As the world grapples with COVID-19, tennis too has been profoundly affected. Tournaments have been cancelled. Racquets sit in closets. Courts remain empty. Players grow restless, eager to play once again. Of course, all this remains far less significant when compared to the pain many more are going through all over the world. Still, the current crisis offers a chance to recall two other occasions when tennis was interrupted by global events. Here, International Tennis Hall of Fame historian-at-large Joel Drucker tells the tale of tennis during two world wars.
WORLD WAR II
June 24, 1946. Seven years had elapsed since Wimbledon was last played, The Championships on hold amid World War II. The All England Club contributed to the war effort in many ways. A parking lot became a makeshift farm, housing various forms of livestock and also turned into a vegetable garden. Several buildings were employed as offices for Fire Services, the Red Cross, Air Raid Precautions Volunteers, Civil Defence services, and others.
A COLLECTION OF PROGRAMS FROM WIMBLEDON, 1946
After effects of the war remained. On October 11, 1940, 16 bombs fell at the club, one of them flattening a corner of Centre Court. The damage was still visible that summer of ’46. Tennis balls were at a premium. Food remained rationed.
Each of the two singles champions that year arrived in London from very different places. The ladies’ singles winner, Pauline Betz, was an American. Her homeland distanced from much of the war’s front-line horror by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Betz had graduated from Rollins College in 1943 and three times won her national championship during the war years – albeit on two occasions versus draws of a mere 32 competitors.
Betz’s male counterpart, Frenchman Yvon Petra, had seen the war up close. In battle versus Germany in the spring of 1940, Petra had severely injured his left knee, been taken prisoner and hobbled hundreds of miles east to the POW camp he would occupy for two years before he was sent home to France.
Yvon Petra in his military uniform (far right)
World War II represents the longest period that significant portions of the tennis calendar have been interrupted. Starting in 1940, Wimbledon and the French Championships were not played for six years. The Australian Championships ceased from 1941 and did not resume until January ‘46.
1939 Davis Cup
Left to Right: John Bromwich, Harry Hopman, and Adrian Quist of Australia and Walter Pate, Joe Hunt, and Jack Kramer of the United States.
In September 1939, less than a week after the war began, the Australian Davis Cup team of John Bromwich, Adrian Quist and captain Harry Hopman, having just won the championship on American soil at the West Side Tennis Club in New York City, swiftly went home to enlist. Concerned that the trophy itself would be seized on the high seas, the Aussies opted to leave it in America for the duration.
A similar Davis Cup-related rapid exit had taken place 25 years earlier. On August 1, 1914, just as World War I commenced, Australasia (Australia and New Zealand) won a Davis Cup semifinal match over Germany that was played in Pittsburgh. Two players on the German team, Otto Froitzheim and Oscar Kreuzer, were members of Kaiser Wilhelm’s personal staff. Leaving America immediately, the two were summarily held in British prison camps.
As Petra’s journey exemplified, France faced World War II in a profound way. Frenchman Jean Borotra, one of tennis’ legendary “Four Musketeers,” was appointed General Commissioner for Education and Sports, a position he held from August 1940 until April 1942. Later that year, Borotra was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a prison camp in Germany, freed at last in the spring of 1945. Several French-only tennis competitions were staged at Roland Garros from 1941-’43. Most joyously, in September 1944, the month after Paris had been liberated by the Allied forces,
Petra and another of the Musketeers, Henri Cochet, played one another in an exhibition. That match was officiated by two-time French women’s champion, Simonne Mathieu, who throughout the war reached the rank of Captain in the Free French forces.
Tennis players from many other nations also served. German star Gottfried von Cramm was sent to the Eastern Front and would earn an Iron Cross for bravery. A promising young Czech, Jaroslav Drobny, worked in a munitions factory. American tennis players in the military included Jack Kramer, Don Budge, Bobby Riggs, Vic Seixas, Ted Schroeder, Gardnar Mulloy, Art Larsen, Helen Jacobs, and Joe Hunt. Jacobs was a commander in the Navy intelligence division. Tragically, Hunt, winner over Kramer in the ’43 US final, was killed when a fighter plane he was on crashed on a test flight in Florida.
Tennis Heroes Who Left the Courts for the Battlefield
These images are part of the International Tennis Hall of Fame's permanent collection.
WORLD WAR I
While not quite as sweeping or as long, World War I also affected the tennis world. Australian Norman Brookes won Wimbledon in 1914, scant weeks prior to the beginning of the war. Upon completing a pair of Davis Cup matches in the U.S. later that summer, Brookes spent much of the war in Egypt as commissioner of the Australian branch of the British Red Cross. Brookes’ compatriot, Arthur O’Hara Wood, joined the Royal Air Force in 1915 and was killed in a flying accident in October 1918 – just one month prior to the war’s conclusion. The legendary New Zealander, four-time Wimbledon champion Anthony Wilding, was killed in 1915 during a heavy trench bombardment in France.
America joined the war effort in 1917. From July to October that year, top women players Molla Bjurstedt and Mary K. Browne traveled 6,000 miles to conduct fund-raiser exhibitions intended to support the Red Cross. Bill Johnston, the country’s best men’s player, enlisted in the Navy. Dwight Davis, creator of the international men’s team competition that bears his name, would in the ‘20s spend six years in the cabinet of President Calvin Coolidge, including a stint as Secretary of War (now known as the Defense Department). And in 1917, the U.S. Championships was renamed the National Singles Patriotic Tournament.
In the wake of both wars, nations craved entertainment. Tennis flourished, propelled in the Roaring ‘20s and its “Golden Age of Sports” by bigger-than-life stars Suzanne Lenglen of France and American Bill Tilden. Each of these two was a crossover icon, in certain ways ancestors of contemporary global tennis greats Serena Williams and Roger Federer.
Within a decade of the end of World War I, Wimbledon, the US Championships and the French had all relocated to new, larger facilities, ranging from the All England Club’s current location to a bigger stadium inside New York’s West Side Tennis Club, to the building of a new venue in France, named in honor of a heroic aviator who had been killed in battle – Roland Garros (though he was not a tennis player).
WWI recruitment poster (part of the International Tennis Hall of Fame's permanent collection)
Following World War II, tennis took another leap forward. Betz was featured on the cover of Time Magazine soon after her win at Wimbledon. Ditto for Kramer the next year. Soon enough, Kramer was at the helm of the barnstorming tour, laying the groundwork for the coming of Open tennis that would at last happen in 1968.
Another dimension to World War II: 1943 marked the birth of two of the most significant players in tennis history – Arthur Ashe on July 10, Billie Jean King on November 22. Years later, King was asked if being born during wartime had helped shape their respective journeys. “Of course,” she said. “We were made tough during tough times.”
Helen Hull Jacobs' Military Identification Tags
These artifacts are part of the International Tennis Hall of Fame's permanent collection
COVID-19:AN UNPRECEDENTED PANDEMIC
It was a once in a century experience, a virus that triggered a global pandemic. Rumblings of it began at the start of 2020, in Asia. Soon, COVID-19 spread through the world. Rapidly, this deadly virus brought tennis to an unprecedented standstill – triggering the need for the sport adapt and innovate.
On March 8, the BNP Paribas Open, the combined ATP and WTA event played in Indian Wells, California, announced the tournament’s cancellation, less than 24 hours before the scheduled first match.
In domino-like fashion, others followed – Miami, the European clay-court season, Wimbledon, the Olympics. Roland-Garros opted to reschedule itself for late September. All through March, April, May, June and July, no official ATP or WTA events were held.
Confined to their homes, pros sought to maintain fitness, keep safe, and stay connected, often via social media. Several home-based training regimens included a competitive element, “The 100 Volley Challenge” among the more notable. Recreational players had their moments too, such as the time two Italians hit balls from roof to roof – and later received a surprise visit from Roger Federer.
For a time, there was rumblings of developing a combined ATP / WTA Tour. While this is unlikely to be, the unchartered waters of this strange time did foster an unprecedented unity in the sport as the tours and Grand Slams collaborated to keep the sport moving forward.
In the spring, a number of innovative pop-up events blossomed. North America hosted several small tournaments conducted by Universal Tennis Rating. June and July saw Belgrade, Serbia and Zadar, Croatia, host the Adria Tour, an exhibition series led by world number one Novak Djokovic. The Ultimate Tennis Showdown, held in Nice, France, experimented with new approaches to scoring that even included a time clock.
Recreational play increased significantly. Amid social distancing and shuttered fitness centers, tennis proved a viable form of exercise. Facilities saw their lesson books fill up swiftly.
In August, there came a major breakthrough. The popular co-ed competitive league, WorldTeam Tennis, staged its entire three-week season at The Greenbrier, a luxury resort located in West Virginia. A WTA event took place in Lexington. The USTA relocated the Western & Southern Open, a longstanding ATP-WTA event held in Cincinnati, to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City.
By late August, the stage was set for Grand Slam play. Confined to a select few nearby hotels and tested regularly for COVID-19, players went about the business of playing the US Open. No fans were in attendance. At first, this was unsettling. But in time, the players adjusted, bringing ample passion to many a match.
On top of the pandemic’s impact, the US Open also took place in a period of tremendous social unrest in the nation. Many players spoke out on behalf of Black Lives Matter. US Open tournament organizers placed Black Lives Matter signage on front row of Arthur Ashe Stadium.
America’s Grand Slam event closed out with a pair of thrilling singles finals that each went the distance. On the women’s side, Naomi Osaka earned a third career major when she overcame a resurgent Victoria Azarenka. The men’s final was also dramatic, Dominic Thiem earning a breakthrough first Grand Slam title when he narrowly beat Alexander Zverev in a fifth-set tiebreaker.
Just two weeks later, action got underway at Roland-Garros. Autumn conditions in Paris were quite different than the traditional late spring – often chilly, with nightfall coming much sooner. But as in New York, the players rose to the occasion. No two were more dazzling on the dirt than the two singles champions, each of whom made history in distinct ways. Women’s winner Iga Swiatek became the first Polish player to win a singles Grand Slam. Rafael Nadal continued to rewrite the history books with an unsurpassed 13th title run – and 20th singles major overall, Nadal now tied with Federer for the most all-time.
In January 2021, upon arrival in Australia, all of the players commenced a 14-day quarantine period. Once this concluded, full-scale competition resumed, including several pre-Australian Open events and, starting in February, the Australian Open. With the entire nation of Australia having undergone a rigorous lockdown period for most of 2020, the Australian Open organizers opened the gates to fans, permitting a maximum of 30,000 spectators a day. This was half than usual, but surely gratifying for all who attend and take part in the year’s first major.
Grateful for the chance to return to competition, aware that the world continued to grapple with all the challenges of the global pandemic, the tennis community delicately took steps forward, with caution and optimism.
At the International Tennis Hall of Fame we are committed to preserving tennis history, and to that end below is a look at a few of the items we are collecting to document the story of this time for generations to come.
Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Billie Jean King discuss uniting the WTA and ATP under one organization during the Coronavirus Pandemic on Twitter.
Joel Drucker is an historian-at-large for the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Author of such books as “Jimmy Connors Saved My Life,” Drucker also writes extensively for Tennis Channel and many others.
The author wishes to thank the West Side Tennis Club archives for its assistance.
