Queen Mother Of Tennis

Well, I never was a very strong child. When I first went to school, they used to send me out of the school about ten o’clock every morning to get some fresh air, and my parents encouraged me to play ball with my four brothers. We lived in the country in Healdsburg, so our sport was playing baseball and cricket and things like that out in the field. There were lois of boys in the group and not so many girls, and they all used to call me Sis. I got to be chosen on the teams. It made no difference whose brother’s team I was on; I got chosen by somebody’s brother because apparently, in those days, I was the best girl around.

All this ballplaying, and doing things to help my mother around the farm, and helping take care of my little brother—all these things were part of my training to learn how to handle my body, see. My little brother was blond and had lovely curls and was so pretty, and all my brothers were good-looking and all had curly hair, and I was the plain one with black, straight hair. And I want you to know that if I heard it once, I must have heard it a thousand times, people used to say to my mother, “Oh, Emma, your boys are so good-looking; it’s too bad Hazel’s so plain.” But on a playfield with the boys nobody said anything about my looks. They spoke about my game, you see? I mean, if I start to analyze it, that was the way I was brought up.

When we moved from the country to Berkeley. I was sixteen. I had never seen a tennis game until then. Imagine! I had never hit a tennis ball. I had never seen a tennis racket. I never had even held a tennis ball. But the minute that tennis ball bounced, apparently, 1 enjoyed the fact that it bounced because I had only had a wooden ball or a baseball that didn’t bounce before. Apparently my tendency was to adjust my knowledge of balls to that new one that bounced.

We played on anything we could find. There was only one tennis court in Berkeley, at the Faculty Club, so we played mostly in our driveway, on gravel.

Well, partly. But really it was the first match I saw. It was a women’s singles, and it was two of the Sutton girls, and they were the best in California—and May Sutton was the best, she won the championship in England too. She was the best all over the world—and she and her sister played singles. And it was boring to me because the points went on for so long. Just the ball over here and back …

Back, back, back, back, back. And then they had a men’s doubles, and the men were very attractive and they looked very well, and they were quick in going to the net and volleying. I loved it! So I said, why not volley the ball? See? And that means you get it back into play quicker. But nobody happened to tell me that. I learned In hitting the ball and having fun. I wasn’t contaminated by some teacher telling me just how to do it—hitting the ball this way, or having my racket head come down this way or that way. I didn’t think about those things. I learned to do what I needed to to make it successful, to make the ball go where I wanted it to go.

Well, nothing’s natural until you do it.

Well, May Sutton and I, we were the two top ones, and I didn’t win often from her, let me see, she usually beat me. She beat me three or four times before I had a chance to win from her. She was very hard for me to play against because she was not ladylike—she was rude, she was unsportsmanlike—and it upset me.

With May Sutton it’s awfully hard for me to criticize her at all, because she didn’t know any better. She was the youngest of four girls, and she beat them all. And she beat them because she could make them mad. It wasn’t necessary, because she could have outplayed them by using her head. She didn’t have the head—I’m not criticizing her, but she wouldn’t go to school. She no more could have analyzed a shot than a cow.

It bothered me for quite a little while. She had a lovely figure, she had blond curly hair—I’d give anything to have curls—oh, she was a lovely-looking person … and the stamina of a horse. Strong. And determined. My game apparently was the kind that I needed a little extra practice to get warmed up, and when we’d start to rally, May wouldn’t give me a ball to hit.

She just didn’t give me a ball. If I picked the ball off the ground and knocked it to her—ordinary players knock it back and forth—she knocked it out of reach. She didn’t let me hit a ball. I don’t think she knew what she was doing. My idea of tennis was to give the other person a chance to practice, but as I got smarter and thought about it I realized it would be good for me to keep the ball away from her too. But I couldn’t do that. That’s not the way it should be. The umpire told her, “Miss Sutton, you are not supposed to delay the game.” She said, “If you don’t like the way I play, I won’t play any more.” Imagine. Imagine!

I only had a chance to play her twice when I won. Once was in southern California. I won the final point when she was about at the service line, and she walked off the court and didn’t come toward me, so I ran around the net and grabbed her hand. I said, “Well, May, I was lucky today” or something like that, and she never said a word.

I guess so. She wasn’t the kind that thought. She eliminated everything that bothered her in the game.

Once [ten years later] when we were playing, we got to be set all, and then I remember very well the third set. I was getting tired, but one of the gentlemen said, “If any of you ladies have spikes, you ought to wear them. The grass is very damp out there.” I said I had some spikes, and he said, “I suggest you put them on then,” and May said to me, “I don’t need spikes.” I remember that remark. I ran quickly and got the spikes and put them on. Therefore I didn’t slip as much as she did. My head said she wasn’t going to slip unless you run her, so I ran her and kept the ball in play more, and I won. When I won, she started to walk off the court just the way she had ten years before. Then as I walked up to the stadium she said something like “Stinkpot tennis!” She was describing the game I had played. It meant nothing to me especially, except I remembered it.

I remember it because usually when you win something, the person congratulates you. May married Tom Bundy, a great friend of mine. He said two different times when I played her, he said, “Hazel, I hope you win today. You deserve to win. You’re an awfully good player, and May needs a lesson.” There was no question that the things she did were anything but sportsmanlike. Later I became very fond of her daughter [Dorothy Bundy]. She was one of my pets.

Yes, she was good. Not as great as her mother, though. Not as outstanding.

My mother made me dimity dresses—you don’t remember dimity; dimity was a thin material—my mother sewed dresses for me with short sleeves, and they were nice-looking dresses.

They were what I played in. They had a round neck or something. It was a full dress, a feminine dress. It would have looked much better on somebody who was more feminine-looking. Here I was, square like a horse, see.

They had to be four inches from the floor.

I think I wore corsets. I can’t imagine. But I think I wore corsets, because how else would I have kept my stockings up? I wouldn’t have known any better. And we wore high shoes, high sneakers. Hideous-looking things!

Well, on an awfully hot day I think somebody put a hat on me. I don’t remember playing in a hat very often. Of course, I had a little longer head of hair then—though I always had poor hair—but I wore a bun, and in order to keep the bun from sliding down my neck I tied a ribbon around it. And if I was wearing a ribbon, I thought I better put a bow on it, so I’d put a bow on it. Silly; looked horrible.

Well, later I played in anything I could find that would fit me, because I wasn’t a regular size. It wasn’t as if I wore a 16 or 18 or something like that. I was either nursing a baby or I’d just had a baby, so my figure was never what I’d call a nice little ladylike kind of figure. I remember I had sort of a two-piece thing one time, say in Helen Wills’s time, but I was never a fashion plate. Helen Wills wore a middy blouse, and the reason she wore a middy blouse was because of the sun on her back. She roasted if she had to stay out playing tennis for two hours, so she found a middy blouse with the collar was a great help and very respectable.

It had a full skirt, always a little below her knees. There was no showing the waistband when you served. It was a very satisfactory dress for her, but to me I was an old married lady then, and I didn’t want to wear middy blouses. Now most of the women when I played in the East, all played in the middy blouse or some blouse with long sleeves to keep the sun off their arms. But I needed a short sleeve because the sleeve bothered me for overheads. Isn’t it strange? And yet if it hadn’t been for the fact that I had the freedom of the arm, I never would have perfected the volley.

I did get them a little shorter, but, oh, I wouldn’t wear them the way they are today. I’m almost embarrassed when I see a girl’s pants.

To me your pants are your own. And you only wear pants just because it’s your own business, see? And a woman’s behind isn’t very pretty anyway. Of course, people don’t wear petticoats any more. But there is something about, when these people serve nowadays, seeing their pants or seeing their waistbands—it’s hideous.

The only time I countenance it is for skating. Skating is a different story, but in tennis it just isn’t decent. I get so mad at it!

Oh, I’ve got great admiration for them all; they’re all wonderful players. So long as they’re feminine—that’s the only thing that bothers me. I think you can be a great player and still be feminine. When tennis began to get so professionalized, I will admit I had a few qualms. I have a few qualms now, and when things happen that I don’t think are too ladylike, I think, “Why do it? Why sink so low?”

I don’t want to put my finger on anything special, see, but I have been pleased that it’s avoided going low. I’m a long way from tennis now except my one foot in a tennis group here, but anything that goes on out there touches me. And I think that’s why I’ve had so much pleasure, and also why sometimes I’ve suffered.

Well, I don’t think Billie Jean can do any different. Because Billie Jean has come a long way that way. I knew her when she couldn’t hit a ball. I knew her when she got beaten every time she stepped on the court, and I also saw her when she swore. I didn’t like it, and I kept telling her. I said, “Billie Jean, please don’t do it, don’t swear when you miss a point.” I said, “Men swear, but women don’t swear.” I said, “If you miss a ball, who’s to blame?” I never could make her realize the difference between a lady out in front of four or five hundred—a thousand—people, swearing, and a man swearing.

Well, I’m all for her, and she has the right motive, although myself, I don’t believe any woman should be paid as much to play tennis as any man.

Well, they are stronger. They’ve got longer legs.

People enjoy watching women’s tennis more than men’s.

Because they can understand it better. Women have naturally more grace, more rhythm, and they don’t hit the ball so hard. Therefore it isn’t so quick, so hard to watch. People can learn more from watching women play.

I’ve felt that women don’t spend as much energy, they don’t have to work as hard as men; and, well, I just have always felt that no woman is capable of earning as much money as a man tennis player. I guess maybe I haven’t thought enough about it.

Oh, no, no, I couldn’t. But I give these women today credit for coming along. And I think Billie Jean has done a mighty good job to keep at it the way she has.

Oh, yes. Nobody enjoyed it more than I. Bud Collins [the television commentator] had sent a car to take me over to his studio to talk about it. So whatever he asked me I answered. I must have sounded awfully stupid. He said who did I think was going to win. At that time I’d seen Margaret Court play him [Riggs], and I’d seen Billie Jean never rise to any great occasion by that time; and whereas I wanted her to win like nothing at all—I’d have given anything in the world to have her win—I couldn’t say I thought she would. And yet when she got to playing good tennis that night, outplaying Bobby, no one was happier than I.

Oh, I was so proud of her. I was so proud of her, and as a matter of fact, you know, I watched her lips, and I don’t think she swore once. And that was the first time I’ve ever been so pleased with her. I was so pleased that I could be pleased with her.

Well, I was one of the first people to say it wouldn’t go. After I went to see the first match, oh, I said, that’s too tough. The women can’t do this. This is going to be awfully hard on the girls. But do you know how many matches I went to see? Six last winter. I went six times. It intrigued me. It is so hard, and it takes so much effort to do it.

Well, it isn’t just that. But the bell rings, and you start right in playing. Usually on the tennis court you warm up —some people four minutes, some five minutes, then somebody stalls a little bit—you can be a little more like yourself. In a regular tournament if you’re going to play singles and doubles and mixed doubles, you have a question of hours in between. You can pace yourself; it’s not rushing. But here I just felt, oh, how can they take it? And that’s the way I felt all last winter, and yet I was foolish enough to go every time somebody would take me. And I enjoyed it every time.

I haven’t made any attempt to understand it, but I don’t like it as well as what I’ve done all my life, and it isn’t much simpler either, but a lot of people could never understand “fifteen love” and “advantage.” But that was tennis to me.

After the first match I saw, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it, because of the rowdyism. I am one of the few people that believes that the audience should be quiet when people are playing tennis. I remember the first time I ever gave a thought to it. I was playing against May Sutton, and the gallery had gotten so big because it made tennis popular to see two women playing, one from northern California and one from southern California, and they [the audience] were shouting, “Come on, northern girl! Come on, southern girl!” It nearly killed me.

I realized that the reason noise bothered me particularly is I depend on hearing the sound of the ball on the racket. The hearing is very important because when I hear the ball hit so loud, I know it’s going to go farther. It may be hit so it’s going to be a half volley, it may be hit so it’s going to be a high lob. I depend on hearing it.

Well, I’ve never been a perfect player, but I’ve been a successful player; I couldn’t do as many good shots as Billie Jean can do today, but I can be more intelligent about it than she was several years ago. Nobody ever gave me a lesson, so all I did was learn how to make a shot I wanted to make, though I didn’t always know what shot I was making. I had played two or three years when somebody said to me in Seattle, “How’d you learn to make that half volley?” and I said, “What is a half volley?” I’m just telling you the truth. If somebody would have taught me, I never would have learned to make a half volley, because they would have told me wrong.

I wouldn’t say I had any outstanding shot. I don’t think I ever had a beautiful forehand drive. I think that’s the last thing in the world I ever had. I may have had one of the best drop shots in the world, but I never had a good drive. And a backhand, I don’t remember having a good backhand drive either, but I never was afraid if the ball came to my backhand. The shot I liked to use was either a cut or a chop. My placements were accurate, so therefore I used the shot I could make.

I was the only girl who could smash. You see, I’m a player that if any ball comes over the net and there isn’t anybody to play it but me, I’ll be there. And I didn’t win by losing the points, you know.

Yes, and the reason I started playing net was it made it hard for them. That was all. Nobody told me anything about it, but if this woman [her opponent], if I can be sure she’s going to hit the ball from way back there and stay there, I’ve got a lot of space.

Yes, I did. That first woman I won the Nationals from, Mrs. Wallach [Barger-Wallach].

Yes, that’s the first woman I remember who did [serve underhand], and she was like my grandmother. She was old and thin, wore black stockings, and had long sleeves and a skinny little figure. She didn’t play through the tournament. In those days the champion stayed out until after the tournament was won by somebody, and then she played against the winner in the finals the next day.

That’s right. The champion had quite a time, too, because usually the player who was playing all that week had gotten more used to the grass and was in better form. How she [Mrs. Barger-Wallach] had ever won the singles I’ll never know. She never won any tournaments after that, that I know.

I served overhand from the beginning. And I didn’t practice my serve with anyone until I had been playing for several years. Then once when I was playing with Maurice McLoughlin [National Singles Champion in 1912 and 1913]—he had a beautiful serve—he wanted me to learn his American twist, but I told him, “I’m not built that way. I have short arms, short legs, and it isn’t comfortable to throw the ball the way you want me to do it.” I suppose I was too feminine, but I couldn’t do a serve that would put me off balance. All I could think of was to keep my short, square body on balance.

Well, I’ll tell you a story about that. Once when I was over in England, I was walking across the Wimbledon grounds, and I saw this gentleman I had played mixed doubles with four or five years before. The minute he saw me, he put his hand behind his back and hobbled along. I asked him what was wrong, and he said his back was still sore “from those lobs you gave me.” I remembered that match; I had to keep the ball away from him the best I could. In order to keep it away from him I put the lobs over his head. I knew the stupid girl he was playing with wouldn’t have the sense to go over to get them.

When I was living in Berkeley, I didn’t practice. I played probably once or twice a week. That was all the chance I had. And then I usually played with one of my brothers or boyfriends, because the girls weren’t good enough to hit the ball over the net hardly. Playing with the boys, I didn’t loaf. That’s all.

I didn’t have a lot of time to practice. I usually had a baby at home I was nursing, and, well, I should think if Billie Jean plays four and five and six hours a day now, if I happened to play one hour a day, it was pretty good.

Well, I was in training all the time, which doesn’t mean anything, because I didn’t do anything except eat, drink, and not be too merry. I don’t know what it is to go in training and out of training.

No, I didn’t have much endurance. But I made use of what I have. I guess the way I did it was to make my shot so difficult for [her opponent] that I wouldn’t get caught on my next shot. I think that’s what I did, now you mention it.

I remember the first time I played this girl who was six inches taller than I was, and everybody told me that she had a service I couldn’t get back; well, I thought about it. So when she served to me, I said, well, I’m going to get that serve back. I’m going to have my racket flat and hit the ball in the middle and get it back, and if she is not used to people getting the ball back, she won’t be ready for the return. That was my psychology. So after I got her serve back, she was so surprised she didn’t return the shot. It wasn’t that I was smart or brilliant or had beautiful shots, but I kept myself from getting caught.

I never was averse to seeing anybody play. And usually anybody that I was going to play against that I hadn’t seen, if I was handy, I always looked. I can remember one instance when some girls from New York had played in a tournament and gotten beaten, and I criticized them badly for having lost, because I said, “I’ve seen that girl play and she’s not good.” And they said, “Well, you don’t know what it is to play against her.” Well, later in Brookline [Massachusetts] I was to play against this girl, and my New York friends were there—they were there to see me get beaten. But that girl didn’t have a backhand. After we had played the match, the girls said to me, “How did you ever beat her?” I said, “I didn’t give her a shot to hit that she liked.”

I was never a golf player. I played once, and I got a top score. It just happened, but I don’t like any game that’s slow. I won the squash national championship, though, and then I won the badminton national championship. Anything with a racket.

About 1927. Well, let’s see now. I won the squash singles, and I won the badminton; I think I won the badminton singles, but I lost the badminton mixed doubles. Got to the finals twice in two different years. And Ping-Pong, I won the state Ping-Pong championship. Anything with a racket.

Paddle tennis came along too late for me. It’s a simple game, and I don’t care for it. Don’t like the sound of the racket, it’s so dead. I only played it a few times, but enough to know that I don’t like the dead sound.

Well, as a matter of fact I haven’t any idea what the last racket I had was. I remember playing with a Pirn, that was the first racket I had. P-I-M , the first racket I ever saw. Then they brought out rackets with people’s names. There was one named for Doris Hart. I had a Hart racket one time. It was nice.

Yes, they had a Wightman racket, put out by Bancroft. It was kind of a ladylike racket. They had to name rackets after something.

No, it came along after I was interested. I’ve hit a few balls with them, but it didn’t appeal to me.

No, that’s foolish. A tennis elbow comes from overdoing when you are not ready, see. The only time I had a little tendency for a sore arm was soon after I had had a baby and played an exhibition match. When you play an exhibition, you go out for the big shot, the shot you ordinarily wouldn’t play, to put on a good show; and once playing a Red Cross exhibition, I almost got a sore arm.

I have never been able to be anywhere without teaching tennis. I am happier teaching than anything else. You know, I could name twenty people that are very outstanding that wouldn’t be playing tennis if it were not for me. Now I don’t want people to know that. It means nothing to anybody else but me, but I think that’s why I still have this terrific love for the game.

I’ve seen a lot of people giving lessons, and I used to marvel at the pupils being so patient, because what the teacher was telling them was nothing. The teacher was nothing, just an automaton who was out there knocking a ball.

I don’t tell them wrong. That’s all. I always demonstrate with my own racket because people see easier than hear. Now, average teachers who are no good, I don’t think they make an effort to explain properly, and of course rhythm is hard to explain. But most people who teach tennis don’t feel the way I do about rhythm. I think the only way you can teach tennis is slow motion to begin with, so the ball is hit smoothly, rhythmically, nothing jerky about it.

Anywhere. Wherever I was, I used to teach. And in my garage. That’s right out here, and it’s my answer to teaching tennis. It’s right there. You hit against the wall. The best wall, I think, is wood, just ordinary wood. I got a man to come cover up the windows with plywood in the garage, and the bottom below the windows, I had him slope the boards a little out from the bottom—that’s a good idea, and it takes a little speed off. A lot of people don’t have the patience, but if more people used the bangboard, they would learn quicker. The garage, it’s to me the perfect way of teaching and learning.

Yes, I wrote a book, a little book, Better Tennis [1933]. I wrote it in longhand, mostly while I was waiting in the car to pick up my children from school. It was put out by Houghton Mifflin, and of course they wanted a fancy book, but I didn’t want a fancy book. When I looked at Billie Jean’s book a few years ago, the first one she wrote, I tried to read it, but it was so technical. It was so difficult. If I were fifteen or sixteen, trying to learn tennis, and tried to read her book, I would have thrown it out the window. My book was plain ordinary writing and plain ordinary language, and it wasn’t very pretty.

Oh, everybody liked it. In fact, I played mixed doubles with a gentleman I didn’t know over at Harvard one day, and I said to him, “It’s fun to play with you. You know so much about doubles,” and he said, “I should; I read your book.” I nearly dropped dead. Last thing in the world I expected. Have you seen my tennis alphabet? It’s in the book.

Well, it was enough of a little thing that it made its mark.

Oh, yes, children’s tournaments, adult tournaments, I’ve been running tournaments here since 1923. I know practically everybody who hits a tennis ball in Massachusetts. And then the National Championships were played here in Boston—which is why I got so many titles; the only tournaments I played in [after coming to live in the East] were the Nationals, so if I happened to win them, I got the title—so I got the idea of putting up tennis players who travelled. I could remember that when I was young and travelling, I had to have some friend’s house to stay in.

Oh, they had never heard of it. Well, I was using my house for players, and there were getting to be more players, so I happened to find this house. It’s bigger, and it’s just four minutes’ walk from Longwood, and that gave me the idea.

Fourteen; fourteen extra girls. I didn’t often have men, because at that time my husband and I were not living together, and I didn’t want to worry about extra men in the house. They cramped my style. [The Wightmans were divorced in 1940.] And when the pros got into it, I said I wouldn’t take any pros into my house during the tournaments. For instance, I told Maureen Connolly’s pro, I remember saying to her, “I’ve asked Maureen and her chaperon to stay at my house, but I can’t ask you because I don’t have any pros staying here.” I wasn’t going to have her do something I didn’t like. I said, “You can come for lunch, you can come for dinner any day, but you’re not spending the night.” That’s just me.

Well, I’ve only given it up since I haven’t been feeling too well, just the last year or two.

It doesn’t say Wightman Cup on it, you know. It says International Trophy, but nobody knows that. The reporters wouldn’t ever call it anything but the Wightman Cup. They say that gives it prestige.

Well, when I gave the cup, fifty years ago, I thought it would be nice to see that French girl, Suzanne Lenglen, come over here. She won Wimbledon in 1919, and I won the National here in 1919. Everybody thought it was quite something to win the Nationals in 1909 and ten years later to win it again. But I never thought of any such thing. I just thought wouldn’t it be fun to have Suzanne Lenglen and other foreigners come here to play.

No, the English women had no desire to compete in anything with the French at the time. The way it happened, the English team had arrived in New York [in 1923, the first time the Wightman Cup was actually awarded], and that new stadium at Forest Hills was just getting finished, and the important thing was to have something special—an event—to open it with. We won all the matches that year. And the next year we played in England, and we lost all the matches but one. I won the only one that we won—the doubles. Then after we’d been in competition for a while, other people wanted to get in, and that’s when the English stepped down and said, we don’t want any competition with the French. It’s interesting. Small. But there was nothing you could do about it. I didn’t worry about it. The interesting thing is that the English have only won the Wightman Cup six times. Isn’t that something?

Well, they don’t have the setup we do. America has a terrific setup—lots of places to play and lots of people interested in playing. They don’t have as much time out in the open as we do.

There’s nothing amateur any more. Amateurs and professionals, you can’t keep them apart. Everything’s professional. A few years ago people voted on what they wanted, and the English were the first ones that wanted to have it professional, because their good players had all turned pro and they wanted to win.

There is no money in the Wightman Cup. There’s expense money, it doesn’t cost anything to play, but they don’t get prize money.

Well, I went to a store in town, in Boston. It was Woods, N. G. Woods in those days, and I picked out the only cup they had that was feasible. It was a beautiful cup—it’s not big or that tall, but it’s kind of slender. It’s a very pretty cup, very feminine.

When I heard that Longwood had decided to give a celebration for the fiftieth year of the Wightman Cup and that they wanted it to be special to honor me, I said, “That’s ridiculous.” I said, “I will not come. I don’t feel like things like that any more.”

I was there every day. I didn’t miss one thing. I even went to dinner at a backyard supper party. Oh, it couldn’t have been a better thing. And they made up this beautiful program. This is a picture of me on the front, and pictures of teams, teams, teams, and very few beer ads, and very few whiskey ads. They got pictures from Wimbledon in England that couldn’t have been gotten anywhere else. I think it is the most remarkable program ever printed. One little girl’s mother wrote me—she had stayed here at my house when she was fourteen—the mother wrote to me this last summer, and she just had to have me autograph a picture. I didn’t have any picture to autograph, so I got the girl one of these programs, and I autographed every picture of me in it. And she was tickled to death. Of course, she’s a grown woman now, and she’s married and has four children. Her husband’s in the Bahamas. I think he’s the governor of some island.

Oh, that’s a difficult question to answer. I would say that up through the first era, the era I knew best, it was Suzanne Lenglen. She was so homely—you can’t imagine a homelier face—but she graceful, a wonderful player. And Helen Wills, of course. It is very difficult to pick out the great players, but I’m satisfied to keep those two on my list. And Alice Marble. Alice was the first girl who became sensational. Nowadays each girl is sensational, I think.

A little bit on the publicity side. Wanting to do something a little spectacular. Helen Jacobs was a great player too. She was the most responsive pupil I ever taught. I just hate to put any of them down. The finest of the younger ones was little Maureen Connolly. Maureen Connolly was the type that I could sit back and say, well, there is perfection. She was such a wonderful player, used her head. She was nipped in the bud, got her leg injured when she was riding horseback. She was not able to play well again, and then she died young. What a shame! She was on the brink of greatness.

It’s hard to say … I certainly think Mrs. [Margaret] Court. And have you seen Evonne [Goolagong] play? She’s a charming girl. And Billie Jean. Chris Evert, she’s a lovely little girl. I love her femininity. There is something about her. Oh, I’m very much pleased with her.

Oh, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t think so—I should say that I could run them, but I couldn’t beat those girls. They are too fast, they are too agile In a doubles game I would hold my own. My problem would be the distance. You see, I am too short to be able to cover the ground that these girls can who are eight inches taller than I am. They would be a whole stride ahead of me all the time.

I think it was Mrs. Du Pont. She was one of our best tennis players. She was Margaret Osborne before she married Will Du Pont. She was a particularly fine doubles player, could win mixed doubles off most anybody. And do you know? She’s named a horse after me, one of her yearlings. It’s in its third year now and just beginning to pace out a little bit. When she decided to call the horse Mrs. Wightie, she went through all the rigmarole you have to go through if you want to name a horse after somebody. She sent me a picture of the horse.

I don’t mind. I know why: because there is hardly anybody in the group in the last twenty years who hasn’t stayed here and who hasn’t had some connection with me. For instance, Margaret Court stayed here four years, and in the fourth year I hadn’t planned to put the Australians here, because I wanted someone else to come. I was out the day before they were supposed to come, and when I got home that afternoon, the four Australian girls were here and were all in bed asleep.

Well, I played with the queen of Spain once, and the Spanish prince too [Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain, in 1924]. I had a beautiful day that day because I sat by the king [Alfonso], and he said to me, “You can do me a favor. You’re the only person I’ve ever seen that might be able to do this favor for me. I think you can take my second son and win a match from my number-one son and his cousin. Will you play?” I said, well, certainly I’d be willing to play. Well, his second son was about six feet two or three, big awkward boy, and I don’t think he spoke very well. I don’t think he thought very well either. We went out on that court, and that boy could hardly hit a ball. He didn’t hear very well, and when I said “Mine,” he’d go to hit the ball, and two or three times I got hit over the head, I think. But we won. When we got through, the king was very much pleased. I was so relieved.

The queen herself was there too, and we had planned to play tennis, but it was kind of raining, and we thought we might not play. I said, “Oh, I hope we will play, because that’s the fun of being here,” and so the queen said to one of her daughters, “Beatrice, go back and get my tennis shoes.” Just the way I would have said to my daughter. So I played against the queen. This time I was playing with one of our American men, and we were leading 5-3, and I said to him privately, “I don’t think we ought to beat the queen. I don’t think it’s the polite thing to do.” So we didn’t win the final game. When we got through playing and I sat down next to the king—oh, he was a cute old fellow—he said, “Well, I’ve never seen a match thrown so beautifully.” Isn’t that cute?

Oh, no, no, I don’t think so. That was in Seattle, and it was put in the newspaper, and I’ve heard about the story. But I think she did win some points. She won some points, because I remember I had trouble—I think there was a drop shot she made off the wood of her racket. Not on purpose, of course.

It’s awfully cute; I’m one person in the monument, and there are three men—one is a high jumper, one is a runner, and I can’t remember the other. Anyway, there are three men and me, all born in Healdsburg. It’s a cute, nice little monument. It stands on a pedestal, and you can sit around on the pedestal. About my height and kind of broad, and it has an eternal light. They asked me to come when they installed it, but I wasn’t planning to be in California then. So four or six years later when I was out there, one of my nieces took me to see the monument.

That is my Queen’s Honors.

I’m glad his name is on it; I couldn’t remember it. They gave a lovely party.

Oh, I do. It’s because of the Wightman Cup, you know, fifty years. The party was in Washington at five o’clock in the afternoon. We got halfway down there on the train when I said, “Where’s my suitcase with my dress to wear?” My suitcase was gone. Can you imagine? My daughter said, “Mother, you wear my dress.” I said, “Imagine me wearing your dress after all these years,” because she is five foot seven. All these years of their growing up I could never wear any dress my daughters could wear, and now I have shrunk in height. I said, “Let me see your dress.” It was a very pretty little dress, and she said, “Mother, I’ll take it up for you and shorten the sleeves.” And it looked all right. Nobody else in the whole world knew what I wore that day. And look here now. That’s my Queen’s Honors medal. When I go out at night, sometimes I wear it.

Oh, I love that picture. He’s such a nice boy. It was taken at Pine Manor Tennis Camp a few years ago— 1971, maybe. Arthur came up to get his feet fixed (there was a podiatrist at Pine Manor), and I was over there that day. Arthur had a good sense of humor. I was wearing a pin the Virginia Slims Tournament people had given me the summer before, which said “You’ve come a long way, baby.” You know, that thing they say. So when I was saying good-bye to Arthur on the porch at Pine Manor that day after the picture was taken, he noticed my pin, and he said, “You sure have come a long way, baby.”