After Saturday’s semi finals, Manly Men’s 3 are the only remaining team. They will play a home final this Saturday against Neutral Bay at 2pm.
Badge Results September 12
Manly 1 Lost 4-4 on games. Cameron Green/Andrew Riminton played great tennis to win 4 sets against very strong opposition. Sean/Bosko lost 4 sets. The team should be proud of such a great year in a very strong competition.
Manly 3 Won 5-2. This team has been top all year and had another good win despite losing Steve Wilkins on Friday with a back injury. The Tennis Whisperer (aka Rob Muir) stepped in and won 2 sets with Steve Middleton to ensure victory. Milton/Howard Smith played well to win 3 sets. The final next week against Neutral Bay will be a very tight match. Neutral Bay have been undefeated since they recruited a new player late in the season.
Manly 4 Lost 1-7 to Neutral Bay. On their home courts Neutral Bay were too strong. Sean/Vincent took one set and Geoff/Jarryd lost their sets. A good year for this team to make the semis once again as per last year.
Manly 6 Lost 1-7 away to Kooroora. Kooroora have not lost all year and won easily. Graham/Chris took a set and Denis/Hugo played also.
Manly 7 Lost 3-4 at home. Western Suburbs proved too strong on the day to win a close match. Stu/Peter won 1 set and David/Roger 1set plus a forfeit set. A good year for this team also.
Ladies 2 Lost 4 sets all on games at Kooroora. Unfortunately this loss means the Ladies miss a place in the final. They now play at home this Saturday in a 3rd v 4th playoff. Krista/Kristina won 3 sets again and Olivia/Elaine won 1 set.
Thursday Ladies Lost 2-6 away. A loss to the top team with some close sets. Lindy/Michelle and Narelle/Jane each won a set. The Ladies have one more away match this week and then should play a 3rd v 4th playoff at home on Thursday week.
Please come along on Saturday and support our two remaining teams. Good luck to both. Manly to win!
The last round of Badge was completed on Saturday for most of our teams. The Ladies 2 Team has one match to play, Thursday Ladies 2 matches.
We have 5 Mens Teams in the semi finals. Manly 3 amd Manly 7 Mens Teams will play home semis this Saturday whilst Manly 1 Manly 4 and Manly 6 Mens Teams will play away semis.
Congratulations to those teams and hopefully all 5 can win on Saturday.
Badge Results Round 14
Mens 1 Won 8-0 at home. A great win to finish in 4th position in a very strong competition this season. Cameron/Andrew continued their good form to win 4 sets again as did Bosko/Sean. They have a tough semi final match away at Grand Slam Wheatleigh Street which includes the Smith brothers who always get to the finals of The Manly Seaside championships. Good luck guys.
Mens 2 Lost 3-5 away. Oliver/Dan won 2 sets Fernando/Murillo won 1 set. They finished in 5th position a few points out of the semis.
Mens 3 Bye. This team has been first all year and will play at 2pm this Saturday at home v Marrickville.
Mens 4 Won 5-3 at home v Marrickville. Sean/Vincent won their 4 sets again Geoff/Craig won 1 set. They play away at Neutral Bay on Saturday.
Mens 5 Lost 2-6 at home to Cammeray. Carl/Tom won 2 sets, Gavin/Scott lost 3 tiebreakers. This team finished 8th. All their matches were close on games but they were unlucky to lose the tight sets.
Mens 6 Washout . Finished in 4th position and have a tough semi against the unbeaten Kooroora at their courts.
Mens 7 Lost 2-6 at Western Suburbs. Mark/Roger won 2 sets then Mark was injured and had to forfeit the last 2 sets. Peter/Hamish lost 4 close sets. This team has a home semi against Western Suburbs on Saturday. Mark will probably be unavailable an, since Stu is injured as well, the other guys have to step in and play well. Good luck you can do it!
Mens 8 Lost 2-6 at home. Ray Dalgairns/Rob Hill won 1 set as did Des/ Ray Dummett. This team finished 7th. Most of the Division 11 Teams have younger players now so it is a lot stronger than a few years ago.
Ladies1 Lost 3-5 away. Julia/Emily won 2 sets, Kirsten/Carolina 1 set. The ladies finished 8th in a very strong competition.
Ladies 2 Won 5-3 at home v Chatswood. A great win against the top team to remain in 2nd position. If the ladies can win their last match they will finish 2nd and play Chatswood away in the final. Kristina/Krista won 3 sets and Julie/Olivia 2 sets. Good luck on Saturday ladies.
Thursday Ladies Badge. Won 5-3 at home. Lindy/Michelle won 3 sets, Jane/Narelle won 2 sets. With two matches remaining it will be tough to take 2nd position and play in the final. Third plays fourth also to decide 3rd position so a home playoff in 2 weeks looks likely.
Social Tennis will be on four (4) courts from 11.30am to 5.30pm. Please allow the semi final players to warm up before their matches begins.
Get Well greetings to Paul Wigney who had a minor operation this week and is now back at Collaroy recovering. Also to Owen Kennedy who is resting at home.
Club Championships
Scheduled dates are October 17, 18, 24 and 25 with Finals day on October 31 — COVID permitting.
A number of things have changed at the U.S. Open because of the novel coronavirus.
Players wear masks walking to and from courts; gone are the post-match handshakes and hugs at the net; players have only minimal time in the locker rooms, training facilities and on-site gym; and, of course, there are no fans at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York. But one of the biggest changes for players has to do with sweat — as in, how to mop it up.
At this year’s U.S. Open, players, rather than ball boys and girls, must tend to their own towels between points.
There are new, temporary rules governing how towels are used on court, and they have disrupted a routine that is sacred for many players. “For me, it has huge importance, the towel,” fourth-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas said. “I use it very often. It gives me time to think, gives me time to refresh myself and think about my tactics.”
https://www.manlylawn.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/POST-goss-e1555388932669.png152200Enfold Demohttps://www.manlylawn.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/manly-lawn-tennis-club-logo.pngEnfold Demo2020-09-04 09:41:592020-09-04 09:42:00At the US Open, the coronavirus has disrupted a crucial relationship: Player and towel
If a Grand Slam tournament happens and there are not 50,000 daily spectators there to watch it, is it really a scene? The players are making it one.
The four biggest tournaments in tennis, known as the Grand Slams, so clearly reflect the cities in which they take place.
January offers the Australian Open, a free and easy party in Melbourne. The French Open, in springtime in Paris, leads with the beauty and elegance of Roland Garros and its red clay. Wimbledon, in July in London, with its hallowed grass, is tradition and history, with a box reserved for the royal family. And the late summer finale is the United States Open in New York, a tournament every bit as noisy and chaotic and nonstop as the city itself, with matches that sometimes start near midnight and stretch well past it, with fans carousing into the night.
Except of course, when the U.S. Open takes place amid a pandemic.
Through this spring, New York became more quiet and empty, with atypically bare pavement in Times Square and silence on the streets broken only by the citywide cheers each night at 7 o’clock from the windows to herald doctors, nurses and other essential workers.
Gone, seemingly, was everything that made the city the city.
That contrarian version of life arrived Monday at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, a bow to the safety precautions required to limit the spread of the coronavirus. To be here during the opening day of the U.S. Open was to experience something nearly impossible to envision.
A usually crammed boardwalk connecting the subway to the west gate was devoid of nearly all signs of life. No one begging for or trying to sell an overpriced, last-minute ticket. No endless lines trying to get through the six metal detectors that were still operating but had little metal to detect.
The Adidas and U.S. Open stores were filled only with people stringing rackets, six feet apart, instead of fans swiping plastic for souvenirs. Metal shutters were pulled down on every stand in the food court. No Franks and Fries or Neapolitan Pizza or Ben & Jerry’s.
As Angelique Kerber of Germany and Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia got underway at Louis Armstrong Stadium with the first match in a big, nearly empty venue — Armstrong can hold some 14,000 people — the loudest sounds were the screeching trains from the Long Island Rail Road yard just beyond the tennis center’s walls, and of course the planes flying low out of nearby La Guardia Airport.
Tomljanovic, who lost 6-4, 6-4, described the bizarre sensation of slugging through the most intense points only to have all that effort met with the sound of one coach clapping.
“That’s usually when the crowd would erupt,” said Tomljanovic, who likes to people-watch during her changeovers but had nothing to look at but empty seats covered by tarps. “Nothing really happens. It has to come from you.”
Players marched onto their courts after an announcer introduced them over the public address system with brief highlights of their careers, even though no one was really there who didn’t know the information already. Then came some brief piped-in crowd noise.
Big screens that surround the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium showed a grid view of fans cheering remotely in small boxes, looking a bit like they were being held hostage and told to cheer on command.
Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic, the No. 1 seed in the women’s draw with Ashleigh Barty and Simona Halep not playing, opened play in the 22,000-seat Ashe Stadium and imagined that she was, in fact, being watched. The top 32 seeds each get a luxury suite in Ashe to use as a lounge. Surely a few of them saw her dismantle Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine, 6-4, 6-0.
“It’s super huge and it still feels super empty,” Pliskova said of Ashe, “but I feel like there is at least the player boxes where they stay, so I felt like there is at least a couple people watching.”
The artists call it “negative space” — the area around and between the subjects. At the U.S. Open, it is usually a sea of people, with the occasional player navigating through on the way to a match or a practice court like a commuter racing for a train at Grand Central at rush hour. There are no tunnels or hidden walkways here. You march with the people.
On Monday, the negative space was mostly empty, allowing all those players, racket bags slung over their shoulders because they can’t leave them in the locker rooms that have rules limiting their capacity, to dominate the scene as never before. The tennis center was like their college campus, complete with the warnings about and limits on indoor dining.
https://www.manlylawn.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/POST-goss-e1555388932669.png152200Robhttps://www.manlylawn.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/manly-lawn-tennis-club-logo.pngRob2020-09-02 04:51:282020-09-02 04:52:57The Bizarro 2020 U.S. Open Begins
With one round remaining in Sydney Badge, Manly has 3 teams safely in the semi finals.
Congratulations to Mens 3 Team in division 4 who are minor premiers already. Manly Mens 7 in Division 11 are guaranteed a home semi final as they will finish 1st or 2nd. Manly Mens 6in Division 8 are guaranteed 3rd or 4th position and will play an away semi final.
The Mens 1 and Mens 4 Teams need a few points this weekend to secure their semi final positions. Mens 2 Team need a big win to take 4th position.
The Ladies 2 Team have two remaining matches and need to keep winning to ensure 2nd position.
Badge Results Round 13
Mens 1 lost 2-6 away. Cameron/Bosko won 2 sets.
Mens 2 lost 3-5 at home.Adam/Marcus won 3 sets.
Mens 3 lost 0-8 at home. Rob/Milton lost 3 tiebreakers.
Mens 4 won 6-2 away. Sean/Vincent reunited to win 4 sets. Craig/Jarryd won 2 sets.
Mens 5 lost 2-6 away. Joao/Gavin won 2 sets.
Mens 6 won 7-0 at home. Richard/Chris won 4 sets and Hugo/Denis 3 sets with one unfinished.
Mens 7 lost 2-6 away. Mark/Roger won 2 sets.
Mens 8 lost 2-6 at home. Ian/Ray Dalgairns won 2 sets.
Ladies1 lost 0-8 away.
Ladies 2 played a 4-sets all tie at home to stay in 2nd position. Julie/ Olivia won 3 sets. Kristina/Krista won 1 set. The Ladies play the top team at home this Saturday.
Thursday Ladies lost 3-5 at home. Narelle/Jane won 2 sets; Lindy/Michelle 1 set.
With one round remaining in Sydney Badge, Manly has 3 teams safely in the semi finals.
Congratulations to Mens 3 Team in division 4 who are minor premiers already. Manly Mens 7 in Division 11 are guaranteed a home semi final as they will finish 1st or 2nd. Manly Mens 6in Division 8 are guaranteed 3rd or 4th position and will play an away semi final.
The Mens 1 and Mens 4 Teams need a few points this weekend to secure their semi final positions. Mens 2 Team need a big win to take 4th position.
The Ladies 2 Team have two remaining matches and need to keep winning to ensure 2nd position.
Badge Results Round 13
Mens 1 lost 2-6 away. Cameron/Bosko won 2 sets.
Mens 2 lost 3-5 at home.Adam/Marcus won 3 sets.
Mens 3 lost 0-8 at home.
Mens 4 won 6-2 away. Sean/Vincent reunited to win 4 sets. Craig/Jarryd won 2 sets.
Mens 5 lost 2-6 away. Joao/Gavin won 2 sets.
Mens 6 won 7-0 at home. Richard/Chris won 4 sets and Hugo/Denis 3 sets with one unfinished.
Mens 7 lost 2-6 away. Mark/Roger won 2 sets.
Mens 8 lost 2-6 at home.Ian/Ray Dalgairns won 2 sets.
Ladies1 lost 0-8 away.
Ladies 2 played a 4-sets all tie at home to stay in 2nd position. Julie/ Olivia won 3 sets. Kristina/Krista won 1 set. The Ladies play the top team at home this Saturday.
Thursday Ladies lost 3-5 at home. Narelle/Jane won 2 sets; Lindy/Michelle 1 set.
After months of hesitation and uncertainty in the tennis world, a welcome development arrived on Thursday: the men’s and women’s singles draws for the United States Open.
For many fans, the bracket for the tournament, which is set to begin on Monday, was tangible confirmation that the professional tennis tour is indeed back. Although there have been plenty of exhibition matches, and some sanctioned tournaments, they have all felt like practice runs, tests to make sure the Grand Slam events could return. And now, after the cancellation of Wimbledon and the postponement of the French Open, they have.
Although some big names will be missing from this year’s U.S. Open, this draw also includes the return of two veterans. On the men’s side, there is Andy Murray, who last participated in singles at a major tournament in 2019, at the Australian Open. He then had his second hip operation in a year and openly questioned whether he would be able to return to professional tennis. But he was back playing singles tournaments by the end of 2019, before a pelvic injury kept him out of this year’s Australian Open.
In his first match at the U.S. Open, he will face Yoshihito Nishioka, a 24-year-old left-hander with a similar, physical style of play.
On the women’s side, an equally formidable former champion is returning: Kim Clijsters, who is returning from a second retirement to play in her first Grand Slam event since the 2012 U.S. Open — where she and Murray were the singles champions. In the first round, she will face Ekaterina Alexandrova, the No. 21 seed, who was 2 years old when Clijsters played in her first WTA event.
Aside from sentimental favorites, the draw revealed the most compelling potential matchups and story lines of the tournament. Here are five takeaways from the draw announcement:
Djokovic has a comfortable road ahead.
Novak Djokovic, the men’s No. 1., has openly stated that he wished Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, his two main rivals, would have joined him at this year’s U.S. Open. But Federer is still recovering from knee surgery and Nadal opted not to participate because of coronavirus concerns, leaving a relatively simple path to the finals for Djokovic.
His hardest potential matchup is against the seventh-seeded David Goffin, who has beaten Djokovic once in eight meetings, and that victory came in 2017 on the red clay of Monte Carlo, Goffin’s favored surface. It seems unlikely that Djokovic’s run would stop anytime before the semifinals at the least.
An American generational battle looms.
Serena Williams could run into Sloane Stephens, a fellow American and the 2017 U.S. Open champion, in the third round. Stephens has been sometimes viewed as a potential successor to Williams, but has only won once in their six head-to-head matches.
This would be their first meeting since the 2015 French Open, and Serena will hope to push past Stephens as she pursues a record 24th Grand Slam title.
Sofia Kenin faces a tough draw.
The 2020 Australian Open champion, Sofia Kenin could easily be considered one of the favorites to win in Flushing. But she faces an incredibly difficult quarter of the draw, one filled with former champions as well as exciting, young challengers. Kenin, the No. 2 seed, could meet Ons Jabeur of Tunisia, who reached the quarterfinals of the Cincinnati Open, in the third round.
In the round of 16, either the 16th-seeded Elise Mertens or Kim Clijsters will most likely be awaiting her. And her quarterfinal matchup could be any number of stiff opponents, including the veterans Victoria Azarenka and Venus Williams, or highly ranked players in their prime, like Karolina Muchova and Johanna Konta.
Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka could entertain us all again.
Last year, a 15-year-old Coco Gauff stormed into the spotlight with scintillating performances at Wimbledon and kept it up in the early rounds at the U.S. Open. Naomi Osaka, the 2018 champion, defeated her in the third round and, in one of the tournament’s most memorable scenes, invited a visibly emotional Gauff to join her for the on-court interview after the match.
This year, the two could get a rematch in the third round at Flushing. The two also met in the third round of the Australian Open this year, with Gauff winning in two sets of incredible tennis. Here’s hoping we’ll get to see a thrilling matchup between the two young stars again.
A quarter of the men’s draw is packed with last year’s semifinalists.
Only one of last year’s semifinalists, Rafael Nadal, will not be participating in this year’s tournament. The other three are packed into one quarter of the draw: Daniil Medvedev, Matteo Berrettini, and Grigor Dimitrov all have reasons to believe that they can match their runs from last year, but the draw will make that task difficult.
In the same quarter is Andrey Rublev, who reached the round of 16 last year as an unseeded player before losing to Berrettini in three hard-fought sets.
https://www.manlylawn.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/POST-news-e1555388843470.png152200Robhttps://www.manlylawn.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/manly-lawn-tennis-club-logo.pngRob2020-08-28 15:20:062020-08-28 15:20:09US Open Draw Lacks Some Stars, but Not Story Lines
Most successful doubles team in history retire together.
On opposite coasts but still on the same wavelength, the identical twins Bob and Mike Bryan, the most successful men’s doubles team in tennis history, are retiring at age 42, effective immediately.
“We just both feel it in our guts that it is the right moment,” said Mike Bryan, the older of the twins by 2 minutes. “At this age it takes so much work to go out there and compete. We love playing still but we don’t love getting our bodies ready to get out there. The recovery is tougher. We feel like we were competitive this year, last year, the year before. We want to go out right now where we still have some good tennis left.”
The Bryans, exuberant and exceptionally fan-friendly Californians whose trademark was the chest bump, were raised by their tennis-teaching parents, Wayne and Kathy, to be champions and ambassadors for the game.
“There was a master plan,” said Wayne Bryan in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
The Bryan brothers became prolific winners during their 22-year professional career: claiming 16 Grand Slam titles in 30 finals and 119 tour titles playing together, which was nearly always the case. They were ranked No. 1 as a team for a total of 438 weeks and finished 10 seasons as the world’s top-ranked doubles team.
All those are men’s Open Era records, often by wide margins. There may have been greater doubles players — John Newcombe, Roy Emerson and John McEnroe all deserve consideration and all played when doubles had a higher profile and more singles stars played both.
But the Bryans, by force of personality and longevity, bridged some of the gap. No men’s team has achieved more (or signed more autographs). The Australians Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde are a distant second in the Open era with 11 Grand Slam titles and 61 tour titles.
At their peak in 2012 and 2013, the Bryans held all four major titles and the Olympic gold medal, often overwhelming the opposition with their positive energy, telepathic communication and complementary skill sets.
“We were pretty much unstoppable for those years,” Bob said on a Zoom call. “We were down a break of serve and smiling, and not one bit of negativity drifted into our game.”
They have had plenty of fraternal spats through the years: In 2006, Bob broke Mike’s guitar in anger after a scuffle at Wimbledon (they went on to win the title). But the Bryans appeared to mellow as their career stretched on in an era when advances in nutrition, training and recovery have allowed many tennis stars to endure: see Roger Federer, 39, and Serena Williams, 38.
Bob, a left-hander, had the bigger serve and more explosive game. Mike, a right-hander, had the more consistent returns and rock-solid volleys.
They were fine players on their own: Bob won the N.C.A.A. singles championship in 1998 as a sophomore when they were attending Stanford University, where they won two team titles.
But together the twins were transcendent and also more at peace. When playing singles, comparisons were inevitable, which could generate tension. When they were juniors, their parents generally did not allow them to play one another in tournaments, instead having them take turns defaulting when draws brought them together.
But when playing doubles, they were a unit, their successes and setbacks fully shared.
“A lot of kids who play tennis, they dream of being No. 1 in the world in singles,” Wayne Bryan said. “But with identical twin brothers with the exact same DNA and the exact same parents and same coaching and same club, that’s pretty competitive. How can you be No. 1 in the world if you’re No. 2 in your own bedroom? So we never wanted them to play and compete against each other. They were born to play doubles.”
Wayne Bryan was a former No. 1 player at UC Santa Barbara, and Kathy Bryan was once ranked No. 11 in the United States. They were teaching pros and part-owners at the Cabrillo Racquet Club in Camarillo, Calif., which had 17 courts and a fitness room.
The boys started early, hitting balloons with rackets in their living room at age 2 and winning their first title together at age 6. By age 8, they had written down the goal of reaching No. 1 in the world and posted it on the family’s refrigerator.
“In some ways you think, if not them, then who?” Kathy Bryan said of her sons’ success. “Because they had kind of a perfect little petri dish to grow up in with love, and tennis was our livelihood, and we both had experience in the game.”
But Kathy Bryan also knew the odds. “You think, how can they ever rise above the hordes of great players?” she said.
The Bryans did not have a television in order to encourage their sons to focus on tennis, academics, personal relationships and another family passion: music.
The twins would later found the Bryan Brothers Band, playing gigs as well as matches as they traveled the world with Bob on keyboard and Mike on drums or guitar.
At Stanford, when they were assigned to different dormitories as freshmen, Bob set up a mattress on the floor of Mike’s room and slept there instead. Long into adulthood, they shared a bank account. They still speak or text multiple times a day even though Bob, his wife, Michelle, and three young children are based in Hallandale Beach, Fla., and Mike and his wife, Nadia, and their infant son now live in Camarillo.
“We’re still best friends, and we just have a stronger connection now than ever,” Mike said. “You know how tough it can be as brothers to get along all the time. And we made it work for so long in high-pressure situations, eating every meal together, spending every practice together.
“For a lot of people that gets pretty stale, but we kept our marriage strong. We needed a little therapy here and there, but in the end it worked out, and looking back at our longevity, that’s something we can be very proud of, that we did it day in and day out together.”
But the coronavirus pandemic disrupted that plan, halting play on the men’s tour for five months. The twins did play in World Team Tennis in late July and early August, but when it was confirmed that the U.S. Open would be played without spectators, they decided to retire rather than take part.
“We weren’t in this last year to just play the matches and to get points or to make money,” Bob said. “It was to really say our thank-yous to everybody and feel the atmosphere one last time. The crowds — that’s what make the U.S. Open magical in our minds. We really applaud the U.S. Open for getting going, and all the work they’ve put in to give tennis back to the fans on TV and to give players opportunities to compete again and make money. But it just wasn’t right for us.”
The Bryans once thought they would retire after the 2012 Olympics in London, where they won the last significant title they lacked, and they stopped playing together abruptly in 2018 when Bob badly injured his hip and elected to have hip resurfacing surgery. Mike continued on that year with a new partner, the American Jack Sock, and won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open: giving him a total of 18 Grand Slam men’s doubles titles, two more than his brother.
After the twins reunited in 2019, they won three more tour titles together. “I was in his corner and waiting for him to come back,” Mike said Bob, who during his recovery sometimes attended Mike’s practices with Sock using a cane.
“It’s not always rosy,” Mike said, adding, “I went through a divorce, which was not easy on even Bob’s and my relationship, because it seeped into our tennis. I wasn’t playing my best level for a year or two, just because I wasn’t super happy. But luckily we’ve had each other to lean on.”
Their last title — their 119th — came in Delray Beach, Fla., in February, which also turned out to be their final ATP event. They then traveled to Hawaii and won their final official match: playing for the United States Davis Cup team in a qualifying-round victory over Uzbekistan just before the tour hiatus.
During the forced break, the brothers and their families initially set up in Camarillo, quarantining in the same pod with Wayne and Kathy. Both brothers noticed that the competitive flame had dimmed. They plan to keep playing exhibitions but raising their families is their new shared priority.
“The drive we had for so many years that got us out of bed and into the gym and had us thinking about tennis nonstop, it’s just not there,” Mike said.
Angela Buxton, half of an outcast tennis duo! She was Jewish, Althea Gibson was black, and they forged a champion partnership. Buxton was inducted into the Black Tennis Hall of Fame in 2015.
They were both outsiders in the starched white world of elite 1950s tennis, superb players but excluded from tournaments and clubs and shunned on the circuit because of their heritage. Angela Buxton, a white, Jewish Englishwoman, was a granddaughter of Russian Jews who had fled the pogroms in the early 1900s; Althea Gibson, a black American, was born in a sharecropper’s shack in South Carolina and grew up in Harlem.
They eventually found each other and forged a powerful doubles partnership. In 1956, they won the French Championships and Wimbledon, the jewel in the crown of a sport that had hardly welcomed them.
But for all Buxton’s prowess on the court — she was ranked in the women’s top 10 in the mid-1950s — she is best remembered for the long-lasting support and encouragement she gave Gibson, the first great black player in women’s tennis, the first black to win Wimbledon and, for a time, the No. 1 ranked female player in the world.
Buxton died at 85 on August 14 at her home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the International Tennis Federation announced.
When Buxton and Gibson met at a tournament in New Delhi in 1955, Gibson was so discouraged by the barriers she faced as the only black player in the top echelons of tennis that she was ready to give up the game.
“When I came on the scene, the other players wouldn’t speak to Althea much less play with her quite simply because she was black,” Buxton told Sally Jacobs, author of a forthcoming biography of Gibson. “She was completely isolated,” she added. “I was, too, because of being Jewish. So it was a good thing we found one another.”
Buxton’s coach paired the two as doubles partners. In 1956, the same year they won in Paris and at Wimbledon, Buxton reached the singles finals at Wimbledon, losing to Shirley Fry. When Gibson won Wimbledon the following year, Buxton made the floral dress that Gibson wore to the winners’ ball.
“They were pictured dining together in a magazine snapshot, a white and a black sitting at a table in the clubhouse at De Coubertin Stadium in Paris, laughing as if they were in on a joke that the rest of the world didn’t understand,” Bruce Schoenfield wrote in The Match: Althea Gibson and a Portrait of a Friendship (2005).
Buxton suffered from a chronic wrist condition that forced her to cut short her career in 1957 at 22. But her successful pairing with Gibson left Gibson in demand as a doubles partner.
Buxton went on to mentor young players and write about tennis and she became a lifelong friend of Gibson’s. In 1995, when Gibson was living alone in New Jersey, sick and destitute, she telephoned her old friend, whom she called “Angie baby”.
“She said she was calling to say goodbye,” Buxton told Jacobs. “She said she was going to kill herself. I said, ‘Now, wait just a minute.’”
Buxton wrote a letter to Tennis Week magazine describing Gibson’s plight and asked for contributions. Money poured in from around the world. Jacobs said in an email that Buxton’s actions had helped pull Gibson out of her slump, enabled her to buy a silver Cadillac and encouraged her to go on living. She died in 2003 at 76.
In honour of her support, Buxton was inducted into the Black Tennis Hall of Fame in 2015.
Angela Buxton was born on August 16, 1934, in Liverpool. Her father, Harry Buxton, was a jewellery trader in Leeds; after amassing a windfall at gambling, he bought a string of movie theatres. Her mother, Violet (Greenberg) Buxton, was a homemaker.
A spark of joy in this long COVID year as popular club member Jono and his partner Joan welcomed the arrival of their first child, Harvey John (2.95kg), in the early hours of the morning a little over a week ago. Both Harvey and Joan are healthy and resting, and MLTC can’t wait to see its newest honorary member. Congratulations to both parents!
https://www.manlylawn.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/POST-news-e1555388843470.png152200Enfold Demohttps://www.manlylawn.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/manly-lawn-tennis-club-logo.pngEnfold Demo2020-08-25 15:48:402020-08-25 15:48:42And Then There Were Three...
There are only two rounds remaining in Badge before the playoffs! Several Manly teams are safely in the playoffs whilst other teams need to win their last two matches to qualify.
Our Thursday Ladies and Saturday Ladies Division 3 are both in 6 team competitions leaving them with 3 rounds to play. Both need to finish in the top two in their division to play in the finals match. Good luck to both teams.
Badge Results Round 12
Ladies 1 lost 6-2 at home to the top team. Lisa/Nicola played well to win 2 sets.
Ladies 2 had a close loss away at Sydney Uni but remain in 2nd position.
Men’s 1 had a strong 5-3 win away to take 3rd position. Andrew/Cameron won 4 sets.
Men’s 2 had a big win 7-1 to increase their chances of making the 4th position. Geoff Dunstan/Fernando won 4 sets. Marcus Betts teamed up with young Oliver Welch to win 3 sets. A great win.
Men’s 3 defeated Men’s 4 in a 4 sets all thriller on games. The two Steves won 3 sets for Manly 3 and Sean/ Justin won 3 sets for Manly 4. Men’s 3 is still way out in front in first position. Men’s 4 should also make the playoffs.
Men’s 5 played their best match of the season to win 6-2 after many close losses. Captain Scott teamed up with Tom to win 3 sets as did Gavin/Joao.
Men’s 6 lost 6-1 to the top team but still should make the playoffs as they are now 4th.
Men’s 7 had an excellent win against Camperdown at home to recapture first position. They won 5 sets to 1 with two unfinished sets. Roger/Mark won 3 sets and led 5-1 in the final set when time was called. Peter/Stu won 2 sets with one unfinished. With two matches to play this team is guaranteed to finish in first or second position.
Men’s 8 had a bye.
Thursday Ladies had a 4 sets all win on games last week to remain third. They get a chance to close the gap on the second team this Thursday when they play them at home. Come on Manly!