Robert Lindley Murray: the Reluctant U. S. Tennis Champion : Includes the First Forty Years of American Tennis

by Ohnsorg, Roger W.

• ISBN13: 9781426945144
• ISBN10: 1426945140
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-02-01
• Publisher: Textstream

Summary

Robert Lindley Murray: Niagara Falls's Reluctant US Tennis Championpresents the biography of a Stanford University chemical engineer and middle-distance runner who conquered the world of tennis in the early part of the twentieth century. Sent east by Stanford in 1914, Robert Lindley Murray electrified the Eastern tennis community by beating top intercollegiate players, winning several tournaments, and earning fourth place in the national ranking. After winning the 1916 US Indoor title in February, he cast his lot with Hooker Electrochemical in Niagara Falls, New York, that September.Murray was reluctant to play in the 1917 and 1918 national championships due to wartime contracts, but Hooker's president persuaded him to play those events anyway. He won them both, the latter over Bill Tilden after only eight days' intense practice. This biography sheds light not only on Murray, but also on most of the outstanding male and female tennis players with whom he competed, as well as earlier tennis luminaries of a bygone era, before shorts and skirts replaced flannels and petticoats.

Excerpts

In February 1874, Englishman Walter Clopton Wingfield patented a game he called "Sphairistike or Lawn Tennis." That same year boxed sets of the game arrived at several locations in the United States, the debate for which location was first still continues. Was it at Nahant, Mass., where the older brother of the first American champion, Dick Sears, played; at Staten Island where a young socialite Mary Outerbridge had brought a set back from Bermuda; or at even as remote a site as Indian country in the Arizona territory?The first unofficial U.S. Championships were played on Staten Island in 1880 which highlighted equipment and rules inconsistencies. As a result the United States National Lawn Tennis Association (USNLTA) was founded May 1881 and the first official championships for men began August 31 at Newport, R.I. The women's championships began in 1887 at Philadelphia.The first U.S. intercollegiate tournament was played at a lunatic asylum in 1883. Intercollegiate singles was dominated by Ivy Leaguers from that inaugural championship to 1920 and doubles to 1921, except when a Trinity student, G.M. Brinley, won in 1886. That stranglehold was broken by Stanford's Phil Neer who won the singles in 1921 and paired with teammate Jim Davies to win the doubles in 1922.After Harvard's Dick Sears won the first seven U.S. Championships, his first with a 16-ounce racket, a poor imitation of an overhead serve, and a mild form of volleying, affluent Ivy Leaguers largely dominated the men's game through 1911. The challenge round (for men), which began in 1884 whereby the defending champion sat out to play the all-comers winner, was abolished in 1912. From 1894 to 1901 the women played best of five sets in the final and challenge rounds which was discontinued because Elizabeth Moore played two consecutive five setters on successive days to win the 1901 titleIn 1909 the Golden State floodgates opened for both men and women, the women being initially more successful. Hazel Hotchkiss won three consecutive hat tricks (singles, doubles, and mixed) from 1909-11 while Mary Browne duplicated that feat from 1912-14. There were no rain delays and Mary Browne played and won the 1912 singles, doubles, and mixed all in one afternoon, the mixed with Dick Williams in a steady rain and eventual downpour wearing the heavy period clothes.Plebian San Franciscans Maurice McLoughlin and Melville Long, brought up on the hard fast California asphalt and cement courts, staged a match on center court at Newport in 1909 which opened the eyes of the society onlookers to tennis as a demanding game of endurance, power, and speed. Bill Larned, a Cornell engineer, won his fifth U.S. title that year, his sixth in 1910 over Californian Tom Bundy, and his seventh in 1911 over McLoughlin. Bill Tilden in the 1920s would be the third and last male to win seven U.S. singles. McLoughlin won the 1912 and 1913 U.S. singles while another Golden Gate Park player, Bill Johnston, won in 1915.Except for Bill Larned and Titanic survivor Dick Williams, who each won two titles, and Viking warrior Molla Bjurstedt, who won from 1915-18 and a record eight U.S. singles, Californians dominated the U.S. Championships from 1910-19. California teams won five U.S. men's doubles titles including three all-California finals that decade.This is also a biography of a Stanford University chemical engineer and middle distance runner whose great-great grandmother, Mary Lindley Murray, stalled British General Howe at a tea party long enough for Washington's army to pass by that section of Manhattan, today known as Murray Hill, to Harlem Heights. Sent east by Stanford in 1914 he electrified the Eastern tennis community by beating top intercollegiate players, winning several tournaments, and earning a #4 national ranking. His name was Robert Lindley Murray. After winning the 1916 U.S. Indoor title in February he cast his lot with Hooker Electrochemical in Niagara Falls, N.Y., that September.Reluctant to play in the 1917 and 1918 national championships due to wartime contracts, Murray was persuaded by Hooker's president to play those events. He won them both, the latter over Bill Tilden after only eight days' intense practice. Murray would devote his subsequent energies to Hooker for more than 43 years, becoming president in 1951 and chairman of the board in 1955. In 1958, the year before he retired, Lin Murray was elected to the National Tennis Hall of Fame, then in its fourth year.Today Lindley Murray is virtually unknown in Western New York even among the top tennis players and he has not been recognized by the local sports halls of fame. Hopefully this work will shed light not only on Murray but also on most of the outstanding male and female tennis players with whom he competed and also on earlier tennis luminaries of a bygone era before shorts and skirts replaced flannels and petticoats.