Paddle Benefits Wimbledon

The United States was not yet at war, but for months waves of German bombers had pounded England almost daily, causing terror and destruction in towns and cities. Among those hardest hit was the world’s tennis Mecca, Wimbledon, whose citizens issued a plea for help from America’s tennis players.

The Fox Meadow Tournament Committee responded promptly:
“In response to an appeal on behalf of the heavily bombed citizens of Wimbledon, England, we are having a Wimbledon Paddle Tennis Tournament . . . a scrambled mixed doubles event with Tea and Crumpets afterward. The entry fee is $1.00.”

The 1941 benefit was typically Fox Meadow: well bred, in the precise spirit of the times, intergenerational, and centered on platform tennis. The Wimbledon tournament drew ninety-five players, many of them young people home from prep schools or colleges for Easter. Oz Moore handled the complicated seeding and drawing necessary for a successful Scramble, and many of his pairings matched a vacationing junior high or prep school student with a top-ranked national player.

National women’s champion Madge Beck drew thirteen-year old Billy Riegel, and they made it to the semifinals. The final round, however, went to Maizie Moore and William Spindler, who defeated Mrs. John Fowler and Charlie O’Hearn, 6 4, 4-6, 9-7. Said Club President Keith Eaton of the event, “The Wimbledon Benefit showed us that paddle tennis is not only a fast and exciting sport for play by experts, but it is a grand family game, and it also proved to the satisfaction of everybody that the Fox Meadow Club will not lack championship material for future national tournaments.”

Source: Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years, 1983