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157 pages

English

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Britain's tennis players are often regarded as gallant losers and also-rans. There was a painful 76-year gap between the grand slam triumphs of Fred Perry and Andy Murray, and most Brits perennially fail to progress beyond the early rounds at Wimbledon. But in this first detailed account of Britain's place in world tennis from the Victorian period to the present day, historian Kevin Jefferys shows that British players have a surprisingly strong record. He traces the fluctuations in the nation's tennis fortunes - with barren spells counterbalanced by periods of ascendancy - and looks beyond the domestic obsession with Wimbledon to highlight British successes at other grand slam tournaments, in the Davis Cup and in Olympic tennis. The author also focuses on key individuals, providing fresh profiles of his selection of the best British players of all time: the men and women who have delivered most on the international stage, from the time of the Renshaw brothers in the 1880s to Andy and Jamie Murray today.

Sujets

Reino Unido

History of sport

United Kingdom

Tennis

Great Britain

Royaume-Uni

Informations

Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	15 avril 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781785315596
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2019
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Kevin Jefferys, 2019
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978-1-78531-386-8 eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-559-6
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Victorian trailblazers
2. Edwardian greats
3. Rising from the ashes
4. The 1930s heyday
5. Poor relations in world tennis
6. From amateurism to professionalism
7. Thirty years of hurt
8. The Murrays on the march
Conclusion
Summary: career highlights of Britain s top players
Notes
Bibliography
To all British tennis hopefuls, past, present and future
Preface and Acknowledgements
Reaching the pinnacle of world tennis, as in any sport, is immensely difficult. Anyone who has experience of playing competitively even in the lower foothills of the game - at, say, junior or club level - will know that it s not long before you come across opponents who can wipe you off the court. In his acclaimed book The Meaning of Sport , award-winning Times journalist Simon Barnes gives a nice illustration of the vast chasm between the professional elite and ordinary mortals. Reflecting on the stunning victory by 17-year-old Maria Sharapova over defending champion Serena Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final, Barnes told of how a fellow writer friend of his - a confident and reasonable adult player in his own right - once went on court to have a set against the young Maria. The result, Barnes notes (p. 27), was that his friend got walloped. Hammered. Trashed. Sharapova was ten .
Lots of hugely committed, skilful and talented British players, it should be said, do not feature in this book, which focuses on those leading lights who have triumphed on the global stage from the 1870s to the present day. But the efforts of the many young men and women who (like Pitch author Gregory Howe) pull out all the stops in looking to progress from local to national and international standard should not go unrecognised. That s why the book is dedicated to those aspirants who seek to scale the heights, spending years of their lives and often much of their income chasing the dream, attempting to be the very best they can. To adapt the slogan of a well-known nationwide motoring organisation (one which, like lawn tennis, was a product of the Victorian era), British tennis hopefuls, we salute you .
* * *
As with my earlier biography of Fred Perry, I m grateful to Pitch Publishing for their support and expert guidance throughout all stages of this project. I d particularly like to thank Jane and Paul Camillin, Duncan Olner, Graham Hales, Derek Hammond, Dean Rockett and Cath Harris. In preparing my text, I m greatly appreciative of friends and tennis enthusiasts for their assistance and input, most recently at Wimbledon s first tennis history conference, held at the All England Club in the autumn of 2018. My large debt to the insights of tennis reporters/writers and the memoirs of former players and officials is duly acknowledged in the references and the bibliography at the end of the book. While thankful to all those concerned, responsibility for any errors or oversights remains with me alone.
The front cover images show (from left to right): Andy Murray, holding the Davis Cup trophy after Britain defeated Belgium in the 2015 final; Virginia Wade, triumphant at Wimbledon in 1977; Fred Perry after his victory in the 1936 US Championships; and Ann Jones, winner of the French Championships in 1966. The back cover photographs showcase (clockwise): the Victorian pioneers of lawn tennis William and Ernest Renshaw; the talented all-rounder Lottie Dod; and 1961 Wimbledon champion Angela Mortimer. I m grateful to Getty for permission to use the cover images. All the photographs inside the book are reproduced courtesy of the Press Association, with the exception of the following: Charlotte Cooper Sterry, Peggy Scriven, and the British Davis Cup teams of 1936 and 1978 (Getty); and Max Woosnam, Phoebe Watson, and the 1932 Wightman Cup teams (Alamy).
Kevin Jefferys, February 2019
Introduction
When I told a friend I was writing a study about how Britain has fared in the history of world tennis, the reaction was a cross between a snort and a laugh. That ll be a short book, he said. My friend s response was understandable and not untypical. Britain might make a good fist of hosting Wimbledon, the leading event in the annual tennis calendar watched by hundreds of millions of television viewers worldwide, but home victories in SW19 have generally been as rare as hens teeth. Most British adults today, even those with only a passing interest in tennis, will be familiar growing up with the ritual of British players falling like ninepins in the early rounds at Wimbledon. The agonising wait for a British man to win the men s singles title, last claimed by Fred Perry in 1936, became a media obsession and stretched on interminably until Andy Murray claimed the crown in 2013. The Scot s victory, 77 years on, finally extinguished one of Britain s most embarrassing sporting records. It was small wonder that Murray, after laying to rest the spectre of national failure at other tournaments as well as Wimbledon, was dubbed by one journalist as the ghostbuster of British tennis . 1
This book sets out to ask: are such dim views of British tennis, which persist despite Murray s exploits, really justified? Has Britain s performance on the international stage been as poor as it is often made out to be? The answer that emerges in the following account may come as a surprise. What will become apparent is that, looking at the history of lawn tennis in its entirety as a competitive sport, from the 1870s through to the present day, Britain has a more than decent record. It has produced some of the game s finest exponents, from the days of brothers William and Ernest Renshaw in the late-Victorian period through to Andy and his sibling Jamie Murray in the early 21st century. The story that unfolds here is one of striking triumphs as well as depressing failures, of fluctuating fortunes over time, of barren spells counterbalanced by periods when British players, women as much as men, swept all before them. If champagne were to be poured into the famous Wimbledon trophy lifted by Andy Murray in 2013 (and again in 2016) to symbolically represent Britain s place in the history of world tennis, then the trophy would be half full, not half empty.
* * *
We can start to gauge British standing in the sport s history by looking at three sets of raw statistics, each highlighting national performance in different arenas of international competition. The first yardstick for measurement is, by common consent, the most important, namely examining the winners of the four grand slam tournaments that stand at the pinnacle of world tennis. 2 The following table is based on the nationality of singles winners, from inception through to the end of 2018, of what became established - at different points in time - as the major events in the global tennis circuit: Wimbledon/The Championships (dating back to 1877), the United States National Championships/Open (beginning in 1881), the Australasian/Australian National Championships/Open (which first took place in 1905) and the French National Championships/Open (in which overseas players became eligible to compete from 1925; the data for winners of that event derive from that time onwards). The findings of the table are clear cut. When looking at the whole of lawn tennis history through the lens of grand slam results, the USA is well out in front, followed by Australia, with Britain in a respectable third place.

The second measurement of prowess on the international stage concerns the Davis Cup, the premier team competition in the sport. Britain has taken part in the event (undergoing a revamp in 2019) regularly since its foundation at the start of the 20th century. Some nations without long track records have come to the fore in recent times, notably Spain, which, in the era of Rafa Nadal, has claimed five victories since the year 2000. Looking at the full century-plus history of the event, however, the pattern evident in grand slam singles is replicated in Davis Cup outcomes. As the table below illustrates, America and Australia have been the most consistent performers, but Britain has a strong record, vying with France for third spot on the basis of having won the Cup ten times and been runner-up on eight occasions.

The final statistical yardstick of Britain s place in global tennis history centres on the Olympic Games, which, since the modern form of the event started in 1896, have brought together athletes from all parts of the world to compete in a range of disciplines. Lawn tennis featured at the Games from 1896 to 1924. This was followed by a prolonged gap - caused by a dispute between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) - until 1988, since when the sport has been included at every summer Olympics. In terms of medals awarded for tennis, Britain stands a creditable second in the rankings.

In the early years, through to 1924, when most British medals were acquired, the standard of play at Olympic tennis events was variabl