For inexplicable reasons, the list of winners in women’s tournaments begins twenty-nine years after the list of those in men’s matches. There seems to have been no official record of a Club championship in women’s tennis until after World War II.

Between 1923 and 1931 The Scarsdale Inquirer mentions four women who won tournaments: Muriel Bray (1923), Mrs. Stuart Cowan (1926), Mrs. J.T. Hall (1929), and Caroline Atkinson (1931). They may have been winners in the traditional Women’s Invitational, a week-long event held annually for at least two decades.

Astonishing as it may seem, the first documented Women’s Singles and Doubles Club championships were not played until 1948, or sixty years into the Club’s history

The young tennis stars of Fox Meadow’s post-war years included three teenage girls, Anne Wofford and the Barnes sisters, Lucie Bel and Sally.

Anne Wofford placed first in the Eastern Lawn Tennis Association (ELTA) Junior Girls’ Singles rankings in 1947 and won the Anita Lucas Trophy.

The next year belonged to the Barnes girls, who won the Eastern Open Doubles championship, the Ardsley Invitational Junior Doubles, and the New York State Doubles. Sally also took the Ardsley Singles championship, winning the Anita Lucas Trophy. To cap her 1948 triumphs, Sally Barnes recovered from a disastrous first set to win the New York State Junior Girls’ tournament 1-6, 6-3, 6-3. That year she ranked second in the 15-18 division of ELTA, and sister Lucie Bel ranked fourth.

When the FMTC Women’s Singles championships were instituted in 1948, it was the younger generation who dominated. For four years in a row, finals play shifted between Lucie Bel Barnes, Madeleine Price, Susan Beck (Note 1), and Ruth Blanchard Walker.

The first year she won the Club’s Women’s Singles title, Lucie Bel Barnes was still technically a Junior, and in fact reached the finals of the ELTA Junior Girls’ Singles. She lost in straight sets but joined the victor, Jane Breed, to collect the Doubles crown in a 6-1, 6-1 rout. At the same tournament a young Susan Beck and her partner won the Under-15 Doubles title 6-2, 6-3.

And the Barnes girls were still in fine tennis form in 1982 when they won the Women’s Over 50 National Grass Court Tournament at Forest Hills.

Sally Barnes Bondurant became a dominant women’s paddle play at FMTC in the late 1960s and passed on her paddle genes to son Scott. Lucie Bel Barnes McAvoy also became a fine paddle player and received the APTA Honor Award in 1992 for her work in developing paddle in the Philadelphia area. Her son, Tim, was inducted into the APTA Hall of Fame in 2012.

The cousins, Tim and Scott, captured the Men’s 50+ Nationals in 2009 and 2010

Note 1: Susan Beck Wasch had a fine paddle career, winning a number of National titles. She received the APTA Honor Award in 1976 along with another fine FMTC tennis and paddle player, John Moses.

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

In 1948, when there were seven courts, Killy Kilmarx prepared a long-range plan for moving and refurbishing these courts and adding two others.

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