Relaxing before the TV in his new home at The Plantation, tennis great Tom Gullikson is watching the next generation of players compete at Wimbledon. Having arrived from Chicago just two weeks prior, he still has some boxes to unpack. But that can wait. One of the biggest events in the sport to which he has devoted his life is underway, and that takes precedence.
Gullikson arrived in Ponte Vedra on June 27 — his wife, Shaun Considine, will join him later — and, learning there was to be a Wimbledon-themed social event at The Plantation’s club, he quickly volunteered to hit some balls with other members.
It was a timely occasion that seemed tailor-made for Gullikson, who was now part of a community he’d long admired. He had visited Ponte Vedra Beach frequently to play golf and tennis during the 30 years he lived in Palm Coast, where, among other things, he coached then-Flagler County resident and future tennis star Reilly Opelka from the age of 8 to 13.
Today, Gullikson still enjoys playing tennis, a game that, like fellow Ponte Vedra resident and tennis great MaliVai Washington, he discovered at the age of 5.
Early success
Gullikson and twin brother Tim were born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, a town of about 52,000 on the east bank of the Mississippi River. Fortuitously, the family lived directly across the street from the tennis courts of the local University of Wisconsin campus.
One summer, the public parks department sponsored tennis lessons for kids at the university.
“My mother kind of looked across the street and she saw all these kids running around, hitting tennis balls, having fun,” Gullikson recalled. “She’s got these two energetic 5-year-old twin boys, and she’s like: Oh, that would be a good place for me to put the boys.”
At first, young Tom and Tim just chased the balls, but soon enough, they lifted their first rackets.
“By the time we were 8, we were pretty good,” Gullikson said.
A group of college students living two doors down were among the first to recognize the boys’ potential. The eight guys were like big brothers to Tom and Tim, who they couldn’t tell apart and took to calling TimTom.
“They said, ‘Hey, TimTom,’ and we would both look up and come running,” Gullikson recalled.
The college would conduct tennis classes on Friday afternoons as part of its phys ed program and, seeing how well the Gullikson boys played tennis, the guys quickly realized an opportunity to win some beer money.
“They’d say, ‘Hey, TimTom, let’s go over to the courts and find two guys for you to play,’” Gullikson said.
Their college buddies would find the biggest guys on the court and bet them that they couldn’t beat the young boys at doubles. Of course, the bet was accepted, usually with some laughter.
“We would play doubles with them and we would always win,” said Gullikson. “We were pretty good, even though we were only 8 years old.”
Out of the winnings, the twins were given a quarter apiece.
“We would take the quarter and ride our bikes down to the ice cream shop a couple of blocks away and buy ice cream cones,” Gullikson said. “So, I guess, technically, we turned pro when we were 8.”
Turning pro for real
The family moved to nearby Onalaska, Wisconsin, where the boys’ father was a barber and their mother worked in a grocery store. They didn’t have the means to travel and play in the National Junior Tournaments and couldn’t afford tennis lessons, so the boys honed their skills by playing against each other.
“We would literally play five, six hours a day,” Gullikson recalled.
They only received one college scholarship offer and so attended Northern Illinois University at DeKalb, a Division 1 school. They played there from 1969 to 1973, after which Tim Gullikson moved to Dayton, Ohio, for a teaching pro job at a club in the suburb of Kettering.
Playing in some tournaments around Cincinnati, he received encouragement from Hank Jungle, one of the top-ranked players in the country over the age of 35, who suggested he turn pro.
So, in 1975, Tim Gullikson quit his job at the Kettering Tennis Center and did just that. It was a good decision.
“In one year, he went from teaching pro to the top 100 in the world, which is unheard of,” brother Tom said.
At that time, Tom Gullikson was working at a club in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
“I’m sitting there in Chicago thinking, I’m as good as my brother and I’m left handed; I have a better serve!” he said.
So, in May 1976, he quit his job and went pro. Twelve months later he was ranked in the top 50 in the world.
Courting success
The brothers went on to enjoy successful tennis careers. Tim Gullikson played for a dozen years and was ranked 15 worldwide. Brother Tom played for 11 years and made it to number 23.
Together, they got as far as the Wimbledon finals in 1983, finally defeated in doubles by John McEnroe and Peter Fleming. Still, they were awarded runner-up medals from the Duke and Duchess of Kent in the Royal Box.
“Tim looked over at me with this great smile that he had, and he goes, ‘Not bad for a couple of small town boys from Onalaska, Wisconsin,’” Tom Gullikson said.
In all, they won 10 ATP doubles titles, with Tom Gullikson going on to win a total of 16. In 1984, he won the mixed doubles at the U.S. Open with Manuela Maleeva.
He also did well in singles, getting to the quarter finals in the 1982 U.S. Open and winning the 1985 singles title at the Newport, Rhode Island, tournament.
In the years before he retired from playing in 1987, Gullikson beat some of tennis’ top competitors, defeating Bjorn Borg once and Jimmy Conners and Stefan Edberg twice. He said his toughest opponent was McEnroe, whom he was never able to beat in singles but did beat several times in doubles.
Coaching career
Gullikson went on to coach tennis for the next 30 years. Between 1994 and 1999, he was the U.S. Davis Cup captain, his team winning 3-2 over Russia in 1995 at the Olympic Stadium in Moscow.
Sadly, brother Tim lost his battle with brain cancer that same year.
In 1996, Gullikson was the U.S. men’s Olympic coach for the Atlanta games. There, he helped Andre Agassi, who won the gold medal.
He was one of the original members of the U.S. Tennis Association Player Development Program, and served as director of coaching from 1997 to 2001.
He retired from coaching in 2017 and moved from Florida to Chicago. There, he taught tennis for 15 hours a week at the Midtown Athletic Club.
Northeast Florida
In January, after he and his wife looked at homes in Sarasota, Delray Beach and Boca Raton, they decided to buy a home in The Plantation. Since then, they’ve been busy moving their possessions here.
Gullikson called the northeastern coast the “best part of Florida.”
“I’m quite happy I don’t need to shovel sidewalks anymore or scrape ice off my car windows,” he said.
Though he still enjoys a game of tennis, he has also taken to pickleball, which his wife also plays and teaches.
“You can learn how to play in, like, one hour,” Gullikson said. “But it is hard to master.”
He especially likes playing the game at The Yards, which he said has one of the nicest pickleball facilities he’s seen.
But tennis continues to be a passion. When a Grand Slam championship, like the one at Wimbledon, is aired, Gullikson is watching.
“I would love to see an American male win another Grand Slam,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”
