Courtesy Dorothy Lodato

every friday at 11 a.m., you’ll find him on the courts at Peninsula Tennis Club. He’s the one with the drop-dead drop shot, the perfect lob, the formidable endurance.

And, oh, he ’s turning 100 in December.

Ken Beer, shown here with Jennifer Capriati in 1999, has 73 gold tennis balls at his Hillsborough home, commemorating national championships in singles and doubles tournaments played on clay, grass and hard courts across the country. He also displays photos from his early career piloting the legendary China Clipper—Pan Am’s “flying ship”—from 1939 to 1945.

“I play hard against him, and he usually wins,” says tennis buddy George W. Parker, MBA ’42, of Burlingame. “He’s really quite amazing. ”