Cox played his first tournament on 3 November 1958 at the Torquay Indoor Championship. During his career, he won twenty-four singles titles He won 23 of his Davis Cup matches and lost 12. Following the establishment of the Open Era in men's tennis in 1968, Cox went down in history as the first amateur player to beat a professional when he defeated the American
Pancho Gonzales in the second round of the
British Hard Court Championships at Bournemouth, in a match that went to five sets and lasted two and a quarter hours. He followed this up for good measure by beating two times Wimbledon Champion
Roy Emerson in the next round. It was after his victory over Emerson that
Time magazine referred to Cox as a "giant killer", a reputation he strengthened further by achieving big upset wins over No. 1 seed
Rod Laver at the
1971 Australian Open and over No. 2 seed
Ken Rosewall at the
1972 US Open. During his career, Cox maintained positive head-to-head records over several top players, such as
Guillermo Vilas (whom Cox defeated 6–1, 6–1 at the
Memphis Open in 1977, a year when Vilas lost only 14 out of 154 matches),
Manuel Orantes,
Lew Hoad,
Roscoe Tanner,
Jan Kodes and
Ivan Lendl. Some of Cox's finest moments came late in his career; a notable triumph was at the
1976 Stockholm Open, when at the age of 33 he won the title after knocking out world No. 1
Jimmy Connors and Manuel Orantes (respectively the reigning and previous
US Open champions) in succession. He remarked afterwards that "At the big points I played the right shots, the first services were going in. It was like a fairy story." Although able to win on all surfaces he was especially adept at playing on indoor carpet courts, and in 1975 he became the last British player to win back-to-back professional titles (at the
Washington Indoor WCT and London WCT events) until
Andy Murray repeated the feat in 2008. To date, he is the last English-born male to win a top level UK tournament on grass (
Eastbourne in 1973). After his final title in 1977 it would take another 17 years for a British player to win a top-level tour title (
Jeremy Bates at Seoul in 1994). During his latter playing years and after his retirement, he worked as a coach and also as a television commentator for the
BBC. ==Personal life==