was a familiar face: Frank Sedgman, the Australian five-time Grand Slam singles champion of the 1950s.

“I can't call him a rival,” Main said in 2012, though the two had met previously. “He beat me in Davis Cup. I'll always remember, in 1950 he came over from Wimbledon and he was the Australian Open champion. He beat me very handily, 6-1 6‑2 6‑3. Thirty-six years later I'm playing him in my first World Championships in the finals, and after I beat him 7‑5 6‑4, I told Sedge, I've waited 36 years for this match.”

As the years rolled on, Main became a travelling tennis phenomenon on the Seniors circuit. He often entered into lower age groups to find the right level of competition, and found himself in hot demand from doubles partners across North America and Europe. He became famous for driving coast-to-coast across the US and Canada, whether for tournaments the length and breadth of the US and Canada or to spend winter in Florida.

“His real love was a 1965 Mustang convertible,” Kevin Main said. “I remember that car when we lived in Vancouver, when I was just 11 or 12 years old. And he had the opportunity to get that car again later in life, the same model.

“He eventually took it to Europe, driving from one Seniors tournament to another. When he finished off the tournaments in Italy, somebody in Palermo wanted to buy the car – so rather than ship it back he sold it there, and the car stayed. When he got back, he bought another convertible!”

The Seniors circuit also provided a love match when Main first met Australia’s Adrienne Avis at a tournament in Austria in 2010. Like-minded tennis nomads, the pair were a hit both on and off the court; at one stage they were ranked mixed doubles No.1s, and in 2016, after a few seasons on the road together, they were married.

But do not mistake Main for a journeyman. Over three decades he won at least one World Championship title in every ITF Seniors age category, from his first 55-and-over singles triumph in 1986 to the 85-and-over mixed doubles victory with Rosemarie Asch in 2015. By the time he played his last match on the ITF Seniors circuit he had won 29 ITF Seniors individual world titles, alongside a multitude of team titles for Canada.

'The friendships were really the most important thing for him. It’s not just the love of the sport he’d been playing the sport for all of his life, but everything that came out of that'

“For someone like Lorne, who loved to play and coach and mentor, for the ITF to provide a forum for someone like him to compete later in his years – whether it was an opportunity to play for Canada, or to build the camaraderie with players from other countries – is a really special experience,” Bishop said. “It was quite a gift to him, and quite frankly to all of us players.”

“He loved representing Canada – that was significant for him,” Kevin Main added. “And he loved the days where he was at the ITF events, with all the people that were associated with the events and playing in the events. The friendships that came from the competition were really the most important thing for him. That's probably one of the biggest takeaways for me. It’s not just the love of the sport – he’d been playing the sport for all of his life – but it's everything that came out of that.

“And then of course there was the ITF award in 2012. For him that was really meaningful, because that spoke more to his career as a tennis player, to what he was able to achieve over all of those years.

“Winning a tournament is one thing, but winning consistently over a long period of time, that takes a different level of dedication. A lot of things happen over the years, and a lot of things can take you away from tennis or derail you or your health as you get older. But it spoke to his commitment. He played every day and tried to keep in playing shape, and he was able to do that.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the cancellation of the ITF Super-Senior World Championships for 2020, but the event is set to return in 2021, when the Lorne Main Cup will be contested for the very first time, his name on a World Team Championship trophy alongside the likes of Fred Perry, Suzanne Lenglen, Tony Trabert and Althea Gibson.

“We've been overwhelmed with this – it's a lovely dedication,” Kevin Main said on behalf of the family. “It’s something that hopefully will encourage future players – hopefully some future Canadian players – to aspire to, to try and achieve that level. Certainly, he's one of the very few people that have been able to play tennis for life like that. That really is meaningful.”