Hazel Wightman

American tennis player

• Born: December 20, 1886
• Birthplace: Healdsburg, California
• Died: December 5, 1974
• Place of death: Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

Labeled the Queen Mother of American tennis, Wightman was a four-time national singles champion of the United States Lawn Tennis Association who paved the way for the acceptance of women’s tennis as a reputable sport in the United States.

Early Life

Hazel Wightman (WIT-man) was born Hazel Virginia Hotchkiss in the Northern California town of Healdsburg. On her mother’s side, she was the descendent of Virginia expatriates who had moved west following the Civil War. Her father’s parents had moved from Kentucky and settled in California shortly after it was admitted to the Union in 1850.

Wightman’s father, William Joseph Hotchkiss, a respected and successful Sonoma Valley rancher and owner of a cannery, encouraged her to play aggressive sports (perhaps as an antidote for her poor health as a child) with her three older brothers and her younger brother. Although frail and petite, Wightman played baseball and football with her four brothers and more than held her own. She would later recall that her mother, Emma Groves Hotchkiss, worried that Wightman might become too much of a tomboy and admonished her never to forget to act like a lady. She was encouraged by her mother to give up the rough sports she played with her four brothers and concentrate instead on playing tennis.

Shortly after her family moved to Berkeley, California, in 1900 when she was fourteen, Wightman began playing tennis. Her style of play was established early. Most of her practice was on the makeshift gravel court at her home, since girls were not permitted on the single asphalt court at Berkeley after eight in the morning. Because of the challenges of playing on a gravel surface, she developed a game that depended on hitting the ball before it had an opportunity to bounce, and she soon became accomplished at this technique of volleying.

Life’s Work

After six months of intensive preparation, Wightman entered her first tournament. She and her partner, Mary Radcliffe, won the women’s doubles championship in the Bay Counties tournament held in San Francisco. In the next seven years she not only helped change the prevailing belief that women should play a baseline rather than a volleying game but also helped to popularize changes in tennis attire by wearing loose-fitting dresses when she played. She even popularized sleeveless dresses to provide greater freedom of movement for the arms. Combining tennis and academics while she attended the University of California, Berkeley, Wightman won the United States singles, doubles, and mixed doubles championships three consecutive years (1909-1911), an accomplishment equaled only by two other women (Alice Marble, 1938-1940; Margaret Osborne du Pont, 1948-1950). Her performance in the 1911 championships is even more remarkable because she won the singles, doubles, and mixed doubles championships on the same day. Her rivalry with May Sutton in the tournaments in California at this time was perhaps the first publicly recognized rivalry for women in tennis at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although she brought a strong spirit of competition to this intense rivalry, Wightman quickly developed a reputation for authentic sportsmanship and was mentioned by subsequent women tennis players as a model they used in their careers.

Following her graduation from college in 1911, Wightman married George W. Wightman, a former Harvard tennis player and member of a prominent Boston family. The births of three children between 1912 and 1919 did not stop Hazel’s activities as a competitive player on the national level. She resumed playing competitively after the birth of her first child, George, Jr., and added another United States Doubles Championship to her list of accomplishments in 1915. She also won the United States mixed doubles titles in 1918 and 1920, and in 1919, at the age of thirty-three, Wightman captured her fourth and final U.S. National Championship singles title. She went on to win two more United States Doubles Championships in the 1920’s, the last one coming in 1928 when at the remarkable age of forty-two she paired with twenty-three-year-old Helen Wills. Meanwhile, although she had become the mother of five children, Wightman captained the women’s team in the 1924 Olympics, winning gold medals in the doubles and mixed doubles competition. She also demonstrated her skills in other racquet sports, winning the National Squash Singles and finishing as a finalist in the National Badminton Mixed Doubles championships in 1927.

Wightman’s contributions to tennis were not restricted, however, to her performances as an individual player. In 1919, she donated a silver vase to the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA), attempting to create an international cup for women comparable to the international cup for men inaugurated by Dwight F. Davis in 1900. She met implacable resistance to her proposal to the International Lawn Tennis Federation and temporarily was forced to withdraw her offer. The creation of the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York, however, provided an opportunity for a renewal of her dreams, and the first Wightman Cup match was played at that facility in 1923. The U.S. team, captained by Wightman herself, defeated the British team 7-0. The following year, the Wightman Cup was played at the newly created Center Court at Wimbledon in England, and the British team won 6-1. The evenness of the competition in the next six years assured the success of the Wightman Cup. Even though the American teams dominated the British teams between 1931 and 1958, the Wightman Cup became a respected part of tennis competition and helped to improve the image of women’s tennis in the world. The decision to move the competition indoors in 1974 coincided with the tennis boom of that decade and increased the appeal of the Wightman Cup competition; it was not uncommon for the matches to draw between ten and fifteen thousand spectators, figures that were comparable to Davis Cup matches.

Meanwhile, Wightman continued to remain involved with the promotion and development of tennis in the United States. She played on five Wightman Cup teams between 1923 and 1931, and she captained thirteen Wightman Cup teams in all, making her final appearance as captain in 1948. She continued to compete in national tournaments, playing in her last national championship when she was seventy-three years old.

Had these been her only accomplishments in tennis, Wightman might still have earned her title as the Queen Mother of Tennis, but she also contributed to tennis in several other ways. After her divorce from George Wightman in 1940, she graciously opened her home near the Longwood Cricket Club in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, as a home away from home for aspiring women players who went east to prepare for the summer tournaments that culminated in the United States Nationals at Forest Hills. Wightman developed a reputation for a quick recognition of talent, and she aided several prominent tennis players, including Sarah Palfrey, Helen Wills, and Helen Jacobs. She became a respected tennis teacher and promoter, giving free clinics at the Longwood Cricket Club, running tournaments for players of all skill levels, and writing a manual that became a guide for many players.

As a tennis instructor, Wightman had a particular fondness for ordinary players. The awkward and shy players, she claimed, gained “confidence and poise” by being able to do “something well that other people admire.” Her approach to the teaching of tennis emphasized the mental as well as the physical and technical sides of the game. She encouraged her students to “cultivate a buoyant spirit” as well as develop good footwork. She emphasized the fact that tennis was a sport that helped in the development of personal as well as physical grace. She always noted that she believed that ordinary players could gain as much from perfecting their skills as could the more accomplished players. Moreover, she argued long before the tennis boom of the 1970’s that tennis should be a sport open to the entire public, not simply the wealthy members of elite private clubs. Better Tennis (1933), an instruction book that Wightman composed during the hours she waited in the car to pick up her children from school, became a standard teaching book during the 1930’s.

Wightman’s contributions to tennis were recognized in 1957, when she was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island. She also was recognized on the fiftieth anniversary of the Wightman Cup in 1973, when Queen Elizabeth II made Wightman an honorary Commander of the British Empire. Wightman died in 1974 at the age of eighty-seven in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

Significance

Wightman’s life mirrors in several ways the development of women’s tennis in the United States. Her performance on the court as a national champion came at a time when few sports other than tennis were open to women. She excelled during an era in which women’s tennis was dominated primarily by women whose wealth permitted them to have the travel and leisure time necessary for capturing championships. She changed the style of play for women by emphasizing a more aggressive game that combined volleying with the traditional ground-stroke elements, and she was an active participant in the dress reform movement in women’s tennis. She introduced the Wightman Cup during the Golden Age of Sports in the 1920’s, supported and encouraged the development of international competition in tennis for women, advocated the acceptance of tennis as an Olympic sport, and helped nurse women’s tennis through the Depression and World War II years. Although she at first was opposed to the professionalization of women’s tennis, Wightman became one of its strongest supporters. It was therefore appropriate that she was chosen to present the first monetary award for women that was equal to the men’s prize an award Wightman presented to Margaret Court at the United States Tennis Association championship in 1973.

Bibliography

Carter, Tom. First Lady of Tennis: Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman. Berkeley, Calif.: Creative Arts, 2000. Short biography chronicling Wightman’s career, the honors she received, contributions to tennis, and her lifelong dedication to teaching others how to play the game.

Jacobs, Helen Hull. Gallery of Champions. Reprint. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1979. Originally published in 1949, this collection of essays about many of the champion women’s tennis players was written by Jacobs, a leading player who competed directly against many of the women she profiled. Includes a discussion of Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman’s career during the years between World War I and World War II.

Klaw, Barbara. “Queen Mother of Tennis: An Interview with Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman.” American Heritage 26 (August, 1975): 16-24, 82-86. Conducted only a few weeks before her death, Klaw’s interview with Hazel Wightman reveals an individual who was capable of change but who remained true to the values that she had learned in the first quarter of the twentieth century.

Wightman, Hazel Hotchkiss. Better Tennis. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1933. Written in longhand while she juggled her roles as social director and chauffeur for her school-age children, Wightman used this popular manual of the 1930’s to promote the mental as well as the technical aspects of the game.

Wind, Herbert W. “From Wimbledon to Forest Hills: A Summer to Remember.” The New Yorker 51 (October 13, 1975): 116-120. Although quite brief, this article was used by Wind as a means to reminisce about women’s tennis in general and Wightman in particular.

Woolum, Janet. Outstanding Women Athletes: Who They Are and How They Influenced American Sports. Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1992. A thoroughly researched collection of sports biographies that includes a sketch on Wightman. Provides a thorough assessment of Wightman’s career as a player and explains her role in popularizing a more aggressive style of play for women, in advocating dress reform for women in the sport, and in promoting greater opportunities and equality for women in the world of tennis.