The federal government has from this year removed the New Years Eve honours list with the awards made on Australia Day and on the Queen's official birthday in early June.

Laver received an MBE in the Queen's Birthday honours list in 1970.

And Brisbane will honour Rockhampton-born "Rocket" Laver next week when the footbridge from Yeerongpilly station to the Queensland Tennis Centre is named the Rod Laver Footbridge.

Mr Shepherd said the recognition of Mr Laver – who lived with Mr Shepherd's family in Moorooka for 10 years as his tennis career began in the 1950s – was well overdue.

And he said Laver, now 75, should be knighted.

"I am surprised that no-one has even knighted Rod," Mr Shepherd said.

"Bradman and a lot of other people got knighted, but I don't think he has ever been offered a knighthood - and he is our greatest tennis player."

Donald Bradman was knighted in 1949 for his services to cricket, while Australian racing car driver Sir Jack Brabham was knighted in 1979.

Laver won the Grand Slam twice in 1962 and 1969, Wimbledon four times in a career which included 11 Grand Slam victories.

In 1986 US tennis magazine Inside Tennis polled 37 tennis experts who named Laver the greatest tennis player of all time, despite a great rivalry with Spanish great Richard "Pancho" Gonzales.

In 2007 tennis historian Raymond Lee again statistically analysed all the best players and again Laver came out on top of the list of players, which included Roger Federer.

Shepherd was Laver's double partner through the 1960s and later went to Rod Laver's Florida tennis centre in Delray Beach as a tennis coach.

Laver's cousin Brian Laver, from West End – who also coached at the Delray Beach centre – said he was unsure if the legend would accept a knighthood.

"I have never heard Rodney talk about it any way," he said.

"And I've never heard Jim and the rest of the gang talk about it before, but Jim is a close friend so he might be a radar to pick up that sort of stuff.

"I wouldn't recommend he take it, but there are a lot of people who might want to give him one and I would say he would be a more respectful beneficiary than Bradman."

Tennis fans hope the naming rights of the new Brisbane footbridge will extend through the new 400-metre walk through to the Pat Rafter Arena, giving Brisbane a Rod Laver Way to match Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena.

Brian Laver said he was uncertain if it could be done.

"I think they are just starting to line up more gongs with top-ranking women," he said.

The second former Queensland tennis star to be honoured next week will be Roy Emerson, who won the Australian Open men's title six times in the 1960s.

Emerson won 12 Grand Slam tournament singles titles in the amateur era and 16 Grand Slam tournament men's doubles titles.

He will be at the new Roy Emerson Tennis Centre at Frew Park at Milton – on the site of the old Milton Tennis Courts – on January 8 when the new tennis centre is formally opened.

Other former Queensland tennis greats who will be at the naming ceremony include Ashley Cooper and Mal Anderson.

Cooper, now on the Tennis Australia board, was the world's number one player in 1957 and 1958 and won the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open titles.

Anderson won the US singles championships as an unseeded player in 1957, the French Open doubles with Cooper in 1957, then the Australian Open doubles in 1973 with John Newcombe. He was a Davis Cup regular in 1957 and 1958 then in 1972 and 1973.

Rod Laver will arrive in Brisbane on Sunday for the beginning of the Brisbane International.

On January 9, he will be at the Queensland Tennis Centre and will appear at the formal opening of the Rod Laver Footbridge from 9am.