Professional tennis players before the Open Era

John Donald Budge (June 13, 1915 – January 26, 2000) was an American tennis player. He is most famous as the first tennis player — male or female, and still the only American male — to win the Grand Slam, and to win all four Grand Slam events consecutively overall. Budge was the second man to complete the career Grand Slam after Fred Perry, and remains the youngest to achieve the feat. He won ten majors, of which six were Grand Slam events (consecutively, a men's record) and four Pro Slams, the latter achieved on three different surfaces. Budge is considered to have one of the best backhands in the history of tennis, with most observers rating it better than that of later player Ken Rosewall.Budge is also the only man to have achieved the Triple Crown (winning singles, men's doubles and mixed doubles at the same tournament) on three separate occasions (Wimbledon in 1937 and 1938, and the US Championships in 1938), and the only man to have achieved it twice in one year. Budge was the world Number 1 amateur in 1937 and 1938 and world Number 1 professional in 1939, 1940 and 1942.

George Andrew Toley (April 23, 1916 – March 1, 2008) was an American collegiate tennis coach at the University of Southern California from 1954 to 1980. His teams won ten NCAA team championships (1955, 1958, 1962–64, 1966–69, 1976), nine individual titles and twelve doubles titles, and included stars such as Alex Olmedo, Rafael Osuna, Dennis Ralston, Joaquín Loyo-Mayo, Raúl Ramírez, Stan Smith, Bob Lutz and Marcelo Lara.
Born in Los Angeles, Toley graduated from Los Angeles High School and attended the University of Miami before returning to his hometown and graduating from USC in 1942 with a degree in Education. He was a nationally ranked tennis player during his college years, rising as high as 7th and 10th in doubles in 1939 and 1940 with partner, Gardnar Mulloy, and 20th in singles from 1940 to 1942.
In 1941–42, Toley served for a brief time as a USC tennis coach, and also as a club pro at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. After World War II, he became club pro at the Los Angeles Tennis Club (LATC) from 1947 to 1972. He was also an instructor at the Marlborough School from 1947 to 1970, and added the coaching position at USC in 1954 until retiring in 1980. He wrote a book on college tennis entitled "The Golden Age of College Tennis", published in 2009.
Toley was named the Intercollegiate Tennis Association National Coach of the Year for NCAA Division I men's tennis in 1978. Toley's teams at USC were highly successful, winning 82% of their dual matches (430-92-4). Toley's 1963 and 1967 teams were named the #1 and #3 greatest all-time men's teams, respectively, by Inside Tennis magazine.In 1983, Toley was one of the 15 initial inductees to the Intercollegiate Tennis Hall of Fame (along with Olmedo, Osuna and Ralston), was elected to the Southern California Tennis Hall of Fame in 2000, and to the USC Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003. Toley died at age 91 in Pasadena, California.

Gertrude Augusta "Gussie" Moran (September 8, 1923 – January 16, 2013) was an American tennis player who was active in the late 1940s and 1950s. Her highest US national tennis ranking was 4th. She was born in Santa Monica, California and died in Los Angeles, California, aged 89.

Sam Giammalva Sr. (born August 1, 1934), is an American former professional tennis player in the mid-20th century.
Giammalva played for the United States Davis Cup team, earning a 7–3 record in match play between 1956 and 1958. He was on the victorious U.S. teams of 1957 and 1958. In 1958, he teamed up with Barry MacKay to reach the doubles final at the U.S. Nationals. The pair fell to Alex Olmedo and Ham Richardson, 3–6, 6–3, 6–4, 6–4. It was Michigan’s MacKay who beat Giammalva, of the University of Texas at Austin, in the final of the 1957 NCAA Championship in five sets. Giammalva also reached the NCAA doubles final in 1955. He won three straight Southwest Conference singles titles from 1956-1958.
Giammalva won the Eastern Grasscourt Championships in 1955, defeating Seixas, Nielsen, and Shea to win the title. Giammalva also reached four finals at the Cincinnati Masters: two singles finals and two doubles finals. In 1958, he knocked out Crawford Henry, Gustavo Palafox, and Donald Dell before falling to fellow Texan Bernard Bartzen in the singles final by a score of 7–5, 6–3, 6–2. He also reached the singles final in 1954 and doubles finals in 1952 and 1958.
Giammalva's best grand slam singles result was reaching the quarter-finals of the 1955 U.S. National Championships, where he lost to No. 4 seed Lew Hoad in four sets.
Sam Giammalva started as tennis professional in 1959 on The Jack Kramer Championships, playing in the Forest Hills Professional Tournament of Champions that year. He won the 1959 Southern U.S. Pro Grasscourt title beating Budge and Riggs. He played the US Pro Championships in 1960, 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1967.
Giammalva went on to coach at Rice University for 14 years from 1959 to 1972, leading the Owls to 10 Southwest Conference titles and second-place NCAA tournament finishes in 1968 and 1970.
Giammalva’s sons, Tony Giammalva and Sammy Giammalva, Jr., were also tennis players. Sam Jr. won two singles titles and four doubles titles on the ATP Tour, and was ranked as high as world no. 28 in singles and no. 22 in doubles during his career. Elder son Tony won 4 doubles titles and reached a career high singles ranking of 70 in 1981.

Robert Haillet (26 September 1931 – 26 September 2011) was a French international tennis player. He competed in the Davis Cup a number of times, from 1952 to 1960.The iconic tennis shoe adidas Stan Smith was initially named "adidas Robert Haillet" when introduced in 1965, but was changed in 1971 after Haillet's retirement from tennis.Haillet staged a remarkable comeback in his fourth round match against Budge Patty at the 1958 French Championships. Patty was leading 5–0, 40–0 in the fifth set but could not convert his match points and Haillet won seven consecutive games to win the final set 7–5. Haillet reached the semi-finals of the French championships in 1960 (beating Neale Fraser before losing to Nicola Pietrangeli).].Haillet turned professional in mid 1960 when he joined the pro tour of Jack Kramer.His son Jean-Louis Haillet was also a tennis player.

Robert Ramillon was a French professional tennis player of the 1930s and was the winner of French Pro in 1932. He also played in the finals in 1931 and 1936.