Although the steel tennis racket would not know true glory until Jimmy Connors used his Wilson T2000 in the 1970s, a big splash was made by William A. Larned (1872 – 1926; seven times champion of the U.S. Open) when he designed the Dayton Steel Racket in 1922. It wasn’t the first steel racket, but it was an improvement on the existing ones.
The Vanity Fair sports writer Fred Hawthorne was filled with high praise for tennis star Molla Bjurstedt Mallory (1884 – 1959):
To-day Mrs. Mallory’s backhand shots are on par with her famous forehand drive, and her all-around play has improved tremendously. She is a splendid volleryer, too, though not in our typical American style. Mrs. Mallory has won the national singles title five times and last August defeated Mlli. Suzanne Lenglen, of France, probably the most finished woman tennis player in the world.
Pictured in this file is Sis Hopkin’s Middy Blouse for tennis. Cut to resemble a sailor’s jumper, a popular look for girl’s upper-class leisure attire, the ad ran in VOGUE and TOWN & COUNTRY:
A chic and charming blouse for the charming summer girlie at the paddle, in the tennis court or in the school room.
Marion Hall Zinderstein Jessup has one of the most versatile games on the courts. Overhead and off the ground, she possesses virtually all the strokes in tennis, forehand, backhand, lob, smash, volley and block volley, yet she has a weakness, one that has cost her many an important match, and when she met Mrs Mallory in 1920, probably the national championship.
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For tennis, of course, the conventional flannel trousers will continue their popularity this season. But many men will also wear white duck or twill trousers, which has the advantage of great coolness and comparatively easy to launder… -but wait! the excitement does not stop with such trilling prose! The reader will also find a lovely fashion drawing of some awfully mannly tennis players as well as photographs of the fashions being praised.
Four incredible sketches depicting the natty tennis clothing of 1921.
In 1916 Coco Channel was not a household word in American fashion circles yet, but judging by this fashion editorial that appeared in Vanity Fair magazine, one can assume that her presence was being felt.
The net-heads of 1919 were delighted to be able to read tennis articles once more following that long dry spell that began in the summer of 1914 and left them all with such a distaste that had only recently ended.
The editors of Leslie’s Weekly jumped into the first post-war tennis season with this article, titled Tennis Again To The Fore where they began to enthusiasticly write of the great players of the sport; names like, Suzanne Lenglen (1899-1938)of France and Australia’s Norman Brooks (1877-1968) and Gerald L. Patterson (dates?)-who would all go on to dazzle and amaze the tennis world of the 1920s.
These twelve black and white photographs depicting the tennis Guru George Agutter, in full court attire, are accompanied by short, pithy instructions as to how the racquet should be held and the feet positioned in order to play the game as they did in 1918.
The above link will display a very different sort of tennis shoe than the sort that we see today; it was not made by Chinese prison labor nor could it be fastened with Velcro…
An article about Donald Budge (1915 – 2000), an American tennis champ active in the late 1930s who was ranked the World’s Number 1 player for five years, first as an amateur player and then as a pro. This article appeared in print in 1939, when the player’s best days were behind him.
This article is about Nancy Chaffee (1929 – 2002), another California-born tennis champion of the post-war era. Chaffee had once been ranked as the fourth-place women’s tennis champ in all the world, winning three consecutive national indoor championships (1950-1952). She first came to view in 1947 playing alongside the men on the U.S.C. tennis team (there was no women’s team at the time). The year before this article appeared on the newsstands, Chaffee made the semi-finals at Forrest Hills, her record at Wimbledon can be read here
Having seen the international pantry shelf sadly depleted in the way of cups during the stirring campaign of 1921, extended preparations now underway beneath the Union Jack, indicate a counter attack of no slight proportions this coming summer.
A magazine interview highlighting the tennis career of Suzanne Lenglen
Mille. Lenglen was a remarkable French tennis player who won 31 Grand Slam titles from 1914 through 1926. She is remembered as the the first high-profile European woman tennis star to go professional: in 1912 she was paid $50,000.00 to play a series of matches against Mary K. Browne (1891 – 1971). This article concentrates on her supreme confidence and overwhelming determination to win.
When prest as to whether she liked a tonic, or say just a
little wine, before her matches, Mile. Lenglen admitted that she
did and that she had been promised that it would be obtained
for her in the United States. Despite the fact that she is in an
arid land Suzanne praised the effect of this stimulant on her
game.
‘Nothing, she said, is so fine for the nerve, for the strength
for the morale. A little wine tones up the system just right.
One can not always be serious. There must be some sparkle, too.’
The legendary sports writer, Grantland Rice
This article dates to a the dear, dead days when tennis balls were white and landscapers (rather than diesel machinery) were relied upon to make tennis courts; it was also a time when the abilities of a skilled tailor were required for tennis clothing. These court-side stylists would not simply monitor the drape of tennis trousers but they would anticipate the unspoken needs of their tennis dandies – and in so doing, the tennis blazer was born.
