Marie
Wagner

On page 494 of the Chicago Daily News Almanac and Year-Book for 1922, Marie Wagner’s name is listed in tiny type 10 times. Her accomplishments were far from tiny: Miss Marie Wagner was listed as the Indoor Tennis Champion a record six times – 1908, 1909, 1911, 1913, 1914, and 1917. She snared four doubles titles, in 1910, 1913, 1916, and 1917. Her impressive string of victories, all won at Manhattan’s Seventh Regiment Armory, earned her the nickname, “Queen of the Boards.” Her victories in 1908 and 1911 were over Nora Schmitz, 6-3, 6-2 and 6-4, 7-9, 6-4. In 1909 she defeated Elisabeth Moore, 6-0, 12-14, 6-0. Her 1913 and 1914 victories came over Alice Beard, 6-1, 6-1 and 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 and her final title in 1917 over Eleanor Goss, 6-3, 6-1. The U.S. Indoors were a premier event, won five times by the legendary Molla Bjurstedt, who teamed with Wagner to win the 1916 doubles title. Wagner advanced to the 1914 U.S. National Women’s Singles Championship, losing to Mary K. Browne, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1. 

In 1914 she lost to Browne in the U.S. National Women’s Singles Championship, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1.