crème de la crème

ganesh · 2023-03-16 01:25:07

1240) Bill Tilden

Summary

William Tatem Tilden II (February 10, 1893 – June 5, 1953), nicknamed "Big Bill", was an American tennis player. Tilden was the world No. 1 amateur for six consecutive years, from 1920 to 1925, and was ranked as the world No. 1 professional by Ray Bowers in 1931 and 1932 and Ellsworth Vines in 1933. He won 14 Major singles titles, including 10 Grand Slam events, one World Hard Court Championships and three professional majors. He was the first American man to win Wimbledon, taking the title in 1920. He also won a joint-record seven U.S. Championships titles (shared with Richard Sears and Bill Larned).Tilden dominated the world of international tennis in the first half of the 1920s, and during his 20-year amateur period from 1911 to 1930, won 138 of 192 tournaments he contested. He owns a number of all-time tennis achievements, including the career match-winning record and the career winning percentage at the U.S. Championships. At the 1929 U.S. National Championships, Tilden became the first player to reach ten finals at the same Grand Slam event. Tilden, who was frequently at odds with the rigid United States Lawn Tennis Association about his amateur status and income derived from newspaper articles, won his last Major title in 1930 at Wimbledon aged 37. He turned professional at the end of that year and toured with other professionals for the next 15 years.

Details

William Tatem Tilden II towered over tennis both literally and figuratively. Known as “Big Bill,” he thoroughly dominated the game from 1920-1926. During that stretch, the 6-foot-2 foot Tilden won six straight U.S. National Championship Men’s Singles titles (7 overall) and Wimbledon three times. He punctuated that by winning 13 straight Davis Cup matches and leading the United States to seven consecutive titles, a Davis Cup record, over the foremost players from Australia, France, and Japan. Tilden brought a thinking approach to tennis, rather than a booming serve and banging forehand. He studied and mastered the use of spin, favored drop shots and lobs and would rely on his athleticism and physical talents to defeat his opponents. Tilden’s place in tennis history extends his on-court prowess. He was handsome, smart, gregarious, and charming, but he was likewise opinionated, arrogant, and inconsiderate. As his stardom rose, so did his ego.

Despite personal shortcomings, tennis holds its heroes in the highest esteem and close to the heart. Tilden was no different. He was beloved and admired, as much for the brilliance he brought to the court as the Hollywood appeal he exuded off the court. That side of Tilden’s personality was fitting — he long desired to become an actor and was a writer of more than 20 tennis books. Allison Danzig, the legendary New York Times tennis writer from 1923-1968, called Tilden the “greatest player he had ever seen.” Tilden had style and flash, walking onto the court in the 1920 U.S. National Singles Championship finals match against William Johnston wearing a camel hair coat. Luckily, Tilden was able to back up such pretentious entrance, winning a five-set slugfest 6-1, 1-6, 7-5, 5-7, 6-3 over an opponent he would dispatch in five of his seven title match victories. With the triumph, a star was born. Legendary status would soon follow.

Tilden played as an amateur from 1912-1930, and then in need of money played professionally from 1931 until his death in 1953. For years Tilden had resisted the lure of professional tennis, but it was estimated he earned $500,000 in his pro career. As either an amateur or pro, Tilden was almost unbeatable, his seven U.S. National victories were earned at a 91 percent clip — he had 73 wins in 80 matches and from 1920-1926 won 42 straight matches. Frenchman René Lacoste interrupted Tilden’s reign of mastery, winning the 1926 and 1927 titles, the later victory coming over Tilden in three sets. Though doubles wasn’t necessarily his forte, judging by his U.S. National record he was extremely proficient. He won five men’s doubles titles and added four mixed doubles championships.

Tilden became the first American male to win Wimbledon, capturing back-to-back championships in 1920 and 1921 over Australian Gerald Patterson and South African Brian Norton respectively. Curiously, he didn’t return to the All England Club until 1927, losing in the semifinals three straight years. In 1930, and at age 37, Tilden became the oldest man to win a Wimbledon's singles title, defeating American Wilmer Allison in straight sets. Tilden’s Davis Cup teams were invincible from 1920-1926, winning seven straight titles. Big Bill led the charge, compiling a 34-7 record, including a 25-5 mark in singles, third best in history behind Andre Agassi and John McEnroe.

Many of Tilden’s statistical records stand alone, most notably his ten U.S. National finals appearances, a 42 match win streak at Forest Hills (1920-1926), a 95 match win streak (1924-1925), and a best win-loss (78-1) single season (1925). Tilden was ranked in the world’s Top 10 twelve straight times from 1919-1930. He was ranked No. 1 a record six times (1920-1925), matched by Pete Sampras in 1998.

Additional Information

Bill Tilden, byname of William Tatem Tilden II, also called Big Bill, (born February 10, 1893, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died June 5, 1953, Hollywood, California), was an American tennis player who dominated the game for more than a decade, winning seven U.S. championships (now the U.S. Open), three Wimbledon Championships, and two professional titles. His overpowering play and temperamental personality made him one of the most colourful sports figures of the 1920s.

Tilden learned to play tennis at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia, where his wealthy parents were members. Although he won the 1913 U.S. mixed doubles with Mary Browne, he did not reach the finals of the U.S. singles championship until 1918. Considered a late bloomer, he won the U.S. title from 1920 to 1925 and again in 1929. He also won several doubles (1918, 1921–23, 1927) and mixed doubles (1913–14, 1922–23) for a record total of 16 U.S. titles.

Serena Williams poses with the Daphne Akhurst Trophy after winning the Women's Singles final against Venus Williams of the United States on day 13 of the 2017 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 28, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia.

Tilden became the first American player to win the men’s championship at Wimbledon in 1920 and repeated this victory in 1921 and 1930. Among his other titles were many indoor U.S. championships and Italian singles, men’s doubles and French mixed doubles, all in 1930. His Davis Cup play was outstanding, and his 21 victories in 28 cup matches helped the United States hold the trophy from 1920 to 1926. In 1931 Tilden turned professional and spent the next 15 years traveling the world and playing exhibition tennis matches. He was named the greatest tennis player of the first half of the 20th century in a 1950 Associated Press poll and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1959.

Tilden’s stellar accomplishments were often overshadowed by his controversial personal life.

ganesh · 2023-03-18 02:44:21

1241) Dorothea Douglass Lambert Chambers

Summary

Dorothea Lambert Chambers (née Dorothea Katherine Douglass, 3 September 1878 – 7 January 1960) was a British tennis player. She won seven Wimbledon women's singles titles and a gold medal at the 1908 Summer Olympics.

Tennis

In 1900, Douglass made her singles debut at Wimbledon, and after a bye in the first round, lost her second-round match to Louisa Martin. Three years later, she won her first of seven ladies singles titles. On 6 April 1907, she married Robert Lambert Chambers and was became known by her married surname Lambert Chambers.

In 1908, she won the gold medal in the women's singles event at the 1908 Summer Olympics after a straight-sets victory in the final against compatriot Dora Boothby.

She wrote Tennis for Ladies, published in 1910. The book contained photographs of tennis techniques and contained advice on attire and equipment.

In 1911, Lambert Chambers won the women's final at Wimbledon against Dora Boothby 6–0, 6–0, the first player to win a Grand Slam singles final without losing a game. The only other female player to achieve this was Steffi Graf when she defeated Natalia Zvereva in the 1988 French Open final.

In 1919, Lambert Chambers played the longest Wimbledon final up to that time: 44 games against Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen. Lambert Chambers held two match points at 6–5 in the third set but eventually lost to Lenglen 8–10, 6–4, 7–9.

Lambert Chambers only played sporadic singles after 1921 but continued to compete in doubles until 1927. She made the singles quarterfinals of the U.S. Championships in 1925, and from 1924 to 1926, she captained Britain's Wightman Cup team. In the 1925 Wightman Cup, she played, at the age of 46, a singles (against Eleanor Goss) and doubles match and won both. In 1928 she turned to professional coaching.

Lambert Chambers posthumously was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1981. She died in Kensington, London in January 1960.

Details

Dorothea Lambert Chambers was such as dominating force on the grass at Wimbledon that two of her seven championship victories rank among the 17 most lopsided women’s finals in history. The fact that they came seven years apart may just be a numerical coincidence, but there was no mistaking that Chambers was an opponent to be feared at the All England Club. She was a finalist 12 times, tied for second best in history with Martina Navratilova, behind Blanche Bingley Hillyard’s 13 trips. In her twenty years playing at Wimbledon, Chambers hardly lost, compiling a 32-8 record in singles, 29-11 mark in doubles and 24-11 in mixed play. Her seven singles championships ranks third best in history (currently, Serena Williams is tied with her) behind Navratilova (9) and Helen Wills Moody (8).

In 1903, Chambers won the first of her Wimbledon crowns, defeating Brit Ethel Thomson Larcombe in three rare sets, and needed a comeback effort to claim the championship. Chambers prevailed 4-6, 6-4, 6-2, and must have abhorred going the distance. Her next six championships were all completed in straight sets and she yielded just 29 games. In 1904, she bounced Charlotte Cooper Sterry from the winner’s circle 6-0, 6-3. In 1911, she demolished Dora Boothby, 6-0, 6-0. Both Thomson (1912) and Boothby (1909) would win Wimbledon Ladies Championships, but when they faced the athletic Chambers they were no match. When she shut out Boothby, she became the first player to win a major singles final without dropping a game.

Douglass won seven of her Wimbledon titles against five different opponents, knocking out American May Sutton Bundy in 1906 (6-3, 9-7), Boothby in 1910 (6-2, 6-2), Winifred Slocock McNair in 1913 (6-0, 6-4), and Ethel Thomson Larcombe in 1914 (7-5, 6-4).

Chambers was a Wimbledon finalist in 1905, 1907, 1912, 1919, and 1920. Sutton defeated her 6-3, 6-4 in 1905 and again in 1907, 6-1, 6-4. The incomparable Suzanne Lenglen earned the first of her five straight championships in dramatic fashion in 1919, holding off Chambers in three sets, 10-8, 4-6, 9-7. Chambers was trailing 4-1, and staged a remarkable comeback in a match historians say ranks among the all-time best on Centre Court. Chambers used her resourceful all-court game and reliable backcourt strokes to surge ahead 6-5, and was serving up 40-15. Lenglen miraculously recovered and eked out the match. When the pair met again in the 1920 final, Lenglen squashed any notion of a long, drawn out match, winning convincingly, 6-3, 6-0. The 41-year-old Chambers made history as the oldest female Wimbledon finalist.

Chambers played in three Wimbledon Ladies Doubles finals (1913, 1919, 1920) and one in mixed doubles (1919) final. She failed to secure a title, however: the closest she came was in 1919, teaming with Larcombe in a 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 loss against Lenglen and American Elizabeth Ryan. In a twist of fate, she lost the 1919 mixed doubles final partnered with Albertem Prebble to Ryan and Randolph Lycett, 6-0, 6-0.

At age 46, she was still actively slugging it out, playing on the 1925 Wightman Cup team. Chambers helped her team secure a 4-3 victory with a 7-5, 3-6, 6-1 victory over Eleanor Gross, who was 16 years younger than Chambers. At the 1908 Olympic Games in London, both indoor and outdoor tennis was played, and Chambers won the outdoor Gold Medal defeating fellow Brit Dora Booth.

Chambers authored Lawn Tennis for Ladies, first published in London in 1910. It was both a written and pictorial reference book on how to hit all the tennis shots with detailed explanations.

Additional Information

Dorothea Lambert Chambers, née Dorothea Katharine Douglass, (born September 13, 1878, Ealing, Middlesex, England—died January 7, 1960, London), was a British tennis player who was the leading female competitor in the period prior to World War I.

Chambers won the Wimbledon singles seven times (1903–04, 1906, 1910–11, 1913–14), a record surpassed only by Helen Wills Moody in the 1930s. In the 1919 Wimbledon singles championship, Chambers lost to Suzanne Lenglen of France in a memorable game. In 1925, at the age of 46, she reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. championships and played on the British doubles team for the Wightman Cup. An outstanding all-around athlete, Chambers was also a champion badminton and field hockey player.

ganesh · 2023-03-20 00:14:49

1242) Richard Sears (tennis)

Summary

Richard Dudley Sears, (born Oct. 26, 1861, Boston, Mass., U.S.—died April 8, 1943), was the first American men’s singles champion in lawn tennis (1881) and winner of that title for each of the six following years. His record has never been equaled by any other amateur player. Sears also won the U.S. men’s doubles championship for six straight years (1882–84 and 1886–87, with James Dwight, and 1885, with Joseph Sill Clark). He retired from lawn-tennis competition in 1888 because of an injury, but he won the first U.S. men’s singles championship in court tennis four years later.

Details

Richard Dudley Sears (October 26, 1861 – April 8, 1943) was an American tennis player, who won the US National Championships singles in its first seven years, from 1881 to 1887, and the doubles for six years from 1882 to 1887, after which he retired from tennis.

Early life

He was the son of Frederic Richard Sears and Albertina Homer Shelton. His brothers Philip and Herbert were also tennis players.

Tennis career

Sears learned to play tennis in 1879. Sears played his first tournament and won his first title at the Beacon Park Championships held at Beacon Park in Boston in October 1880. He was undefeated in the U.S. Championships, he won the first of his seven consecutive titles in 1881 while still a student at Harvard. In those days, the previous year's winner had an automatic place in the final. Starting in the 1881 first round, he went on an 18-match unbeaten streak that took him through the 1887 championships, after which he retired from the game. Not until 1921 was his 18-match unbeaten run overtaken (by Bill Tilden). During his first three championships, Sears did not lose a single set. Sears was the first 19-year-old to win in the U.S., slightly older than Oliver Campbell in 1890 and Pete Sampras in 1990.

Although primarily remembered for his grand slam titles he did compete in and win other titles. He won his first tournament at Beacon Park in Boston in 1880, defeating Edward Gray. In May 1883, he reached the semifinals of the Longwood Bowl in Boston, losing to James Dwight by a walkover. In 1884 he traveled to Europe to play tournaments in Great Britain and Ireland. At the second major tournament of the 19th century the Irish Championships, held in Dublin he reached the quarterfinals before losing to eventual champion Herbert Lawford in three sets. Sears had to withdraw from the West of England Championships held at Bath due to a foot injury but in June he reached the final of the East Gloucestershire Championships held at Cheltenham, losing in three sets to Donald Stewart.

He then traveled to Manchester to compete at the second most important English tournament at the time the Northern Championships where he also reached the quarterfinals, again losing to Stewart. Unable to compete at the Wimbledon Championships due to a wrist injury he returned to the United States in July after the U.S. Championships he entered the U.S. National Collegiate Championships in Hartford, Connecticut, where he reached the semi-finals. In June 1885 he won the Middle States Championships in Hoboken, New Jersey, defeating Howard Taylor.

Sears was the first U.S. No. 1 in the USLTA rankings, when they began in 1885 and retained the ranking in 1886 and 1887.

After giving up playing lawn tennis, Sears won the U.S. Court Tennis singles title in 1892 and also served as USTA president in 1887 and 1888.

Personal life

Sears married Eleanor M. Cochrane on November 24, 1891, and they had two children, Richard Dudley Sears Jr. and Miriam Sears. He died on April 8, 1943. His grandson was the Massachusetts politician John W. Sears.

Legacy

Sears was inducted in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1955.

Additional Information

Harvard-educated, Richard Dudley Sears looked more like a college professor than the dominant tennis player of his generation. He was bespectacled with a thick mustache and his playing ensemble was a black and white striped jacket and cap, adorned by a necktie. Sears dominated competitive tennis in America from its very beginning. He won the U.S. National Men’s Singles Championships at the Newport Casino for seven straight years (1881-87), defeating seven different opponents. Only three men in tennis history have won seven U.S. National/US Open Championships: Sears, William Larned (1901-02, 1907-11), and Bill Tilden (1920-25, 1929). One glaring statistic separates Sears from that illustrious group: Sears won his successively – a record as enduring as any in our sporting culture. At America’s tennis event Sears won 13 combined titles (1881-87), second most in history behind the immortal Tilden.

In his first three title matches, Sears didn’t lose a set and only three total sets in his seven victories. He enjoyed an 18-match win streak that stood from 1887 to 1922, when Tilden earned his 19th straight victory. Sears employed an attacking style, which he frequently utilized to dismantle his opponent. He moved into the forecourt to end points with crisp volleys before other players fully perceived the tactic and could react. It was a strategic windfall for Sears who became a terrific net player, leading to six straight U.S. Men’s Doubles Championships (1882-87), five of those alongside James Dwight. The five titles won by that dashing duo is tied for best in U.S. history with the Bryan brothers. In total, however, Sears won six straight doubles titles, and that mark stands alone. The team of Sears and Joseph Clark won their 1885 title playing just 23 total games in defeating Henry Slocum and Wallace Knapp, 6-3, 6-0, 6-2.

After giving up playing lawn tennis, Sears won the U.S. Court Tennis singles title in 1892 and served as USNLTA President in 1887 and 1888. Sears career was chronicled in Lawn Tennis in America (1889), authored by Valentine G. Hall, a 1888 and 1890 U.S. National Men’s Doubles Champion.

Math Is Fun Forum

#1276 2023-03-16 01:25:07

Re: crème de la crème

#1277 2023-03-18 02:44:21

Re: crème de la crème

#1278 2023-03-20 00:14:49

Re: crème de la crème

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