Lucien Laverdure

Major Accomplishments

Served as a promoter, retailer, racquet designer and manufacturer, coach and administrator in Quebec.

Best known for authoring the French-language book; “Tennis: Mon Obsession.” (Tennis, My Obsession).

Biography

Lucien Laverdure felt the passion of tennis early on in life having picked up a racquet for the first time when he was 12-years-old in 1927. He spent the rest of his life teaching and promoting the sport of tennis which before long earned him the nickname “Mr. Tennis.”

From 1933-46, he was both a coach and elite player in Quebec and organized over 800 exhibition matches across the province. During this period, some of the players joining him in these exhibitions were Marcel Rainville, Henri Rochon, Roland Longtin and a few other elite Canadian tennis players. In 1947, he became the First French Canadian to be recognized as a member of the US Professional Lawn Tennis Association. (USLTA)

In 1952, he founded the first Quebec tennis school called “L’Ecole de tennis du Regiment de Chateauguay” that became one of the first indoor tennis clubs of its kind. In that first year the school attracted 57 aspiring players. Eventually, with the help of his two instructors, Laverdure was able to provide free tennis lessons to more than 600 young boys and girls.

Outside of tennis Laverdure was also a businessman and in 1934, he joined forces with Roland Longtin and opened a sporting goods store on Rue Sainte-Catherine in Montreal. A few years later, Laverdure and Longtin went their separate ways and at that point Laverdure teamed-up with Dan Murray and opened “LM Sports”. In 1965 Laverdure opened his own store named “Lucien Laverdure Sports” on Saint Laurent Boulevard and the store became known as the first specialized tennis store in Quebec.

During his business career, he also designed and marketed his famous racquet called the “LL” which was distributed for free to all the top players in Quebec at the time, including Henri Rochon, Robert Bedard, François Godbout and Rolland Godin.

Laverdure was also an author and began working on his first book in collaboration with Jean-Paul Cofsky, titled “Tennis: Mon Obsession” which was published in 1965. That year also marked a milestone as he started making plans for the construction of the first truly indoor tennis club in Quebec called “Club 4 Saisons” which opened in Laval in 1969.

For many years, Laverdure juggled coaching tennis and the daily responsibilities of his store. In addition to these duties, he managed to find time to serve as the secretary of the Lawn Tennis Association of the Province of Quebec from 1948-60. During his tenure, he organized various tournaments at the regional, provincial and international level and in the process helped promote the growth and popularity of the game in Quebec.

In 1960, he established the “Ecole de tennis de Montreal” to offer free tennis lessons for junior and adult players on the grounds of the “Universite de Montreal” and various municipal courts including Jarry Park. Part of the mandate of the “Ecole” was also to train teachers and instructors so that they could in turn promote the growth of the sport.

Throughout his career, Laverdure wrote columns about tennis for French-Canadian newspapers such as La Patrie, le Petit Journal and Le Devoir. His writings were also published in English in the Sunday Express.

Laverdure passed away in 1976 and is considered to be the pioneer of indoor tennis in Quebec.