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Lumpkin, Angela

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The Growth of NationalWomen's Tennis, 1904-1940ANGELA LUMPKINWhen Mary Outerbridge broughtthe implements of the new Britishlawn sport of tennis to Staten Is-land in 1874, little did she realizethat in just over a quarter of acentury this sport would attractwomen enthusiasts from coast tocoast. Prior to this national devel-opment, however, Victorian fash-ion and leisurely styles of playprevailed as predominately Easternsociety women embraced the game.These Eastern players preferred anot-too-vigorous, though nonethe-less competitive approach to ten-nis, hosting their first nationalchampionship in 1887. This domi-nation by Easterners continued un-til 1899 when the first non-East-erner won the national champion-ship. Then between 1904-1940, sixCalifornia ladies (May Sutton, Mrs.Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, MaryK. Browne, Mrs. Helen WillsMoody, Helen Jacobs, and AliceMarble) reigned atop the nationaltennis scene capturing twenty-three national titles in singles. Inaddition to their championship per-formances, these six led in theAbout the AuthorAngela Lumpkin is an Assistant Pro-fessor of Physical Education at the Uni-versity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.perfecting of styles of play, affirm-ing that the baseline game, theserve-and-volley game, as well asthe all-court game were alternativeapproaches to victory. In these andother ways, this Californian sextetgreatly enhanced the popularityand stature of tennis nationally.Californians did not just startmass production of tennis playersat the dawn of the twentieth cen-tury. While clubs were formed asearly as the 188O's, the ladies werereluctant to play the sport competi-tively until the late 189O's whennumerous women vigorouslyadopted the game (Yates, 1890).Tennis in southern California wasdominated in the early years ofthe twentieth century by the fourSutton sisters, Ethel, Violet, Flor-ence, and May. Capturing betweenthem eighteen Southern CaliforniaTennis Championships, frequentlythe quip emerged that it took aSutton to beat a Sutton. A passion-ate and all-consuming devotion totennis prodded the Suttons to con-struct their own court and toteach themselves how to play, evenwith balls minus covers and withborrowed racquets (Hoffman,1953).May Sutton emerged as the bestof the quartet and following herdomination of tennis throughout47QuestCalifornia, she travelled to Phila-delphia for the national champion-ships in 1904. Although reports ofthe higher standards of play in theEast had reached the West coast,she did not find the competitiontoo difficult and brought back withher the singles and doubles cham-pionships (Sutton, 1912).May Sutton's vigorous game, in-cluding strong forehands, an over-head, mannish serve, and greatfootwork, first signaled a transitionin the caliber and style of women'stennis (Potter, 1963). Sutton car-ried her winning style of play toEngland in 1905. By defeating Eng-land's best, Dorothea Douglas, inthe singles finals, she became thefirst American man or womanchampion at Wimbledon. Twoyears later she again captured theAll-England title at Wimbledongiving her vigorous, though pre-dominately baseline game threemajor singles championships.During the 1902 Pacific CoastChampionships a new disciple em-braced tennis. Hazel Hotchkiss fellin love with the sport at her firstsight of championship tennis, suchas exhibited by Ethel and MaySutton and especially by the dou-bles play of Sam and SumnerHardy. The Hardy brothers' preci-sion in volleying and smashing,their split-second maneuvers whichdrew opponents out of position,and their quickness at the net kin-dled a desire in Hotchkiss to playsimilarly (Wind, 1972).The graveled backyard of theirhome in Berkeley encouraged HazelHotchkiss and two of her brothers.Homer and Marius, to adopt theHardy brothers' forte. Playing overa rope strung across the yard,dodging rosebrushes, and tryingto hit the ball before it would er-ratically bounce from the gravel"court," Miss Hotchkiss learnedthe game that would start a revolu-tion in women's tennis. Also, prac-ticing solo against the wall of theHotchkiss house, she learned tocarefully control the ball to pre-vent a wild stroke from crackingone of the bay windows on eitherside of her "bandboard" (Wight-man, personal interview, 1973).Six months after taking up ten-nis, Hotchkiss entered her firsttournament, the Bay CountiesWomen's Doubles Championship.She and her partner won withoutlosing a set as Hotchkiss made his-tory with the revolutionary tacticsshe employed.Standing a yard and a half fromthe net when her partner served, sheintercepted the majority of her op-ponents' returns and volleyed themfor winners. She rushed forward tothe net during rallies whenever ashort return provided an opening,and stayed there instead of retreatingto the backcourt. She followed inafter her betters serves . . . to vol-ley the return. These measures thor-oughly demoralized her opponents,who had been brought up to thinkthat woman's place was the baseline.The emancipation of woman from thebackcourt was definitely under way.(Wind, 1952, p. 39)From this somewhat spectacularbeginning, she developed into anartist in doubles play, although insingles she was somewhat less for-midable. A soft serve and less thanoverpowering drives left her littlechoice but to move to the net.When she played her volleyinggame against opponents who werenot hard and accurate hitters, shewas practically unbeatable.In 1909 Hotchkiss travelled toPhiladelphia and swept the singles.48The Growth of National Women's Tennis, 1904-1940doubles, and mixed doubles crownswith her serve-and-volley game.She repeated this the next twoyears becoming the first person towin a triple-triple.Following her marriage in 1912to Bostonian George Wightman,she semi-retired from tennis forseven years to rear a family. Dur-ing these years and those followingshe befriended numerous Califor-nia players who came to play in theeastern tournaments, thereby help-ing bridge the gap between theEast and the West. During hercompetitive career spanning twen-ty-nine years, she won a total offorty-five national titles, includingfour American singles champion-ships. In addition to competing,Mrs. Wightman taught tennis tonumerous potential stars and .as-sisted with the development ofothers, such as fellow CaliforniansHelen Wills and Helen Jacobs. Thisgrand lady, born only twelve yearsafter the first tennis ball was hitin this country reigned as the"Queen Mother" of national wom-en's tennis for over half a century.In 1912,1913, and 1914 Mary K.Browne repeated Hotchkiss' triple-triple sweep in the national singles,doubles, and mixed doubles cham-pionships. Browne had learned hertennis on the fast, hard Californiacourts at the hands of Tom Bundyand her brother, Nat Browne. MaryK. Browne displayed a distinct netgame which she combined with abrilliant, severe overhead game andwith the ability to force openingswith cunning changes of pace.With seemingly no weakness, sheoperated her game most effectivelyfrom just inside the service courtline. From this position, she exe-cuted sharp overhead shots andlow volleys at acute angles acrossthe forecourt. She also movedeagerly to the net for volleyingduels or anywhere on the courtfor smashes. Browne's game wasbased on sound principles of playand the court craft to plan hergame. Hawthorne (1917) expressedit this way, "There is no woman inthe world with a more comprehen-sive command of strokes and afuller understanding of court tech-nique" (p. 62).This shift in tennis power fromthe East to the West drew manyspeculations about the transition.One contributor to the expertisethese California racquet wieldersdisplayed was the all-the-year-round practice made possible bythe climate. More importantly,however, practice on hard surfaceswith its resultant development ofspeed and accuracy aided perform-ances. That is, accuracy of strokeswhile reacting to a faster paceof play provided the excellentlaboratory setting in which to de-velop the game of the day, whichstressed fast hitting, fast moving,and fast thinking. So, instead ofthe hesitation prompted by turf,asphalt demanded anticipation andquicker movement (Freeman, 1914).Helen Wills entered the sport-ing scene of the 192O's when as aschoolgirl-looking prodigy withlong, braided hair, she competed inher first national tournament in1922. While losing in the finals.Wills gleaned a lesson that she re-applied throughout her long andbrilliant career—"that simplicity oftechnique added to directness ofattack are far more effective thanfancy spins and exaggeratedstrokes" (Davidson & Jones, 1971,p. 23). She did not favor the useof brute strength, but for her,power could be obtained through49Questchanges in the grip of the racketand at the same time be less de-manding. She relied on anticipa-tion, not speed of foot. A reverseor a slice adequately replaced anyneed for a kicking, overpoweringserve as used by men. Even withhard-hitting baseline drives, herplay was essentially feminine aswomen players at all levels of abil-ity identified with her style of play(Metzler, 1970).Wills' powerful game of ground-strokes with seldom any net playproved effective enough to bringher seven American singles titlesand eight All-England singlescrowns in fifteen years—a recordunmatched by any other woman.She also captured four French ti-tles. Combined, this made HelenWills the "Queen" of women'stennis from 1926-1938.Contemporary with Helen Wills,and ironically from the same hometown, was the "Other Helen."Helen Jacobs, two years junior toHelen Wills, followed in the foot-steps, and often the shadow, of theolder champion. In her own right,though, Jacobs did develop into achampion with the assistance ofsome good teachers.Those who did the most for meduring the formative years of mytennis career were William C. "Pop"Fuller, of the Berkeley Tennis Club.Mr. Fuller was a retired druggist witha great love and knowledge of thegame. He also coached Helen Willsand other young players of the time.Mrs. Hazel Wightman, on visits toher home town, Berkeley, was veryhelpful to me, as was Bill Tilden,over the years. Mrs. Wightman andI have always been friends, and shedid much to instil (sic) in me the im-portance of calm concentration on thecourt. . . . (personal correspondence)Helen Jacobs played an "all-court" game of tennis combiningbackcourt drives with volleys andoverheads at the net. She lackedsome power and top spin on herdrives, yet substituted sliced fore-hands and backhands which be-came devastating weapons againstmost of her opponents. Jacobs todate has remained the only womanchampion to win the American sin-gles title four consecutive years(1932-1935).Mrs. Hazel Wightman after "dis-covering" and instructing bothWills and Jacobs, recommendedthat they play each other to pro-mote tennis in California. This setthe stage for their first match,which the older Wills won easily.Because of the age and experiencedifferences favoring Wills andmaking the matches one-sided, theexhibitions did not work out, butthese two champions continued tooppose each other occasionally intournament finals. The press at thetime, and historians since then,have misrepresented their relation-ship as a feud. Mrs. Wightman,who knew both well, emphasizedthe differences in their personali-ties, their ambitions, and theiroverall attitudes as the reasonsthat they were not close friends.But, she affirmed, they were notenemies (Wightman, personal in-terview, 1973). Jacobs agreed thattheir relationship was merely "anintense competitive tennis situa-tion" (personal correspondence).In Jacobs' only defeat of Mrs.Helen Wills Moody in a nationalsingles championship in 1933, theolder champion defaulted in thethird set due to a back injury. Theaftermath, although distorted bymany, showed no harsh attitudes,nor reactions, between the two50The Growth of National Women's Termis, 1904-1940champions. Two years later on thecenter court at Wimbledon the re-match of the century pitted the twoHelens against one another. Vic-torious, Mrs. Moody achieved vin-dication from the repercussions ofthe 1933 default and forced Jacobsto have to wait until 1936 for herWimbledon singles crown.The two Helens bequeathedtheir champion-status to San Fran-cisco's Alice Marble who becameAmerica's singles title holder in1936. Encouraged by her brotherDan, Marble eagerly pursued ten-nis, mostly on her own withoutformal lessons. Even after she be-gan tournament competition, shestill lacked knowledge of the ba-sics of strokes and strategy. At herfirst national tournament. Marblewas advised by fellow Californianand former champion, Mary K.Browne, to secure a coach to teachher these basics. Taking Browne'sadvice, she secured two coaches,Harwood White who changedher grip and taught her the basicsof the strokes and Eleanor Ten-nant who helped perfect these andwho became her career coach(Marble, 1946).Marble was the first woman toplay the so-called "big game,"adopting from men stars such asMaurice McLaughlin and EllsworthVines the big serve-and-powergame. With a kicking action and amighty swing, she exhibited thefirst power serve used consistentlyand successfully by a woman. Fol-lowing this attacking serve, shemoved to the net to intercept anyreturns with vicious overheads andwell-placed volleys.Her first hard-kicking American-twist serve and the finality of hersmashes give her an advantage neverbefore enjoyed by any other womanplayer in the history of the sport, forshe stands supreme in overhead playamong the immortals of the game.(Nason, et al., 1940, p. 309)Two limitations prevented Mar-ble from attaining the heights pre-dicted by conjecturers during herearly years in national tourna-ments. First, she experienced ahealth problem. A bout with sun-stroke and anemia in a 1933 tour-nament when she played 11 setsand 108 games in one day followedby a disease diagnosed as tubercu-losis appeared to terminate hercareer. Marble's determination andcourage, however, combined to re-place an invalid life with four na-tional singles titles within fiveyears. Secondly, Marble traded inher amateur status in 1940 for aprofessional tour as Mary K.Browne had done in 1926. Marbledescribed her decision to acceptthe tour as follows: "I turned pro-fessional to pay back a number ofobligations and because tennis wasover in Europe due to the war"(personal correspondence). Thus,the annals of tennis will never re-cord the heights to which Marblemight have attained if she hadbeen healthy and if she had con-tinued to have international tourna-ment opportunities as an amateur.Two summarizing observationsconcerning the six California cham-pions who led women's tennis dur-ing the first forty years of thetwentieth century have been madeby this writer. During the thirty-seven years between May Sutton'sonly national singles title in 1904and Alice Marble's last singlescrown in 1940, this sextet won theAmerican championship twenty-three times. They also won twelve51QuestWimbledon crowns. Secondly, aparallel has been drawn betweentheir styles of play, with two peo-ple representing each of the threegeneral "games." May Sutton andMrs. Helen Wills Moody predomi-nately played a driving, baselinegame. Mrs. Hazel HotchkissWightman and Alice Marble basedtheir game on advancing to thenet for volleys, although Marbleadded the power serve. Mary K.Browne and Helen Jacobs com-bined groundstrokes with volleysand overheads to exhibit more ofan all-court game. These observa-tions, hopefully, have reempha-sized the leadership in style andcaliber of play displayed by thoseWest Coast champions.In addition to vying for numer-ous national championships, thesesix winners influenced other fac-ets of the sport. May Sutton withher shorter skirts, fewer petticoats,avoidance of high-collared shirt-waists, and rolled up sleeves, pio-neered women's emancipation frommedieval sports attire (Cummings,1957). Mrs. Helen Wills Moodypopularized the use of a whiteeyeshade. Both Helen Jacobs andAlice Marble favored shorts ratherthan dresses for play.Competition for college-agewomen, non-existent prior to the193O's, was initiated by Mrs. HazelWightman through invitational col-legiate tournaments in Boston (per-sonal correspondence). Mary K.Browne expanded this idea openingthe tournaments she co-sponsoredwith Ohio's Lake Erie College tocollege women, plus others whocould add to the caliber of play.The first of the Mary K. BrowneInvitational Tournaments tookplace on the courts of Lake ErieCollege on June 14, 15, 16, 1934(Painesville Telegraph, June 15,1934, p. 12).Only once in history have Amer-ican women vied for gold in Olym-pic tennis competition. In the 1924games in Paris, France, Mrs. HazelWightman captured two gold med-als in women's doubles and inmixed doubles, while Helen Willscaptured the singles gold medaland teamed with Wightman forthe doubles win—a complete sweepof the gold medals by the Americanwomen (Schaap, 1963).Lastly, as a combined contribu-tion to tennis both on and off thecourt, Mrs. Hazel Wightman con-ceived the idea of an internationalcompetition. Once the concept crys-tallized, she recommended an inter-national team match to the presidentof the United States Lawn TennisAssociation in 1920 and even pur-chased and donated a cup for theevent. Forgotten until the stadiumat Forest Hills, New York, neededa distinguished opening event in1923, suddenly, the "WightmanCup" matches became a reality.First pitting America's and Eng-land's finest women players, thechallenge matches continued to in-clude only these two nations. Ledby Wightman, Browne, Wills, Ja-cobs, and Marble the United Statescaptured the Wightman Cup thir-teen times between 1923-1940.Dominate, indeed they did!These six Californians contributedthe new and perfected styles ofplay which captured champion-ships during the early twentiethcentury. They influenced clothingstyles and expanded competitiveopportunities both nationally andinternationally. Without them, ten-nis as known in the 197O's mightindeed have advanced toward itspresent popularity much slower.52The Growth of National Women's Tennis, 1904-1940At least, these women played aviable part in the development oftennis into a truly national sportand pastime.REFERENCESCummings, P., American tennis, Boston:Little, Brown and Company, 1957.Davidson, O. and Jones, C. M., Greatwomen tennis players, London: Pel-ham Books, 1971.Freeman, L. R., Why California tennisplayers win. Outing, LXV, October,1914.Hawthorne, F., Following the ball. Out-ing, LXXI, October, 1917.Hoffman, J., The Sutton sisters. Theracquet, XLVIII, August, 1953.Marble, A., The road to Wimbledon,New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,1946.Metzler, P., Tennis styles and stylists.New York: The Macmillan Company,1970.Nason, J. et. al.. Famous athletes of to-day, Boston: L. C. Page and Com-pany, 1940.Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph, June 15,1934, p. 12.Personal correspondence between HelenHull Jacobs and the writer.Personal correspondence between AliceMarble and the writer.Personal correspondence between Mrs.Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman and thewriter.Potter, E. C, Jr., Kings of the court.New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,1963.Schaap, R., An illustrated history of theOlympics, New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1963.Sutton, M. -G., My career as a lawntennis player, American lawn tennis,VI, May 15, 1912.Wind, H. W., Profiles: Run Helen!, TheNew Yorker, XXVIII, August 30, 1952,p. 39.Wind, H. W., The story of Hazel Hotch-kiss Wightman, The fireside book oftennis, eds. Allison Danzig and PeterSchwed, New York: Simon and Schus-ter, Inc., 1972.Wightman, H. H., personal interview,December 7, 1973.Yates, C. R., Lawn tennis on the PacificCoast, Outing, XVI, July, 1890.53

The Growth of National Women's Tennis, 1904 -1940

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The Growth of National Women's Tennis, 1904 -1940

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