Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman - Career in Depth

Career in Depth

Though short in stature, Wightman anticipated and moved extremely well around a tennis court. She perfected her volleying style early, hitting the ball against the family home in Berkeley, California, where she grew up and graduated from the University of California. She refused to let the ball bounce because the yard was so uneven. She used to play against her four brothers and then the proud and spiky Sutton sisters.

Wightman was a shy, somewhat awed, and fascinated 22-year-old college girl when she arrived at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in 1909 for the U.S. Championships. She had never before played on grass, but she used her attacking style and rock-ribbed volleying—she was the first woman to rely so heavily on the volley—to win the all-comers final over Louise Hammond 6–8, 6–1, 6–4 and then the title over 39-year-old Maud Barger-Wallach 6–0, 6–1. Wightman also won the women's doubles and mixed doubles titles that year.

Wightman successfully defended all three titles at the U.S. Championships in 1910 and 1911. Wightman easily defeated Hammond in the 1910 singles final. May Sutton, an old West Coast rival and singles titlist at the U.S. Championships in 1904, pushed Wightman hard in the 1911 singles final before Wightman prevailed 8–10, 6–4, 9–7.

The most remarkable comeback in Wightman's career came at the singles final of the 1911 Niagara International Tennis Tournament against rival May Sutton. After losing the first set 0–6 and going down 1–5 in the second she played some of the best tennis of her career and won twelve straight games and the title 0–6, 7–5, 6–0.

Wightman married Bostonian George Wightman in 1912 and did not defend her U.S. titles. But, responding to a challenge from her father to win after becoming a mother—a U.S. first—she reappeared in 1915, losing the singles final to Molla Bjurstedt Mallory but winning the women's doubles and mixed doubles titles. At age 32, she won her fourth singles title with the loss of only one set, beating Marion Zinderstein 6–1, 6–2 in the final. She also reached the women's doubles final. Thereafter, her long-lived and unapproached success (U.S. adult titles between 1909 and 1943) was confined to doubles.

Wightman envisioned a team tournament for women similar to the Davis Cup and offered a silver vase as prize. In 1923, the British and Americans had the strongest women players. So, Julian Myrick of the United States Lawn Tennis Association decided that a U.S.-Britain competition would be in order for the Wightman Cup. The event, with Wightman captaining and playing for a winning U.S. side, opened the newly constructed stadium at Forest Hills, New York. A treasured series, it lasted through 1989, disbanding when the event was no longer competitive.

Wightman, devoted to the game in all aspects, generously instructed innumerable players at no charge throughout her life. She also teamed with two of her protégées who later joined her in the International Tennis Hall of Fame to win important titles: Wimbledon, U.S., and Olympic doubles titles with Helen Wills Moody in 1924 and U.S. Indoor women's doubles titles with Sarah Palfrey Cooke from 1928 through 1931. Her second Olympic gold medal in 1924 came in mixed doubles with Dick Williams.

The last of Wightman's record 34 U.S. adult titles was recorded in 1943 as she, 56, and Pauline Betz Addie won the women's doubles title at the U.S. Indoor Championships over Lillian Lopaus and Judy Atterbury, 7–5, 6–1.

Wightman was included in the year-end top ten rankings issued by the United States Lawn Tennis Association in 1915, 1918, and 1919 and was the top ranked U.S. player in 1919 (rankings began in 1913).

First Lady of Tennis is a short biography of Wightman. The book traces her career and honors and details her lifelong dedication to teaching the game.

Wightman won one of the few recorded "Golden Matches" in which the winner did not lose a point. She defeated a Miss Huiskamp (first name unknown) in the 1910 Washington State Championships.