1878

September 26-30, South of Ireland Championships*, County Limerick Cricket Club, Limerick, Ireland (Grass)

1R: Miss Boyse d. Miss Browning 6-4
1R: Miss Collingwood d. Miss Dorman 6-4
1R: Miss Smith d. Miss D. Dorman 6-2
1R: Mrs Lyons d. Miss Fosberry 6-1
1R: Miss Lysaght-bye
1R: Miss Boyse-bye

2R: Miss Smith d. Miss Collingwood 6-2
2R: Miss J. Boyse d. Miss Lysaght 6-4
2R: Mrs Lyons d. Miss Boyse 6-2

SF: Miss Smith d. Miss Boyse 6-0
SF: Mrs Lyons, a bye

FI: Miss Smith d. Mrs Lyons 6-1 6-1

* This tournament had first been held in 1877, when it also featured an open women’s singles event. The defending champion was Miss Smith whose first name it has not been possible to find. Matches consisted of only one set up until the final.

The “Irish Times” newspaper of October 1, 1878, carried the following report on this tournament:

“The competitors for the Ladies’ Singles were Miss Smith, Oola; Miss Dorman, Kinsale; Miss D. Dorman, ditto; Miss Collingwood, Newcastle West; Miss Browning, Carass Court, Croom; Miss Fosberry, Kilgobbin; Mrs Lyons, Croom House; Miss Boyse, Ballinverleck; Miss Isabella Boyse, ditto; Miss Considine, Derk; and Miss Lysaght, Limerick.

“There was intense interest in the ladies’ game, which was played in a very superior way by the fair competitors, all anxious to secure the championship in this favourite pastime. At length, the final tie fell to Mrs Lyons and Miss Smith, who took up their positions on either side of the net. Miss Smith distinguished herself last year by her skilful play, and held the first rank as favourite.

“Today, the grace and skilful play of Mrs Lyons told greatly in her favour, and the best judges of the game predicted that she would secure the laurels, but it was fated to be otherwise. Miss Smith played a splendid game, and was declared the winner, amidst loud plaudits, in which her opponent heartily joined.

“The only other event as yet undecided was the Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Doubles. The competitors were Mr B. Lysaght and Miss M.L. Lysaght; Mr Kellie and Miss Lumley; Mr J. O’Grady Delemege and Miss Kate Delmege, Castlepark; Mr Smith and Miss Smith; Mr Considine and Miss Considine; Mr Elliott and Miss Dorman; Mr Darby and Miss Vandeleur. The victors in the final tie were Mr Considine and his sister. The game was remarkably well contested.”

Two days later, the “Irish Times” carried this report:

“We give below the full score of the Lawn Tennis Tournament, which was not concluded until late on Monday afternoon. All the events were well contested and the large and fashionable gathering present each day witnessed with great interest the very fine play in the different matches. By the kind permission of Colonel Waters and the officers of the 82nd Regiment their excellent band attended each day.

[…]

“The cups and prizes were exhibited in the pavilion, and were much admired. The tournament was played under the new Marylebone and All England Rules.”
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Muriel Robb (1878-1907) – A Forgotten Wimbledon Singles Champion

By Mark Ryan

Muriel Evelyn Robb was born on 13 May 1878 in Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, England. Her parents were William David Robb, a provision agent and Ellen Robb, née Ritson. At the time of Muriel’s birth the family was living at 1 Victoria Villas, a residence they were sharing with Muriel’s maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Ritson, then aged 64, and her daughter, Muriel’s aunt, Margaretta Ritson, aged 23. Two female servants were also “living in”.

Muriel learned the rudiments of tennis playing at home with her parents and governess. Later on she improved her game while attending Cheltenham Ladies’ College, in Gloucestershire, where she enjoyed her first success on the court. At some point Muriel also became a member of the local tennis club in Newcastle upon Tyne, the Jesmond Lawn Tennis Club. This club was founded in 1883 by members of the Jesmond Wesleyan Methodist Church. It was initially located on Fern Avenue and known as The Avenues Lawn Tennis Club, but moved to its present home on Osborne Road in 1890, when the new name was adopted. The Jesmond Lawn Tennis Club is still a popular venue today.

Muriel did not play competitively for many years, but in the relatively short time that she did compete, she won all of the main national singles titles of the British Isles, namely those of England (Wimbledon), Ireland, Wales and Scotland. No man or woman had achieved this feat before her, and none has done so since. Muriel also enjoyed some success in women’s and mixed doubles events. She began entering tournaments in 1896.

Muriel played in the Wimbledon singles event four times, and was never less than a quarter-finalist. Although the draws in those days were much smaller than they are now, this is an admirable achievement. Muriel first appeared at Wimbledon in 1899. On her debut Muriel, then aged 21, beat Maud Garfit in a hard-fought match, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4. In her next match, which was in fact the quarter-final, Muriel encountered Ruth Durlacher, of Ireland, who beat her in another close match, 6-1, 5-7, 6-3. This was, nevertheless, an encouraging debut for Muriel, who won the Welsh Championships in 1899 and, towards the end of the same season, the Derbyshire Championships, held in Buxton. Her victim in the final at Buxton was the veteran but still redoubtable Blanche Hillyard; Muriel won their match by the score of 6-3, 6-3.

Muriel returned to Wimbledon in 1900. She was in good form, having reached the singles final a few weeks earlier at the Kent Championships in Beckenham, where she lost 6-1, 6-3 to her countrywoman Edith Greville. At Wimbledon, Muriel again reached the quarter-final of the singles event. After beating Alice Pickering 6-3, 6-4 in her first match, she faced Charlotte Cooper, already three times the Wimbledon singles champion, in the quarter-finals (there was a singles draw of 16 players that year). Muriel lost in straight sets, but the score of 6-3, 9-7 indicates that she put up stern resistance before succumbing to Charlotte Cooper’s greater experience and guile.

At the same tournament that year Muriel won her first Wimbledon title when she and Alice Pickering beat Blanche Hillyard and Louisa Martin 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the women’s doubles final. This was the second year in which the women’s doubles event had been held at Wimbledon and, although this event did not acquire full championship status until 1913, it was still a coveted title. It was Blanche Hillyard who was later to say the following about Muriel: “The power she got on the ball was astonishing. Indeed few men have ever had a harder drive. Fortunately for her opponents she was a player who very decidedly had her days.” An unusual feature of Muriel’s game was that she served overhead; at that time most women served underhand.

The inaugural mixed doubles event was played at Wimbledon that same year of 1900 (like the women’s doubles event it did not acquire full championships status until 1913) and Muriel, partnering her compatriot Clement Cazalet, reached the semi-final before she and Cazalet fell to Harold Nisbet and Alice Pickering in a tight match, 7-5, 6-8, 6-3.

Later in the summer of 1900, Muriel retained the Derbyshire Championships in Buxton by once again defeating Blanche Hillyard; this time the score in the final was 7-5, 6-3. At the same tournament Muriel won the coveted All-England Women’s Doubles Championships with her country woman Alice Pickering. Soon after these triumphs Muriel travelled to Bad Homburg in Germany for what was then known as the Ladies’ Championship of Germany (this tournament had first been played in 1896, in Hamburg, and would return to that city in 1902.). Muriel was in excellent form in Germany. Her opponents included the talented American Marion Jones, whom Muriel beat in the semi-finals after losing the first set and being down 1-4 in the third set.

In the final Muriel played Blanche Hillyard who had won her sixth and final singles title at Wimbledon earlier in the season. By winning the first set 6-2, Muriel started the final as if she meant to repeat her recent victory over Mrs Hillyard in the final at Buxton. In the second set Muriel led 3-1, but Mrs Hillyard eventually took it 8-6. In the third set Muriel went to 5-3 and had match point four times, but Mrs Hillyard refused to lose and went on to take the set and the match, 2-6, 8-6, 7-5. For Blanche Hillyard it had been another dogged performance when her back was against the wall. For the 22-year-old Muriel it had been proof of her own great potential.

In 1901, Muriel returned to Wimbledon for a third attempt at the singles title. She must have done so with increased confidence for she arrived having taken the singles title at the then prestigious Irish Championships, held in May, by beating Ruth Durlacher 9-7, 6-1 in the final. For the third year running Muriel reached the quarter-final stage at Wimbledon and for the third year in a row she proceeded no further. Having beaten Ruth Winch 7-9, 6-4, 6-4 in her first match and Mrs G.E. Evered in the last 16, Muriel faced Charlotte Sterry, the former Miss Cooper, who swept her off the court by the score of 6-0, 6-0. It is not at all surprising that Mrs Sterry went on to claim her fourth singles title a few days later in the Challenge Round match against Blanche Hillyard.

There was further disappointment for Muriel when she lost in the doubles. Partnered with May “Toupie” Lowther they fell in the semi-finals to Mrs Hillyard and Mrs Sterry, the eventual champions, by a score of 5-7, 6-3, 6-3. Nevertheless Muriel could look back on 1901 as a most successful year for, in addition to the singles title at the Irish Championships, she took the same title at the Scottish Championships, which in those days were held in Moffat in Dumfriesshire. In the final Muriel beat the holder, Minnie Hunter, also a native of the county of Northumberland, by the score of 6-4, 6-3. Her victory in the Scottish Championships meant that the only major singles title of the British Isles now missing from Muriel’s collection was that of Wimbledon.

In 1902, Muriel returned to Wimbledon for the fourth and last time. Once again she was in very good form, having only a week or so earlier reached the final of the Northern England Championships, in Liverpool, before losing a close match to Louisa Martin, of Ireland, by the score of 6-8, 7-5, 6-1. There was a singles draw of 22 at Wimbledon in 1902 and, after receiving a bye in the first round, Muriel beat Edith Bromfield 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in the last 16. The score alone indicates that this was a tight match, but Muriel was to face tougher challenges at that year’s Championships.

In the quarter-final Muriel beat Elsie Lane relatively easily, 6-1, 7-5, but in her next match she had a real struggle against the player who was to become Wimbledon’s most successful women’s singles champion during its first thirty years, namely Dorothea Douglass, later Mrs Lambert Chambers. Muriel won their semi-final encounter only by 6-4, 2-6, 9-7, a score that says much for Muriel’s resilience. Photographs from this period indicate that Muriel was not a robust player and did not enjoy the best of health. The same was true of a number of other tennis players of that period, including the famous Doherty brothers.

Muriel’s next match was the All-Comers’ Final. This match was to decide who would play Charlotte Sterry in the Challenge Round (in those days the defending champion in the men’s and women’s singles did not have to play through the tournament.) Muriel’s opponent in the All-Comers’ Final was Agnes Morton, a player who was to compile a distinguished record at Wimbledon without ever taking the singles title. In this year of 1902, Muriel beat Agnes Morton 6-2, 6-4 in the penultimate match.

And so to the Challenge Round match against Charlotte Sterry and what was to be arguably the strangest women’s singles final ever played at the tournament. This match began on one of those damp summer days unfortunately not uncommon to Wimbledon. Mrs Sterry won the first set 6-4, but Muriel hit back to take the second 13-11, (still the second-longest set ever played in a women’s singles final at Wimbledon, two games shorter than the 14-12 first set played by Margaret Court and Billie Jean King in the 1970 final). At this point the match was halted due to the increasing rainfall.

The following day the match was not so much resumed as replayed, with Muriel winning two more sets, 7-5, 6-1. Nowadays the match, final or not, would certainly be resumed with the score at one set-all. Matches almost always were resumed, not restarted, even in those distant days. Why it was decreed that the match should begin anew the following day has never been explained. It is not as if one of the players had been at a disadvantage. Certainly, Muriel had won a longer set on the first day, but this only meant that the score was then even and the match tied.

The 53 games played are a record for a women’s singles final at Wimbledon, even if the impression is that two finals were played. Either way Muriel was now singles champion and it is not difficult to imagine her feelings after what must have been a gruelling two days. Her victory made many people in Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne, very happy. The minutes for the year 1902 from Jesmond Lawn Tennis Club’s Annual General Meeting make note of the fact that “in this year’s open tennis tournaments 48 prizes were won by members, chiefly by Muriel Robb and Minnie Hunter”.

Despite her exertions in the singles at the 1902 Wimbledon, Muriel still managed to reach the final in another event, the mixed doubles. Once again Muriel was partnering Clement Cazalet. They lost the final to Laurie Doherty and Mrs Sterry by the score of 6-4, 6-3.

Some of Muriel’s contemporaries wrote about Muriel at the time of her greatest success or in subsequent years. In 1903, Arthur Wallis Myers wrote the following about Muriel in the book “Lawn Tennis at Home and Abroad”:

“To Miss Muriel E. Robb has fallen the distinction of wresting for the first time since 1894 the Ladies’ Championship out of the possession of either Mrs Hillyard or Mrs Sterry, and that her triumph at Wimbledon last year was the outcome of well-nigh perfect lawn tennis, and a fitting crown to a highly successful career, there can be no question. Indeed, I doubt whether any championship round in the classic arena has ever provided such a magnificent demonstration of vigorous play as Miss Robb gave on that occasion. Her command of the ball was so striking, her forehand drives so deadly, and her overhead service so effective, while her self-possession was so apparent, that even Mrs. Sterry, trained hand as she is, was very often at a disadvantage and forced almost throughout the contest to act on the defensive. Yet it was a great struggle, and later in the season the ex-champion took her revenge.

“The lady champion’s style is a combination of grace, vigour and consistency, and she possesses that invaluable asset to all open competitors — a cool head. She may not be equipped with the versatility and all-round brilliancy of Miss [Lottie] Dod, or the experience and persistency of Mrs. Hillyard; but she has much of the former’s assurance, and certainly more freedom of method than the latter.”

Muriel’s fellow tennis player, May “Toupie” Lowther, contributed a chapter entitled “Ladies’ Play” to the book “Lawn Tennis” (also published in 1903), by the brothers Reggie and Laurie Doherty. In it, Toupie Lowther wrote of Muriel:

“Miss Robb, who wrested the championship from Mrs Sterry in 1902, is another very fine player; she is a baseline player and possesses the hardest drive of any lady. Miss Robb is undoubtedly a very strong player, and were her volleying and backhand as good as her ground and forehand strokes, she would certainly be the best lady player living. But her two last-named strokes are not good, and hence the possible risk she incurs of losing the title of champion which she has meritoriously won; for, though Mrs Hillyard lacks both these qualities, Miss Robb has not that never-failing steadiness which characterises the former celebrated player.”

Dorothea Lambert Chambers, writing in “Lawn Tennis for Ladies” (first published in 1910), states that Muriel, like most of her contemporaries, was a baseliner (it was unusual for women to volley in those days). When writing of mixed doubles in her book, Mrs Lambert Chambers also states the following: “In mixed doubles a girl has a very important part to play. Practically speaking, she has to work for all the openings for her partner, who comes in and kills. And very often if in watching a mixed double you are inclined to think the man is doing little work, or that he is playing badly, it is because his partner is getting him no ‘plums’. She is playing a poor length, or not keeping the ball out of the reach of the opposing man. It is a good plan to keep your head well down, and of course your eye glued on the ball, until the very last moment, so that it makes it difficult for the opposing man at the net to tell in which direction you are going to hit the ball. The late Miss Robb, who was a magnificent mixed doubles player, used to play in this way.”

In the book “Forty Years of Lawn Tennis” (first published in 1924), George Hillyard wrote of Muriel: “She had the hardest drive of any lady player before or since. This stroke, however, was not made exactly in the same manner as that of the famous Stroud expert, as it had no perceptible top-spin. It more nearly resembled – indeed, very closely resembled – Arthur Wentworth Gore’s horizontal sweep. A very tall and powerful girl, the pace she got on the ball was astonishing; indeed, few men have had a harder drive. Fortunately for her opponents, she was a player who decidedly had her days. ‘When she was good, she was very, very good, etc.’ This, of course, was almost bound to be the case with a ball hit so hard without ‘top’. The accuracy required to keep it in court was too great for fallible human beings, except at the very zenith of their form.”

Later in the 1902 season, after her Wimbledon singles win, Muriel won the Derbyshire Championships at Buxton for the third time in four years. In the final she easily beat Bertha Steedman, whose real specialty was doubles, 6-1, 6-1. This was to be Muriel’s last significant singles win. In the All-England Women’s Doubles Championships, also held at Buxton, Muriel and Alice Pickering won the title for the third year running. With George Hillyard (husband of Blanche) Muriel also won the mixed doubles title at Buxton in 1902.

Although the pieces from 1903 by Arthur Wallis Myers and Toupie Lowther, quoted from above, appear to indicate that Muriel was expected to defend her Wimbledon title that year, she did not. In fact, her Muriel’s name is absent from any tournament records after the 1902 Derbyshire Championships. She seems to have retired from competitive play at the very young age of 24, probably due to ill health.

Muriel Robb returned to Jesmond in Newcastle upon Tyne after her tennis career had ended. She died there, of an unknown cause, on 12 February 1907, less than five years after her greatest triumph. Only 28 at the time of her death, Muriel was unmarried and appears to have had no siblings. No other winner of a singles title at Wimbledon has died at a younger age.
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Diddie Vlasto (1903-1985) – French Tennis Star from a Golden Era

By Mark Ryan

Pénélope Julie “Diddie” Vlasto was born on 8 August 1903 in Marseilles, France. Her parents were Michel Vlasto, born 1874, originally from the Greek island of Chios, and Régine (née Lidoriki), born 1869, also from Greece. Diddie’s father studied in Marseilles and later settled and worked there for the Ralli Brothers company, a very successful expatriate Greek merchant business (Marseilles is France’s largest port and a major centre for trade and industry).

Michel Vlasto’s main hobby was archaeology, and he came to own a great collection of Greek vases, which were eventually donated to the National Museum of Athens where they are currently on show. He was also a renowned numismatist and extremely knowledgeable about Ancient Greek Tarantine coins. He assembled a priceless collection of these coins during his lifetime.

Diddie, as she was always called by family and friends (the origins of this name are uncertain – even Diddie’s children are unsure of how she came to be so named), grew up in Marseilles with her parents and brother, Pantaléon (known as Pandély), who was born in 1900. Diddie’s mother, Régine, had a keen interest in the arts, especially literature, and in later life liked to surround herself with poets and writers and to have long exchanges of ideas and thoughts.

In those days it was unusual for girls from Diddie’s background to receive a formal education, and she was educated privately, at home, by tutors. There is some uncertainty as to exactly when Diddie first began to play tennis, but it may well just have been as a social activity or a form of exercise, at the local Tennis-Club de Marseille. Her brother, Pantaléon, did not play tennis.

Diddie would have grown up playing mainly on clay courts and it was on this surface that she was to enjoy her best results. Unfortunately for Diddie and her contemporaries, they often had to play against Suzanne Lenglen, possibly the greatest player of all time, and essentially invincible in singles anywhere from 1919 to 1926. Diddie and Suzanne played several times in singles. They were to form a successful doubles partnership and became very good friends.

In those days the Riviera tournaments, held in winter and spring, were very popular and Diddie had one of her most impressive initial singles victories there in 1923, at the age of 19, during the Championships of Cannes, when she beat Molla Mallory, then the United States Nationals champion, 8-6, 9-7. This victory provided evidence of Diddie’s potential. In June of 1923, Diddie made her Wimbledon debut, winning through to the fourth round of the singles before facing the invincible Suzanne Lenglen.

In 1924, Diddie continued to progress and won the biggest singles tournament of her career, the French National Championships, held at the Racing Club de France in Paris. Although Suzanne Lenglen was absent that year due to illness and the tournament was open only to French nationals and players licensed with French clubs, Diddie’s victory was impressive when it is considered that she was only 20 years of age at the time. She dropped just one set in four matches and beat Jeanne Vaussard in the final by a score of 6-2, 6-3.

In 1924, Diddie also won a silver medal in the singles event at the Olympic Games, which were held in Paris that year. Diddie lost the final to Helen Wills, 6-2, 6-2, but in the semi-final against the Wimbledon champion, Britain’s Kathleen McKane, Diddie had played one of the best matches of her career up to that point. Trailing 0-6, 0-3, and in a seemingly impossible position, Diddie showed great determination to stage a marvellous comeback in front of a partisan crowd. She eventually ran out the winner by a score of 0-6, 7-5, 6-1.

Kathleen Mc Kane gained her revenge over Diddie nearly a year later by beating her in the semi-finals of the French Championships at Saint Cloud, which in 1925 were open to foreign nationals for the first time. However, Diddie won the ladies’ doubles title with Suzanne Lenglen, beating Kathleen McKane and her fellow Briton Evelyn Colyer 6-1, 9-11, 6-2. (The following year Diddie and Suzanne retained their doubles title at the French Championships by beating the same British pair in the final, this time by a score of 6-1, 6-1. No ladies’ doubles team since then has managed to better this score in the final of the French Championships.)

Diddie also reached the final of the mixed doubles at the 1925 French Championships, with Henri Cochet, one of the famous Four Musketeers, where they lost to Suzanne Lenglen and Jacques Brugnon. Diddie always got on well with all four Musketeers, in particular with Cochet, whom she partnered in several mixed doubles events.

Diddie enjoyed continued success on the Riviera circuit in 1926 at a time when both Suzanne Lenglen and Helen Wills were present there. Diddie was runner-up to Helen Wills at the tournament held at the Métropole Club in Cannes, where she pushed the American to 6-3, 7-5; and Diddie led 4-1 in the second set of her semi-final match against the American at the Carlton Club, also in Cannes, before losing 6-1, 6-4. It was at this tournament that Lenglen and Wills had their only meeting in singles, with Suzanne winning the final 6-3, 8-6. In the doubles final at the same tournament Diddie and Suzanne beat Helen Wills and Hélène Contostavlos, of Greek origin and a distant cousin of Diddie, 6-4, 8-6. Diddie’s excellent form in the doubles final was noted by many observers.

Diddie had a poor showing in the singles at the French Championships in June 1926, but made up for it a few weeks later by going all the way to the semi-finals of the singles event at Wimbledon. (At that point only one other Frenchwoman – the incomparable Suzanne Lenglen – had ever gone so far in the ladies’ singles at the world’s most prestigious tournament.) In her semi-final against Kathleen Godfree (formerly McKane), Diddie put up a good fight in the first set but then faded.

In the doubles at the same tournament, partnered with Suzanne Lenglen, Diddie lost in the second round to the Americans Elizabeth Ryan and Mary K. Browne, the eventual champions. In a curious match played on a rainy day Diddie and Suzanne won the first set 6-3 and had three match points at 7-6 in the second set, but the American pair saved them all and eventually won by a score of 3-6, 9-7, 6-2.

Wimbledon 1926 was Suzanne Lenglen’s last tournament as an amateur. After a controversial misunderstanding with officials over her schedule she scratched half-way through what was turning out to be a traumatic tournament for her. Fortunately Diddie and some of the other French players were able to offer Suzanne support during this difficult time. Diddie and Suzanne remained friends, and when Suzanne died in July 1938 at the age of only 39, her mother, Anaise, gave Diddie a Cartier art deco powder compact originally owned by Suzanne. This object was subsequently donated to the Wimbledon museum by one of Diddie’s daughters.
In 1927, Diddie married Jean-Baptiste Serpieri (known as Johnny) born 26 June 1904, who was of Greek-Italian heritage (his father was Italian and his mother Greek). Diddie and Johnny had met socially at a tennis event on the Riviera at a time when Johnny was a student at the University of Montpellier. He owned a farm and the university in Montpellier had a reputation as the best choice for prospective students of agriculture. Although he did not play tennis himself, Johnny liked to go to Cannes and Marseilles to attend the tournaments held there.

Diddie and Johnny were married on 17 February 1927 in a castle on the Serpieri estate outside Athens which had originally belonged to the first King and Queen of Greece, Otto and Amalia, who were Bavarian. The royal couple had had a miniature gothic castle built on the estate resembling the Hohenschwangau Castle in which they had lived in Bavaria. King Otto and Queen Amalia reigned for a very short time in Greece, and since there were few reminders of their reign, Diddie decided to collect as many objects related to them as she could, such as costumes, furniture, china, swords, medals, coins, prints and paintings.

Diddie went to live in Athens with Johnny after their marriage and gave birth to their first daughter, Patrizia (known as Pat), at the end of 1927. Her marriage and pregnancy meant that Diddie had to stop playing tennis for a prolonged period of time. Diddie attempted a comeback in 1929, but had little success, no doubt because of the demands of being a wife and mother, and the consequent lack of opportunities to practice. Unhappy with her form, she retired completely from tournament play in the early 1930s.

In 1934, Diddie had her second child, a daughter, Savina, while in 1938 Diddie gave birth to her third and final child, a boy, Fernand (known as Freddy). Diddie encouraged her children to play tennis, but none of them had her talent for the sport. However, her nephew, Michel (known as Micky), the son of her brother, Pantaléon, became quite proficient at the game and participated in a number of tournaments in Marseilles.

When war was declared, Greece was occupied, first by the Italians, and then by their allies, the Germans. At that time no one knew how long the war would last. Diddie and her family attempted to leave Greece by ship, but the vessel on which they had embarked was sunk. Diddie’s father, Johnny, left the country on an aeroplane the same night, which was supposed to return the following day to take Diddie and her children away, but it never arrived.

Johnny remained with the Greek Royal Family as their aide-de-camp during the war years. After first landing in Crete, they had flown on to Alexandria in Egypt and from there sailed to South Africa where Jan Smuts, president of the country, offered them a house in Cape Town in which they stayed for the duration of the war.

Life in Greece during the war was very difficult for Diddie and her children. They had moved to Athens because the SS had occupied the family’s country estate. Food was very scarce, but the SS allowed Diddie and her family to collect some products grown on their land in the country, such as vegetables and wheat from which to make bread. Many families lived on what they were able to bring back on a cart drawn by a donkey. Every room in their house had to be occupied so many of the Diddie’s family’s friends lived with them.

The Germans were constantly searching for Diddie’s father and at one stage Diddie herself went into hiding. Her family lived in constant fear, but were able to listen to the news from the BBC using a hidden radio. Schools were often closed, as were shops, which meant that it was not possible to buy items such as clothing or shoes. The windows of the house in which they were living were blacked out. All in all, it was a very dark time.

After the war Diddie, her children and Johnny were reunited. Subsequently, Diddie dedicated a lot of her time to turning the little castle on the family estate into a private museum containing objects connected with the reign of King Otto and Queen Amalia, such as costumes, furniture, china, swords, medals, coins, prints and paintings. Diddie also liked to travel.

Diddie continued to follow tennis and always liked to remind her children of the wonderful period in which she had played. She was very proud of having represented France at the Olympics; she remained French all her life and retained her French passport. Her family still possesses all of her trophies and medals, which Diddie had hoped would one day go to a sports museum in Greece if one should be founded.

In January 1966, Diddie was awarded the légion d’honneur, which was presented to her in Athens by James Bayens, then French Ambassador to Greece. Diddie considered the award a great honour. On a subsequent visit to Athens, President Charles de Gaulle and his wife, Yvonne, congratulated Diddie on her receipt of the award.

In 1974, fifty years after her victory in the French Championships, Diddie was asked to present the ladies’ singles trophy at the French Open to that year’s winner, Chris Evert.

Diddie and her husband spent most of their final years in Greece although Diddie died on 2 February 1985 in a flat they kept in Lausanne, Switzerland. She was 81. She predeceased her husband, Johnny, who died on 4 July 1989 at the age of 85.

Today, Diddie’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren follow tennis wherever it is going on in the world and remain very proud of Diddie’s achievements. Her daughter, Savina, recently gave some of the tennis clothes her mother wore, designed by Coco Chanel with the Olympic rings and the French coq, to the Roland-Garros Museum in Paris, which was opened in 2003. It was Diddie’s wish that this donation take place. The more the years go by, the more her family realise what a golden era Diddie played in.
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Maude Garfit (1874-1948) – An early lawn tennis player

By Mark Ryan

Early years

Helen Maude Garfit was born on 15 February 1874 at Ruloe, Cheshire. Maudie, as she was known, was the third and last child of Charles Taylor Garfit (b. 1844), a native of Mere, Cheshire, and Ada-Maria Garfit (née Corringham; b. 1843), from Misterton, Nottinghamshire. Charles and Ada-Maria were married in the parish church of All Hallows, Misterton, on 9 February 1870. Maude’s two siblings were named after their parents – Charles Corringham Garfit (b. 1870) and Ada Mary Garfit (b. 1872).

Maude’s father had been educated at Sandbach Grammar School and at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester in the county of Gloucestershire. By the time of Maude’s birth in 1874 he was employed as the land agent for the Wilbraham family, managing their three estates: Delamere Forest, Nantwich and Clive, in the Cheshire West and Chester areas of Cheshire.

Maude’s mother, Ada-Maria, died on 29 October 1875 at the age of only 32. It is thought that several births in less than six years had weakened her constitution. The diagnosis was paraplegia apparently brought on by a rheumatic deposit on the spinal cord.

Maude’s brother, Charles, was educated at Oswestry Grammar School and, later, Manchester University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery; Maude and her sister were initially educated at home by a nursery governess. (This was the custom for most girls at that time.) However, when Maude was sixteen she went to the Northwich High School for Girls, a seminary for young ladies, which she attended from the spring of 1890 to the winter of 1891. Maude rode a pony the fifteen miles from Ruloe to Northwich and stayed with relatives during the week while she attended the school.

Maude excelled academically, receiving excellent reports from the headmistress of Northwich High School. She also showed a talent for sports and initially took up the relatively new sport of lawn tennis, as it was then called, as a country house garden party game.

As well as practising on the family’s lawn tennis court at Ruloe, Maude also joined the Rock Ferry Lawn Tennis Club in Merseyside, Liverpool, to which she would journey by bicycle three times a week. Her green Raleigh bicycle had strings on the back wheel to prevent her long Victorian skirts from becoming entangled in the spokes.

At the Rock Ferry Lawn Tennis Club Maude was able to improve her lawn tennis by playing matches with men. This approach was considered somewhat daring back in those days. However, it had also helped another member of the same club improve her game. This was Charlotte “Lottie” Dod (b. 1871), Maude’s contemporary and the first lawn tennis prodigy. Lottie would go on to win the Wimbledon singles title five times, never losing a singles match at the prestigious All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

Overview of lawn tennis career

One of Maude’s first successes at top level play occurred at the Midland Counties Championships tournament in 1898, when Maude was already 24. This tournament was held annually in Edgbaston (in fact, it is still held today, though in a more modest form). In July 1898, Maude Garfit reached the final in Edgbaston before losing to her countrywoman Blanche Hillyard, 6-3, 6-1. By that time the redoubtable Blanche (née Bingley; b. 1863) had already won the Wimbledon singles title four times and would do so twice more in the coming years.

Three years later, in July 1901, Maude again reached the final in Edgbaston, where her opponent was the Irish-born Ruth Durlacher (née Dyas), who had married the English lawn tennis player Neville Durlacher. Once again Maude was unlucky, losing a close final, 6-4, 6-4.

An overview of Maude Garfit’s lawn tennis career indicates that she liked to travel to tournaments not just in her native England, but also in the rest of the British Isles. (She appears never to have played lawn tennis outside of the British Isles.) Maude first reached the final of one of the national tournaments of the British Isles at the Irish Championships in 1903.

The Irish Championships had originally been held in Fitzwilliam Square in the centre of Dublin in 1879, when it was the first national championships to include a women’s singles event. In early June 1903, Maude reached the final of the singles event in Dublin before falling to Louisa Martin of Ireland in a three-set match, 6-2, 4-6, 6-1. This was the ninth and last singles title at the Irish Championships for the rather obscure figure of Louisa Martin (b.1865) who, nevertheless, is probably the best female player ever produced by Ireland.

Two months later, in August 1903, won one of her first singles titles at top level at the Championships of North Wales tournament, held in Trefriw. Maude won the All-Comers’ Final by beating a Miss N. Forster (first name unknown), 7-5, 3-6, 8-6. In the Challenge Round Maude easily beat the holder, a Miss Makinson, 6-1, 6-1. In those days reports of matches rarely featured a player’s first name, so it is very difficult to identify certain players at this distance. In the early days of lawn tennis many tournaments also featured a Challenge Round, whereby the holder of the title was able to sit out without playing a match and wait to see who would what was called the All-Comers’ event. It was this event that Maude won against Miss N. Forster in 1903.

In the summer of 1909, when asked by the publication “Lawn Tennis and Badminton” to give an account of her most memorable lawn tennis match, Maude submitted the following piece: “I think that the match which stands out most vividly in my memory is the final for the Trefriw (North Wales) Cup in 1903. I played Miss N. Forster and she led set up, 5-1 and 40-15. I was longing for a cup of tea, but ‘the kettle would not boil’. At the beginning of this game, however, this cheering cup arrived and I managed to win the match with the loss of only one more game – afterwards beating Miss Makinson in the Challenge Round. Subsequently the cup became my own property by default, as the tournament was abandoned in my third year.”

The records show that in mid-August 1904, Maude returned to Trefriw and retained her singles title in the North Wales Championships, defeating the same Miss N. Forster in the Challenge Round, 10-8, 9-7 (this is the only match Maude, the defending champion, would have had to play). It appears that this tournament was then discontinued (usually a player would have to win a challenge cup for three consecutive years for it to become her property.)

One month earlier, in July 1904, Maude had reached the final of another national championship, that of Wales. In this tournament, held in those days in Newport, she lost the last match to her countrywoman Constance Wilson, 6-3, 6-4. Together with the New Zealander Anthony Wilding, Maude also reached the final of the mixed doubles in Newport before they lost a very close match to the Englishman Sidney H. Smith and Constance Wilson, 6-3, 8-10, 7-5. Wilding was then an undergraduate at Cambridge University, but would go on to win four consecutive Wimbledon titles (1910-13) before his untimely death in 1915 while serving in France during World War One.

In July 1906, Maude again reached the final of the singles event at the Welsh Championships in Newport. This time her opponent was the formidable American May Sutton (b. 1886) who in 1904 had become the first overseas player to win a Wimbledon title when she won the women’s singles event. At Newport in 1906, May showed no mercy to Maude who was beaten 6-1, 6-0.

In mid-June 1907, Maude enjoyed her biggest success to date when she took the Irish Championships singles title in Dublin, defeating another Englishwoman, Hilda Lane, in the final, 6-2, 6-2. At the same tournament Maude and her countryman Walter Carey won the mixed doubles title, beating the rather obscure pairing of William Drapes and O. Baldwin in the final, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.

Two months later, in August 1907, Maude won the singles title at another prestigious tournament, the Derbyshire Championships, held annually in Buxton. In the final she beat Constance Meyer, an English player of German origin, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

In 1908, Maude enjoyed her most successful lawn tennis season to date, in the process achieving a unique feat. In early July she retained her singles title at the Welsh Championships in Newport, beating a Mrs G. Bruce in the final, 6-2, 6-3 (the runner-up’s name is doubly difficult to find because she was married and lost her maiden name as a result).

A few days later, Maude travelled across to Dublin to take part in the Irish Championships, where she was defending the singles title. She retained this title by beating her compatriot Edith Boucher in the final, 6-4, 6-2.

Shortly afterwards, Maude travelled up to Scotland to take part in the Scottish Championships in Bridge of Allan. Continuing her run of success, Maude also won this national title, defeating a Scottish player, A.M. Ferguson, in the final, 6-3, 6-4. The latter player’s first names are not known.

Maude’s win in the Scottish Championships meant that within less than a month she had remained champion of Ireland, while also becoming champion of Wales and Scotland for the first time. She thus became the first player to win these three prestigious titles in the same season.

According to “Lawn Tennis and Badminton” of 13 August 1908, “By winning the Scottish singles at the Bridge of Allan on Saturday the Cheshire lady can describe herself as lady champion of Wales, Ireland and Scotland. Surely an honourable record, compiled as it has been within the short sphere of one month. Miss Garfit’s feat is unique in the annals of the game…”

One week later, after her triumph in the Scottish Championships, Maude travelled down to Buxton where, as the defending champion, she lost in the final of the Derbyshire Championships to another Englishwoman, Charlotte Sterry (née Cooper; b. 1870), 6-2, 6-2. A month or so earlier Charlotte Sterry had won the Wimbledon singles title for the fifth and last time at the age of 37. She is still the oldest woman to have won this title.

There was some consolation for Maude in Buxton in early August 1908 when, together with Charlotte Sterry, her conqueror in the singles final, she won the prestigious All-England Ladies’ Doubles Championship. This event had been played at Buxton since the mid-1880s and was considered the most prestigious women’s doubles title in the British Isles until a women’s doubles event was given official championship status at Wimbledon for the first time in 1913. In the doubles final in Buxton in 1908, Maude and Charlotte Sterry beat their compatriots Edith Boucher and Hilda Lane, 6-2, 6-1.

The following season, in late May/early June 1909, Maude travelled to Manchester to take part in the Northern Championships tournament. She reached the singles final at this tournament before losing a close match to her countrywoman Edith Johnson, 6-3, 9-11, 6-0. However, at the same tournament, in partnership with Xenophon Casdagli, an English player of Greek origin, Maude won the All-England Mixed Doubles Championship when she and Casdagli defeated the English pairing of Arthur Wallis Myers and Edith Longhurst in the final match, 6-3, 6-2. This event was considered the most prestigious mixed doubles title in the British Isles until the mixed doubles event at Wimbledon was given official status for the first time in 1913.

Later in the 1909 season, Maude retained her singles title at the Welsh, Irish and Scottish Championships. In early July, in Newport, Wales, she beat Winifred Longhurst, sister of Edith, by a walkover. A fortnight later Maude defeated M. Fergus, probably a Scottish player, in the final of the Scottish Championships at Bridge of Allan, 6-2, 4-6, 6-1. A week or so later Maude beat Edith Boucher, 6-4, 6-2 to retain her Irish Championships singles title.

At the end of June 1909, Maude had also taken part in the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships for only the second time in her career. The first time had been ten years earlier, in 1899, when she had had a “bye” in the first round before losing in the next round to Muriel Robb, a native of Newcastle in Northumberland, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4. Muriel Robb would win the Wimbledon singles title in 1902.

In 1909, Maude won several rounds at Wimbledon to reach the semi-finals where she faced the Londoner Dora Boothby. Unfortunately, Maude was unable to find her form and lost a one-sided match, 6-2, 6-1. According to “Lawn Tennis and Badminton” of 8 July, 1909, “… Miss Garfit, on the contrary, never found her real game; she was mistiming the ball badly and never seemed able to calculate the pace as modified by Miss Boothby’s cut; with the result that she seldom got the ball in the middle of her racket and consequently was hitting all her drives just too low. Her sideline shots were often very good, but they were almost her only scoring shot; whereas Miss Boothby was playing all her strokes very well…” (Dora Boothby went on to win the singles title at Wimbledon in 1909.)

In early August 1909, Maude took part in the Derbyshire Championships in Buxton again. She reached the final where her opponent was Helen Aitchison, one of four lawn tennis-playing sisters from Sunderland. After losing the set, Maude came back strongly to take the next two, the final score being 2-6, 6-2, 6-2. Maude also reached the final of the All-England Ladies’ Doubles Championship in Buxton in 1909. She and her partner, Hilda Lane, lost this last match to Helen Aitchison and Agnes Tuckey, 2-6, 6-2, 6-4. (Maude had won the All-England Ladies’ Doubles Championships one year earlier with Charlotte Sterry.)

In 1910, Maude played her last season of competitive lawn tennis. Early in June she reached the final of the singles event at the Northern Championships, held that year in Liverpool. However, heavy rain caused this final to be postponed and when it was eventually played at Edgbaston later in the season, Maude lost a three-set match to Edith Johnson, 3-6, 6-4, 6-0.

In early July, Maude again reached the final of the Welsh Championships in Newport, but lost her title to Helen Aitchison, 8-6, 6-4. One month later, the same two players were due to meet in the final of the Derbyshire Championships in Buxton, but illness prevented Helen Aitchison from taking to the court. Maude thus won this prestigious singles title for the third time in four years.

At Buxton in 1910, Maude also regained the All-England Ladies’ Doubles Championships when, playing with a Mrs Hudleston, probably a Scottish player, they defeated Helen Aitchison and Agnes Tuckey, 6-0, 6-2. According to “Lawn Tennis and Badminton” of 18 August 1910, “… Mrs Hudleston and Miss Garfit played as if in a different class. This was no accident, for they repeated the performance in the final, beating Mrs Tuckey and Miss Aitchison, the holders, by the astonishing score of 6-0, 6-1. Miss Garfit was very good off the ground and very quick at covering her partner at the net.”

Life after After Competitive Lawn Tennis

In October 1910, Maude Garfit married, an event which effectively meant the end of her lawn tennis career (albeit at the relatively advanced age, in sporting terms, of 36). Maude’s husband was Thomas Douglas, a border farmer from Ruletownhead near Hawick in the Scottish Borders. Maude and Thomas had originally met in the summer of 1908 when Maude was on a lawn tennis tour of Scotland (the summer, in fact, she became Scottish, Welsh and Irish champion for the first time). While in Scotland, Maude stayed at Gatehousecote farm near Ruletownhead as a guest of her friend Nora Teacher and Nora’s husband, Donald. Thomas Douglas was invited to dine during Maude’s stay and thus the two single people met each other for the first time.

Maude and Thomas married on 27 October 1910 in Christ Church, Crowton, Cheshire. Maude wore an exquisite hand-embroidered wedding gown still in the possession of her granddaughter, also called Maude. Maude had five children: Garry (b. 1911), Sholto (b. 1914), Ada (b. 1916), Haig (b. 1917) and Charlie (b. 1919). The last of these five children was born when Maude was 44.

Maude’s father, Charles, died suddenly on 19 November 1910 at the age of 66. In an unsigned piece entitled “Death in the Hunting Field”, the London “Times” of Monday, 21 November 1910 reported the following: “Mr Charles Garfit died while out hunting on Saturday. He joined the second pack at Delamere House, and, having dismounted to tighten his bridle, he was remounting when he was observed to collapse. A doctor who was near ran to his aid, but found him quite dead from heart failure. Mr Garfit had been for 40 years agent to the Wilbraham family at Delamere House, also for part of the time to Lady Delamere and Lord Barrymore.”

In 1912, Maude and Thomas Douglas purchased the aforementioned Gatehousecote farm near Bonchester Bridge. The land on this farm contained a grass lawn tennis court where Maude, her children and grandchildren were able to play the sport. Maude used to keep the nine silver challenge cups she had won during her lawn tennis career on a sideboard at Gatehousecote. These trophies included the aforementioned challenge cup Maude won after taking the singles title for the third consecutive time at the Irish Championships in 1909, as well as the Cumberland lawn tennis ladies’ singles challenge cup, which Maude won in Carlisle in 1906, 1907 and 1908, and the Conishead Priory (Cumbria) ladies’ singles challenge cup, which Maude won in 1901, 1902 and 1903 and again in 1904, 1905 and 1906.

After her death Maude’s children inherited some of these trophies; unfortunately some of them were subsequently stolen during break-ins. Maude Garfit Douglas died on 23 August 1948 at the age of 74; Thomas Douglas had died on 2 January 1948 at the age of 78.

Maude Garfit and Thomas Douglas’s descendants include Gerald Howarth, Conservative MP for Aldershot and, as of 2010, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence as Minister for International Security Strategy.

Maude’s aforementioned granddaughter, Maude Brownlie, is the daughter of Maude Thomas’s eldest son, Garry. Maude Brownlie, a nurse by profession, served on the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing Midwifery and Health Visiting in the 1980s. In recent years Maude has helped to set up the Helen Maude Garfit Fund at the University of Edinburgh to support research into Fragile X Syndrome, autism and Fragile X Associated Tremor Ataxia Syndrome (FXTAS) at the Patrick Wild Centre situated within the University of Edinburgh. Maude, herself a carrier of Fragile X, was diagnosed with early FXTAS, and has two grandsons and one first cousin with full mutation Fragile X Syndrome caused by the defective gene.

According to the “Southern Reporter” newspaper of 5 August 2011, Fragile X Syndrome can be traced back to Maude’s grandmother and is the leading cause of inherited learning difficulties and a common cause of autism. Older male and female carriers of the condition can suffer from FXTAS, a degenerative disorder of movement. Maude Brownlie has herself suffered from the condition and was treated successfully for it in the United States. Maude hopes that by telling her family’s story interest will be aroused and British health care teams alerted, and that by working together we can bring new hope to affected families.

The Helen Maude Garfit Fund established earlier this year [2011] has already raised over £65,000. Further related information can be found at: http://www.patrickwildcentre.com
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[Many thanks to Maude Brownlie, who provided much of the information contained in this biographical on her paternal grandmother, including articles written by some of her relatives. Without Maude Brownlie’s assistance it would not have been possible to write this piece.]
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