Local senior tennis player Jimmy Parker achieved a milestone to remember Sept. 15, winning his 99th and 100th career United States Tennis Association national titles.

Parker swept the over-65 USTA Grass Court Singles and Doubles competitions in Seabright, N.J., to put him into the triple digits in career titles, a feat which took the 66-year-old Parker five decades to achieve.

The accomplishment puts Parker in rare company: Only three other players have won 100 or more USTA national titles during the course of their careers. There are four USTA national championships each year for each age group, on hard court, clay and grass surfaces.

Parker, who moved to Santa Fe in April, spent 30 years as the Director of Tennis at the Houston (Texas) Racquet Club before retiring in 2006.

He says that during the past couple years, when he struggled with injuries, including a knee injury that required surgery, reaching No. 100 seemed like a distant possibility.

"I really didn't like the feeling I had leading up to it," Parker says, adding that he feared he would have to retire before reaching the milestone.

In fact, Parker neglected to tell his doubles partner, Ken Robinson of Northern California, that their championship doubles at the Grass Court championships was his first chance to get to 100 titles, because he didn't want to create any added pressure.

"When I told him afterwards, he said, 'I'm glad you didn't tell me before the match, because I probably would have blown it,' " says Parker, chuckling.

Parker began his journey when he won his first national doubles championship as a 13-year-old in St. Louis. Parker played juniors tennis against a young Arthur Ashe in St. Louis, before competing at Rice University from 1961-65, where he was an All-American.

If he had played in the modern era, Parker likely would have joined the pro tour after his collegiate career, but such a thing didn't exist in the mid-1960s.

"When I was growing up, there was no money in tennis," Parker says. "Only three or four guys could actually make a living out of it."

Parker's career spanned a period that has seen men's tennis change dramatically. Parker had the distinction of playing in the first-ever men's match at the U.S. Open in 1968, and he lost to favorite Ken Rosewall.

Parker spent six years in the Air Force during the Vietnam War from 1968-74, during a time which would have been the prime of his career.

The hiatus from the sport helped contribute to Parker's desire to continue to play into his middle-age years and beyond.

"I never really got tired of playing tennis, like some of the other guys I played with in juniors or in college," Parker says.

Parker coached tennis at Rice University from 1973 to 1976, before joining the Houston Racquet Club in 1976.

"I was always around tennis and I was always teaching with a racquet in my hand," Parker says. "It didn't make sense for me not to play."

The next step in Parker's tennis odyssey will take him to the Britannia Cup in Australia in November, where he will captain a four-man U.S. team.

"It's kind of like a Davis Cup for old guys," Parker says of the event, which includes over-65 teams from 22 nations. "It's a chance to represent your nation. ... And it's a great opportunity to see some of the guys that I've been playing against for all these years."

Contact Jon Sward at jsward39@gmail.com.