just short in what would prove to be the decisive encounter. After six years absent from play, Bédard returned for a 1967 tie versus Great Britain, played in Bournemouth on shale. (From 1966 through 1969 Canada competed in the Europe Group.) Young Canadian star Mike Belkin got proceedings off well for the visitors defeating Mike Sangster in four sets. In the second match Bédard twice won a set to level before losing to Roger Taylor in the fifth 5–7. Belkin and Keith Carpenter then battled Taylor and Bobby Wilson to a 12–10 fifth set, which they lost. With victory at hand for the Brits in the fourth match Belkin started very strongly against Taylor, winning the first two sets by a 6–2 score. The home player however came back to win the final three sets of a close match. Bédard then lost the fifth match dead rubber to Sangster. Playing style and assessment Bédard was a natural, muscular multi-sport athlete, whose excellence in baseball and ice hockey led to contract offers from professional teams, including the New York Rangers ice hockey team and the Cleveland Indians baseball team. Fred Perry stated that Bedard was the most complete athlete in the 1954 Wimbledon tournament and noted his competitive zeal in matches. He received only one season of tennis coaching, at UCLA. His academic career left little time for tennis practice, most of which was with his wife and children at his home backyard courts. His wife and sons were excellent players. His playing style was described by Lucien Laverdure, a racket ace also inducted into the Quebec Sports Hall of Fame in 1991, in his book "Tennis Mon Obsession", published around 1965: "[Bédard's] dominant qualities of determination, patience, strength, control, combined with an extraordinary sense of anticipation led him straight to the goal he had set for himself and far beyond”. Laverdure later remarked in a 2012 assessment, "One of Bédard's competitors, Don Fontana, stated that his physical conditioning was most remarkable: he spoke of rare speed (Bédard ran the 100 meters in 10.3 seconds!), and of superb eye-hand co-ordination, and of intense concentration. It is through perseverance and motivation that Robert Bédard will succeed in triumphing in tennis: he will never have enough time to perfect his technique and bring it up to the level of European or American players who were training at the year long. A bit like