Mike Franks

Myron Jay "Mike" Franks (born December 23, 1936) is an American former world class tennis player. He was the #1 seeded junior player in 1954 in the US Nationals at Kalamazoo, Michigan. He played #1 singles for UCLA from 1956 to 1958, and was one of 8 All Americans in college tennis. UCLA won its 5th NCAA Tennis Team Championship in 1956, but was placed on two years probation for football recruiting violations in 1957 and 1958. Franks was ranked # 3 in doubles in the United States in 1956, 1957, and 1959, and was ranked # 7 in singles in 1958. He won a gold medal in doubles at the 1961 Maccabiah Games in Israel with Dick Savitt.

Early and personal life Franks was born in Beverly Hills, California, and is Jewish. Franks started playing tennis at age 12, and continued playing at Beverly Hills High School, graduating in 1954. He often practiced with Bill Tilden and Pancho Gonzales. He was considered a tennis prodigy from the time he won his first tournament match after only one month of playing, beating a player with three years experience.

For 28 years from 1974 until 2001, Franks organized and ran the Annual Carl Reiner Charity Celebrity Tennis Tournament in La Costa, California, In his junior year in 1953 he was ranked the # 2 junior in the US and he was a finalist in the National Junior Singles and won the National Junior Doubles with Jon Douglas, and in his senior year in 1954, he won the Southern California Junior Singles Championship, was seeded #1 in the Junior Singles at the National Tennis Championships in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and lost in the 4th round of singles due to a significant illness (mononucleosis) as well as in the finals of Doubles with partner, Jon Douglas. He was also a member of the Junior Davis Cup team.

That same year, he won a gold medal by winning the doubles at the 1961 Maccabiah Games in Israel with Dick Savitt, defeating South Africans Rod Mandelstam and Julie Mayers, and they remain longtime friends; Franks won the silver medal in singles in the competition, losing to Savitt in the finals. He again won the Doubles Gold Medal at the 1965 Maccabiah Games with Ronny Goldman.

In 1957, he and Mike Green reached the Quarterfinals of the 1957 Wimbledon Men's Doubles. He competed at Wimbledon in 1957, 1959, and 1964.

In his tennis career he defeated the following tennis champions: Rod Laver, Alex Olmedo, Arthur Ashe, Gil Shea, Ulf Schmidt, Jon Douglas, Barry MacKay, Herb Flam, Mike Green, Warren Woodcock, Donald Dell, Allen Fox, Charlie Pasarell, Tom Brown, Dennis Ralston, Ron Holmberg, John Newcombe, Bob Hewitt, Fred Stolle, Vic Seixas, Rafael Osuna, Mal Anderson, Billy Knight, Billy Talbert, Billy Lenoir, and Sammy Giammalva. He never beat Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall, or Roy Emerson.

Franks recommended very good friend and top Professional Pancho Segura, who he met as a ball boy at age 15, to be the Head Professional at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, and he was hired. Franks was a featured speaker at Segura's Memorial Service at the BHTC on December 17, 2017.

Halls of Fame In 1990, he was inducted into the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Beverly Hills High School Hall of Fame in 2013. He was named for induction into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Men's Collegiate Hall of Fame on June 6, 2022. On October 19, 2017, he was nominated for the Southern California Tennis Association Hall of Fame, and on August 7, 2018 he was nominated for the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame.