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May Sutton
May Godfrey Sutton, born September 25, 1886 in Plymouth,
England – died October 4, 1975, was a tennis champion and the first
American to win the singles title at the Wimbledon Championships.
At the age of six, May Sutton's family moved to a ranch near
Pasadena, California where she and her sisters played tennis on a court built
by her father. As young ladies, she and her sisters, Violet, Florence, and
Ethel, dominated the California tennis circuit. In 1904 at age 18, May Sutton
won the U.S. National singles championship. She also teamed up with Miriam
Hall to win the ladies doubles title and came close to making it a clean
sweep by advancing to the finals in mixed doubles.
In 1905, she became the first American woman to win the Wimbledon
singles title when she beat British star and reigning two-time Wimbledon
champion Dorothea Douglass. And she did it while shocking the very proper
British audience by rolling up her sleeves to bare her elbows and wearing
a skirt that showed her ankles. For the next two years she and Douglass met
in the finals, with Douglass recapturing the title in 1906 and Sutton winning
it back in 1907. After that she did not return to play in England, instead
competing at home in the USA.
In 1912 she married tennis player and 3-time U.S. National
doubles champion, Tom Bundy and semi-retired to raise a family. However,
in 1921 at the age of 35, she made a comeback and became the 4th ranked player
in the USA. In 1925 she was a doubles finalist at the US Open and although
almost forty years of age, her game was strong enough that she was selected
to play for America's Wightman Cup team. In 1928 and 1929 she and her daughter
Dorothy Bundy became the first and only mother/daughter combination to be
seeded at the US Open. Her nephew, John Doeg won the US Open in 1930 and
in 1938 daughter Dorothy won the Australian Open.
In 1956, May Sutton was inducted into the International Tennis
Hall of Fame. She never stopped playing tennis and well into her late eighties
was still playing regularly.
May Sutton passed away in 1975 and was interred in the Woodlawn
Memorial Cemetery in Santa Monica, California.
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