David Mercer is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 sports presenter

Presenter

A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...

.

He played most sports at school and university, and won the Welsh Junior Doubles at tennis in 1968. In 1969 he was captain of the Nottingham University tennis team. He graduated in 1970 and qualified as a solicitor

Solicitor

Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...

 in 1973, running his own firm in Swansea

Swansea

Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...

 for nine years.

He became a freelance sports reporter after winning a competition organised by BBC Wales

BBC Wales

BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation for Wales. Based at Broadcasting House in the Llandaff area of Cardiff, it directly employs over 1200 people, and produces a broad range of television, radio and online services in both the Welsh and English languages.Outside...

 in 1979, for a time combining this with his legal practice and with public relations

Public relations

Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

 duties for the Law Society

Law society

A Law Society in current and former Commonwealth jurisdictions was historically an association of solicitors with a regulatory role that included the right to supervise the training, qualifications and conduct of lawyers/solicitors...

. He has commentated on tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

 including Wimbledon

The Championships, Wimbledon

The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors...

 and other sports including soccer, rowing

Rowing (sport)

Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...

, skiing

Skiing

Skiing is a recreational activity using skis as equipment for traveling over snow. Skis are used in conjunction with boots that connect to the ski with use of a binding....

 and American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

. Besides the BBC, he has worked for other TV channels, including Eurosport

Eurosport

Eurosport is a pan-European television sport network operated by French broadcaster TF1 Group. The network of channels are available in 59 countries, in 20 different languages providing viewers with European and international sporting events...

.

Mercer also played racquet sports, rugby

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

, soccer and cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

. He now plays golf. He umpired

Official (tennis)

In tennis, an official is a person who ensures that a match or tournament is conducted according to the International Tennis Federation Rules of Tennis and other competition regulations....

 at tennis including Wimbledon

The Championships, Wimbledon

The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors...

 from 1973 to 1984, notably the men's singles final at Wimbledon in 1984

1984 Wimbledon Championships - Men's Singles

John McEnroe was the defending champion and won in the final 6–1, 6–1, 6–2 against Jimmy Connors.-Seeds:A champion seed is indicated in bold text while text in italics indicates the round in which that seed was eliminated.-Finals:...

, won by John McEnroe

John McEnroe

John Patrick McEnroe, Jr. is a former world no. 1 professional tennis player from the United States. During his career, he won seven Grand Slam singles titles , nine Grand Slam men's doubles titles, and one Grand Slam mixed doubles title...

 against Jimmy Connors

Jimmy Connors

James Scott "Jimmy" Connors is an American former world no. 1 tennis player....

.

He now lives in Wendover

Wendover

Wendover is a market town that sits at the foot of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England. It is also a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district...

 in Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....

with his wife Sue. He has one daughter, Caroline, who was born in April 1978, two stepchildren, Liz and Chris, and four grandchildren.

External links

• BBC biography
• Blackburn Sachs Associates client profile
• http://www.tmcentertainment.co.uk/speaker-index.html?speakerid=427&speakertypeid=14