Rod Laver Weds in San Rafael
By Jennifer Christensen
As the Grand Slam tennis season officially commences this weekend with the 2023 Australian Open, it is fitting to reflect on an Australian National Living Treasure, Rod Laver, and his connection to…Marin County?!
Rod Laver is the only player in tennis history to win two calendar Grand Slams in singles, a feat referring to winning all four major tennis tournaments — the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open. However, upon meeting Mary Benson at the Jack Kramer Tennis Club in Palos Verdes in 1965, a romantic may surmise Laver’s most prized Grand Slam had nothing at all to do with tennis.
At the time, Laver was already the world’s best tennis player and a multiple-time Grand Slam champion, while Benson was a divorcee from Illinois with three children, who knew very little about tennis and simply wanted to swim. A freckled redhead, Laver recalled Benson’s “sunny disposition and warm olive skin,” as well as her ability to “get him talking” (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2019). They hit it off immediately and made plans to wed.
While in Marin for the Peacock Gap Tennis Tournament the following year, Laver tied the knot with Benson on Monday June 20, 1966 in a small ceremony performed by Reverend Henry Kent at St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church in Bayside Acres, San Rafael. The ceremony included Laver’s best man Kevin Sullivan of Sydney, and Benson’s maid of honor Lois Laver, Rod’s younger sister. Rod and Mary exited St. Luke’s as a married couple under an archway of tennis rackets formed by a number of well-known tennis players, including Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall, Roy Emerson, Mal Anderson, and Barry MacKay.
If Laver experienced any wedding day jitters, a harrowing series of events the day prior certainly did not ease his mind. With a full day of tennis scheduled at a tournament in St. Louis, including both singles and doubles matches, Laver ran dangerously close to missing his wedding day. While en route to the airport, Laver and Lew Hoad’s rental car ran out of gas, causing them both to miss their early evening flight to San Francisco. After waiting four hours at the St. Louis airport for the next flight to California, Laver and Hoad arrived in San Francisco the following morning at 3 a.m.
All’s well that end’s well, however. Laver made it in time for his 5 p.m. wedding, with Mary and Rod enjoying 46 years of wedded bliss.
Game. Set. Match.
