LDS professional tennis player Brad Pearce of Provo, Utah, left his mark at the Wimbledon tennis tournament June 25-July 7, reaching the quarterfinals before losing to top-seeded Ivan Lendl, 6-4, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4.
The unseeded Pearce, ranked 120th in the world, had advanced into the illustrious field of eight with a straight-set win over Australian Mark Woodforde, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.A member of the Edgemont 13th Ward, Provo Utah Edgemont North Stake, the 24-year-old Pearce lost in the first round here in 1986 and failed to qualify the next three years.
His father, Wayne, coached tennis at BYU from 1963 to 1979. During that time, the Cougars won six Western Athletic Conference tennis championships. The younger Pearce went to UCLA, where he was an All-American in 1985-86 and reached the NCAA singles semifinals. He turned pro in 1986 after his sophomore year and quickly broke into the top 100.
But then the stocky 5-foot, 9-inch Pearce disappeared off the charts after he married and lost his mother, who died of cancer. He admitted that he lost confidence in his game, but he has regained confidence and then some and said he hopes to build on his success at Wimbledon.
"Wimbledon has been something I've dreamed about since I was a little kid," he said.
Pearce called his victory over Woodforde the "most satisfying" of his career. And he received rave reviews for his hard-fought match against Lendl, played on Wimbledon's famed Centre Court following a three-hour rain delay.
Pearce and his wife, Cindi, are the parents of a baby daughter.
