Stringing Machines

Posted on July 19, 2008 by admin

Tennis Stringing was long done by hand using awls to jam strings into holes and using the plucked pitch of a string to test the tension.

Recently we uncovered a fascinating and very early 1937 stringing machine that shocked us by its quite modern style featuring tension measurement and wind up adjustment. The machine was called the “NO AWL” hence a very clever name. It was installed into a Western Australian retail store called FOYS and was advertised as the “tennis racquet stringing revolutionised”. At this point there is no other reference, no ads, no mention of maker or whether the machine survived past 12 months.

Stringing in the old days was done on a bench by hand as shown here ( Tasmania Library Alexander factory collection)
Then as now, players had there favourite stringers and many experts set up shop separate to the factory environment.

The creation of a stringing machine delivered consistent results.

With little known about the above machine. it wasn’t until the 1950’s that Australian designers and engineers developed some more acceptable and portable methods of stringing.

Again some more research is under way, but we believe that the drop weight stringing system was developed in Australia and if not, then most certainly the first bench top, portable dropweight stringing machine was developed by stringers/coaches the Strachan brothers. Another bench type version was also marketed by a gent named Bricker, but these were largely home made. The Strachan model was called “The Courtmaster” and sold in the thousands.

The first ad comes from a 1954 Davis Cup souvenir noting that the product, called the ACE, was being sold overseas. The ad from the Argus in 1955 and below this a new improved model.

Interestingly, if drop weight stringing was a new development, it didn’t make it into the ad, but consistent tension was a major benefit.

Underneath these photos are some great shots of a very early free standing OLIVER model which were also manufactured in Australia and were sold worldwide.

The set of awls and pliers makes for an attractive display enhancement.

The Courtmaster sold by Strachan Bros. a lightweight unit you could take to tournaments.
It was a drop weight system with clamps.

Master Tennis Racquets

Posted on July 18, 2008 by admin

Master Tennis Racquets was established on the Gold Coast in 1977 by Peter Maidens and Wayne Hawker. Together they sourced and manufactured the entire racquet in a small shed at Southport.

Frank Sedgman endorsed the brand and you will find Tennis Education books at this time in which Frank is pictured using the Master racquets.

The company made a variety of colours and shapes as seen in the photos below.

It was the last locally made brand as by the late 1980’s all the majors had moved production off-shore.

History of the Davis Cup

Posted on July 15, 2008 by rod

The Davis Cup has long been held as one of the finest events a tennis player can be involved with because it is at a level above the individual. It is the pride of the country, the team and the passion for the game. In 1900, when US player Dwight Davis first donated the trophy and gave his name to a tennis challenge between countries, who would have guessed from the handful of participants back then that the Davis Cup would be hotly contested by literally dozens of countries, so many in fact that the competition was forced into zones just like the World Cup soccer event. To be sure, Australia has done well over the years in the Davis Cup and for this initial stage it is only right to begin in 1905 when the very first Australians and New Zealanders were treading a path to Wimbledon and our first challenge for the Davis Cup. The following shot comes from the book by Len Richardson “Anthony Wilding – A Sporting Life’ kindly supplied from a supporter Virginia Crawford in New Zealand.

After the formation of the National Lawn Tennis associations in both countries it was agreed that an Australasian team could compete and with Norman Brookes, Alf Dunlop and Tony Wilding (NZ). They were defeated in the final round by USA who then lost to the British Isles 5-0. For the British Isles this was a golden era for tennis with the domination by the two Doherty brothers, Reg and Laurie. In 1906 the Australasian team lost to the USA 3-2 with the team of Wilding and L.O.S. Poidevin but 1907 would be different. At this time Wilding and Brookes were finding success. 1906 saw Wilding win the second Australian Championship and Brookes actually won the Wimbledon singles in 1907, the first Australian to do so and also the doubles title with Wilding. In the early Davis Cup challenges, the winning team from the previous year only played the final ‘Challenge Round’ match against the best team from all the challenging countries. The British Isles had been dominant since 1903, however in 1907 Australasia defeated the USA 3-2 in the final round and then went on to the Challenge Round to defeat the British Isles 3-2 in two very hard fought matches.

To the victors came glory via public recognition and the opportunity to defend the cup on home soil. In the 1908 Challenge Round, Australasia played the USA in Melbourne at the then named Warehouseman’s grounds (Albert Ground- St Kilda Rd). Once again Brookes and Wilding teamed against American’s B.C. Wright and F.B. Alexander in another close 3-2 affair in front of a 5000 plus gallery.

This is one of the only team shots of the 1911 team which played the USA in New Zealand. Anthony Wilding was busy in Europe and elected not to play. Left to right H.Rice, Rod Heath, Alf Dunlop & Norman Brookes.

This photo appears in the book “Lawn Tennis in Australasia” by Austral (R.Kidston)

The actual Davis Cup which belongs to the Alf Dunlop family.

Here is a shot of the 1914 Davis Cup team, from Len Richardson’s book about Wilding

The complete 1914 Team with Alf Dunlop and Stanley Doust

The 1919 team with fellow Australians. Back R.V.Thomas, Gerald Patterson, Randolph Lycett, Stanley Doust, Norman Brookes and Pat O’Hara Wood Photo courtesy of Australian War Memorial ID D00773

The 1923 Team with J.B.Hawkes, Ian McInnes, J.O. Anderson and R. Schlesinger

The 1934 Davis Cup Team Don Turnbull, Adrian Quist, Jack Crawford, Viv McGrath

The 1938 Team Adrian Quist, Harry Hopman, Len Schwartz and John Bromwich

The 1939 Davis Cup team which won in the USA Adrian Quist, Viv McGrath, Jack Crawford and captain Cliff Sproule

The 1946 Davis Cup team John Bromwich, Geoff Brown, Dinny Pails and Colin Long Photo courtesy of Leski Auctions.

1947 Team , Colin Long, Dinny Pails, JohnBromwich and Geoff Brown

Harry Hopman and Australia were very lucky to bring on the talents of Frank Sedgman and Ken MacGregor in the 1950’s George Worthington, Ken, Frank, Harry, John Bromwich

Good fortune continued through most of the 1950’s and 1960’s

A very nice line up shot of Davis Cup players up to the 1970’s

Tennis Players

Posted on July 14, 2008 by admin

Below are some photos of well known Australian Tennis Players in Alphabetical Order. We will continue to load photos as they become available.Please also follow the links to player profiles. Enjoy!

J.O.Anderson (Right) playing against Tilden – 1920’s

Mal Anderson

Mal Anderson circa 1960’s

Tennis great Nancye Bolton (Wynne) with Mixed Doubles partner Colin Long.
A great combination in the 1940’s with many Australian Mixed Championship titles.

Some great lady players from 1949 Australian Championships
L to R Doris Hart (USA), Nell Hopman, Thelma Long, Joyce Fitch, Nancye Bolton,Marie Toomey

Brookes & Wilding

Anthony Wilding NZ & Norman Brookes won the 1907 Davis Cup and Norman was the first
international player to win Wimbledon. Anthony went onto win it 4 times straight between 1910,1911,
1912,1913 and then lost to Norman in 1914. Anthony was killed in WW1. Norman went onto become
president of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia for many decades. The Australian Open Men’s
Singles Cup is named in his honour.

John Bromwich

John Bromwich late 1930’s and 1940’s Davis Cup and multiple tournament winner with Adrian
Quist in doubles in particular.

Ashley Cooper

Ashley Cooper makes a backhand return to Bob Howe in his semi final.
20th of March 1957

The great Jack Crawford who won Wimbledon in 1933 to again excite a nation.
Plus he won more Australian and State titles than any other man.

Edward Dewhurst played as a young man against Brookes in the late 1890’s.
He went to the USA to study dentistry and while their won many tournaments including the presitigious Intercollegiate Indoor title. An author, he wrote “The Science and Strokes of Lawn Tennis”

Mark Edmondson

Roy Emerson

John Fitzgerald

Victorian Open Kooyong

29th of February 1984

Neale Fraser

Joan Hartigan mid 1930’s 3 time Australian Champion

Ken Rosewall and Lew Hoad were dominant in the 1950’s as talented 18 year olds
NAA1805CU43 National Library

Ken played his best tennis with Frank Sedgman and together they won
the Grand Slam of doubles in 1951 plus others and solid Davis Cup performances.

Wally Masur

Clare Proctor
Mid 1940’s player with Nancye Bolton et al.

Frank Sedgman

Frank Sedgman had this shot from Ken Rosewall “well covered” during their match.

Sedgman will meet McGregor in the final tomorrow.

Dudley Webb was a major player in the pre 1900 era when the major competitions were a few key tournaments and the all important Intercolonial clashes. Dudley started his intercolonial career in Victoria and then moved to play for NSW. While their he won major tournaments.In Victoria Ben Green became the equivalent player and the battles between them were watched by thousands.

NAA1805CU43-17ros…

Wooden Racquet Construction

Posted on July 4, 2008 by admin

The first wooden racquets which formed the Wingfield set were actually a more symmetrical design with concave throats, but as demand for lawn tennis racquets grew rapidly other makers elected to follow the Real tennis lop-sided shape due largely to the existing players of real tennis looking for a similar design for lawn tennis.

To gain some advantage over their competitors construction design, string patterns, handle styles all developed down many paths. Surprisingly, many designs we see today have all been done before. This photo below represents the design of Lawn Tennis racquets from inception in 1874 to 1889. Courtesy of Rolf Jaeger and his friend in the UK who owns these examples, it provides the collector with a much better reference point for the evolution of the design. The lob sided racquet design originally came from the Real Tennis styles, but soon the more vertical design won preference.

From left… a (lightweight) lobbed racket, circa 1876, by Henry Malings. a Sphairistike racket by French and Co., circa 1875. a (larger framed) lobbed racket by Jefferies, circa 1878. and a more modern (in 1889) square headed and laminated racket by F.H.Ayres, circa 1886.
This lovely Jeffries UK model is a trophy racquet featuring a silver collar dating it to October 1879. It also features looped stringing.

Throughout the 1880’s we see that most designs featured the convex throat and although flat top models became the rage up until the mid 1890’s there were a host of inventions surrounding grip types, stringing patterns and we even have the first all metal tension adjustment frame created in 1887. The early wood racquets of the 1870’s were often made of one solid piece of timber bent into shape after being submerged in cold water and softened further with steam or boiled water. The timber could then be bent around a shaping block bringing the two end pieces together which would form part of the handle. The throat piece or wedge were often made of harder woods. Given the stress factors applied by the vertical strings and impact during play, wrappings were used to reinforce the throat and many early racquets also have a brass screw holding the joint in place. By the mid 1890’s the concave throat and oval shape became the market preference and the fancy stringing became more normal with exception of the very popular Slazenger patented double mains stringing on two of the mains only. The amount of innovation is quite staggering and the craftmanship exceptional.

Some additional design techniques used included the thicker bow shapes at the throat like the example below from a Harry C Lee Lightning model. The brass throat reinforcement was used by UK maker Jefferies who originally made the Wingfield Sphairistike racquets and sets. In the mid 1930’s we see the develpment of the famed Hazell Streamline (rhs) and slotted shaft models. Also in the USA in the late 1920’s we saw the Craven invention in two forms relating to tension adjsutment. The most preferred timber used was Ash, however may experiments were tried using a range of timbers. Ash when cut along the grain in the correct direction was an easy timber to bend. You can see the grain direction and width of the grain in the photos above. An Australian racquet maker relayed a story that English farmers used to plant a grove of Ash trees for the grandchildren’s inheritance, however as we moved into modern times the practice waned and literally the industry exhausted the supply of Ash forcing it to find alternate sources like Aluminium and steel.

Arriving in Queensland

Posted on July 4, 2008 by admin

While we have been searching for information on the history of tennis arriving in Australia via some official sporting association whether cricket or croquet, this wonderful story from the 1888 Courier Mail has opened up the simple possibility that a visiting teacher may well have brought the first private tennis set with them for the entertainment of students.

Here we have the first tennis game arriving to Queensland in August 1876, by visiting Brisbane Grammar Schoolmaster, Mr Reginald H.Roe. By comparison, in Tasmania, our earliest reference is January 1876 via a retail store ad, so sometime prior, what happened in Queensland may have equally occurred in Tasmania.

Interestingly from the article it states that by the end of that year, enough players had been assembled to create what may well have been Australia’s first Lawn Tennis Club and they were certainly also very quick to form a tennis association as the number of clubs grew.

We know from subsequent research that Australian Champions Pat and Arthur O’Hara Woods father attended the school when Reginald Roe arrived hence no doubt stimulatíng a tennis family. Equally, the earliest known Australian to win an overseas major tournament was another Brisbane student from 1876 Arthur Carvosso, who years later studying medicine at Edinburgh University won the 1891 Scottish Open Singles event and other tournaments.

The retail sporting goods trade soon flourished and under the racquet retailing section you will see two Queensland tennis advertisements from late 1877.

Over the next decade various clubs were developed and eventually a state Lawn Tennis Association was formed from which Inter-colonial matches began leading to the Australian Championships. Please read below all the amazing history about the first clubs, courts, location, membership numbers etc. Note that the reference to the net being particularly high and the early scoring to 15 points supports the view that this was a very early “Sphairistike” set designed by Major Wingfield.

Many of the articles on our website come from the National Library’s Newspaper Beta Program which allows online keyword searching. This is a fabulous online service which allows this sort of material to be found, without spending hours (more likely years) in the libraries.

Photo of Headmaster Roe courtesy of Brisbane Grammar

Arriving in NSW

Posted on July 4, 2008 by admin

After only a few months of the “invention” of Tennis by Major Wingfield, Australian colonies began to receive news information about another craze from England. This was an era of sporting creation where many games were tried some succeeding and some not. Lawn tennis was a major success.

In NSW, the growth in tennis began due to the organisational skills of the Sydney Lawn Tennis Club who took the reigns in forging the Interstate Colonial matches which officially began in 1885 and the NSW Championships. These matches were played on the No. 1 cricket ground in Sydney until the NSW Tennis Association was formed and the matches moved to the Double Bay purpose built courts in 1911, pre the eventual move to White City.

From a 1941 article by Dr. McElhone on the development of tennis in NSW, he writes that a farmer by the name of Mr Bundock from Wyangarie on the Upper Richmond imported a tennis set from the UK in 1876 and could be considered the father of tennis in the Northern Rivers and possibly all of NSW. The racquets were pear shaped and the white tape lines were stapled to the ground. They certainly sound like the original “Sphairistike” type implements.

Sydney Morning Herald 26th April, 1941

A Welcome to Australian Tennis History

Posted on November 30, 2007 by admin

There have been many books written about the history of tennis with a focus on the UK and the USA. In Australia, unlike other local sports like Football, Rugby and Cricket, Tennis has suffered from a void where much of the history has simply vanished or focused only on the leading players of the time. Australia, does have a significant place in the annals of tennis and it a pleasure to present, in the one location, some interesting historical aspects of the game as it developed here and spawned a sporting industry which catered to the demand.

Various racquet sports have been tried over the centuries and although the modern game has its direct roots back into the Real Tennis, Rackets and Fives era it wasn’t until 1865 when Harry Gem and A.J.Perera played an outdoor grass court game on their home court “Fairlight” and proceeded to set up a club in Leamington Spa in 1874. Theirs was called “Pelota”. In 1874, Major Walter Wingfield launched his game of Lawn Tennis called “Sphairistike” and it achieved rapid buyer acceptance due his clever marketing of boxed sets and rules.

It is highly likely that many racquets were taken out onto lawns to play some form of hit to hit game, but it was the fast public acceptance of Wingfield’s boxed game that tips favour his way as the inventor of the sport which has blossomed into the lawn tennis we enjoy today.

Below is a very rare picture from 1837, which shows an illustration of an outdoor game using the descriptive name “LONG or OPEN TENNIS”. Not only do you witness a doubles style event, but within the text is reference to scoring in 15/30/45, advantage & deuce, rough or smooth to determine serving and even mentions volleying.

Thanks to Sebastiaan Van Hoorn for the photo and information from the book titled “Games and Sports” by Donald Walker, Published by Thomas Hurst, St Pauls Church Yard 1837.

The Wingfield game to be marketed was also enhanced by a couple of other technological developments. First, the rubber ball was invented and then some years later cloth covered balls were developed. Second, lawn mowers now enabled the grass courts to be prepared with less effort.

Tennis created a social revolution appealing at first to women but then men as well. Courts were prepared for home entertainment, cities converted public gardens into tennis courts, and courts were constructed within cricket clubs, croquet clubs and within the grounds of churches. Wooden boxed sets of equipment were loaded on ships and transported toall corners of the world, including Australia, at a truly rapid pace. Tennis here spread quickly also, from homes to clubs, to far off country towns and although “Lawn tennis” was the name, Australian courts made from asphalt, sand, clay or plain dirt appeared everywhere.

A myriad of sporting goods manufacturers already producing cricket, royal tennis (UK) and in the USA baseball equipment, began designing and experimenting with new racquet designs, stringing techniques and tennis balls. Tennis fashion for the ladies and men was dashing and many clubs and local club competitions evolved. Tournaments like Wimbledon were created, The Davis Cup began in 1900, champions were held in high esteem and spectators were keen to see the best players in action.

The evolution of tennis, the playing techniques, the equipment, the stories and the memorabilia surrounding the game is remarkable. In Australia, tennis competitions evolved from club versus club to Intercolonial matches, to state championships and eventually the Australian Championships. While much of the equipment was imported at first, the Australian Tennis racquet and ball industry developed with many brands and models that no longer exist today. Occasionally you will find an item in a cupboard and wonder where this came from and who made it.

On this site you will learn about how tennis came to Australia, which companies made tennis equipment, how Australian players forged their reputations both here and abroad and be amazed at the memorabilia, such as vintage tennis racquets (or rackets) that collectors around the world simply adore.

The site will continue to evolve over time and we trust you will enjoy learning about new aspects of Australian tennis you didn’t know about before and encourage family members of former players and those still with us today to make contact and submit some photos or information that will help add some new pieces into this fascinating Australian story.

For inspiration, we thank existing collectors and publishers Jeanne Cherry (Tennis Antiques & Collectibles), Siegfried Kuebler (A Book of Tennis Racquets), our tennis researcher Clive Oliver, National and State libraries and individual contributors which have included clubs, players (relatives) and relatives of families involved in the local tennis industry. A special note of thanks also to USA collector Rolf Jaeger for supplying photos of some of his rare items in his second collection. His first collection was sold to Tennis Australia and is now in storage awaiting the construction of a permanent tennis museum at Melbourne Park.

Punch Magazine ( black & white) Oct.10th 1874) but these hand coloured finishes of the original prints are very attractive.