Anthony Wilding

Anthony Wilding medal table
tennis
United Kingdom
Olympic Summer Games
bronze	1912 Stockholm	Single (hall)

Anthony Frederick "Tony" Wilding (born October 31, 1883 in Christchurch , New Zealand ; † May 9, 1915 in Neuve-Chapelle , Pas-de-Calais , France ) was a New Zealand tennis player . He won the Wimbledon Championships and the Championships of Australia and New Zealand several times between 1906 and 1914 . He was the first to win two different ones of the four major tournaments that are now called Grand Slam tournaments.

Life

Childhood and Adolescence in New Zealand

Wilding, aged 4

Wilding was born in Opawa (now Christchurch ) in 1883, the second son of lawyer Frederick Wilding and his wife Julia Anthony . His parents had emigrated to New Zealand from Wales four years earlier . Frederick Wilding was a versatile athlete, including a four-time New Zealand tennis champion ; from him Anthony inherited his enthusiasm for the sport. At the age of 12, he became the captain of his school's soccer team. After finishing school he attended Canterbury College for half a year in 1901 to improve his knowledge of Latin and mathematics. He then went to England in 1902 to study law at Cambridge University . During the six-week voyage on board the Delphic , he survived a severe storm on Cape Horn .

Studied in England

Before beginning his studies in Cambridge, he attended a crammer ( cramming school ) in Hunstanton , where he won his first tennis tournament in the Freshmen. There he met Francis Gordon Lowe .

Wilding, as captain of the Cambridge University tennis team, 1905

After Wilding had concentrated on cricket in the summer semester at Cambridge , he then turned primarily to tennis. His playing and doubles partner on the Cambridge tennis team was Kenneth Powell . Wilding, captain of the team in 1905, also influenced the organization of the tournaments, making tennis at the university more attractive. He advertised the prestigious tournament between the Cambridge and Oxford University teams , and invited foreign clubs such as the Paris Racing Club . He trained hard himself and improved his stamina through long weekend runs.

In the summer Wilding took part in tennis tournaments and won, among other things, the Scottish championships in Moffat . In 1903 he attended the Wimbledon Championships for the first time as a spectator and followed a match by Harold Mahony . From the following year he took part in the tournament himself, but was eliminated the first time in the second round against Mahony. In 1905 he played in the Davis Cup , in which the Australasian team was eliminated by the USA.

In May 1905 he completed his studies with a Bachelor of Arts and initially returned to his parents in New Zealand. There he won the Australasia Championships in 1906 , which were held in Christchurch that year.

Tennis career from 1906

According to his parents' wishes, Wilding should take over his father's law firm ( Messrs. Wilding & Acland ). Before that, however, he had to obtain the license to practice law, which was connected with further exams. Wilding agreed with his parents to first obtain approval in England and then to seek approval in New Zealand; A career as a politician was also under discussion. So after a short stay he went back to England, where he arrived in the spring of 1906.

From this time on Wilding toured across the entire European continent and played at tournaments in cities such as Barcelona , Monte Carlo , Cannes , Homburg vor der Höhe , Vienna and Budapest . While he was initially still traveling by train, he soon made trips with his own motorcycle, for which he developed a great passion. In the European winter he returned to New Zealand and made stops on the trip in Johannesburg, South Africa, or in Melbourne to play tournaments there. He was one of the first players to play tennis tournaments worldwide. Only in 1909 did he take a break from the tennis circus and prepare in New Zealand for the exams for the license to practice law there.

Wilding, versus Beals Wright , Wimbledon Championships 1910

After Wilding won the doubles competition at Wimbledon in 1908 , he won the singles there for the first time in 1910. In the Challenge Round he beat defending champion Arthur Gore . He was able to defend the title in the following years until 1913. In 1913, the final against the American Maurice McLoughlin drew more than 7,000 spectators to the grounds of the Wimbledon Championships. His physical as well as psychological stability was named as the basis of his success. At the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912, he won the bronze medal in the indoor competition.

In 1914, however, he surprisingly lost the Challenge Round at Wimbledon against the Australian challenger Norman Brookes . The reasons given were that Wilding no longer fully concentrated on tennis and underestimated his opponent, whom he had easily defeated on two occasions in the spring.

With the team from Australia and New Zealand Wilding was able to win the Davis Cup from 1907 to 1909 . After that, due to business obligations, he was only able to take part in the " International Lawn Tennis Challenge " again in 1914 . The teams from Australasia and Germany met there in late July 1914, shortly before the outbreak of World War I , in Pittsburgh, USA. After the two German players Otto Froitzheim and Oscar Kreuzer had agreed with the German consul, the game could take place and Australasia won 5-0. The two German participants were caught by an English warship on their voyage back to Germany in August 1914 and imprisoned in England. In the final, Brookes and Wilding defeated the USA team 3-2 in New York . Wilding holds two important all-time records in tennis, for example, he won 23 titles in one season in 1906 and, alongside Rod Laver, holds the record for most outdoor titles (114). In addition to Tilden, he won 19 tournaments in a row, other bests are his 22 clay court titles in a row and 120 wins in a row on clay. In his career he won 91.8% of his games (636: 57), in addition Wilding won 96% of his games on clay and 92.5% on outdoor courts, which are each the highest win rates in tennis history.

As a businessman

Wilding, with CT Craig

After his victory at the Wimbledon Championships in 1911 , Wilding took a job at Henderson, Craig & Co., which traded in pulp as the basis for paper manufacture. Wilding wanted to make sure he didn't have to return to New Zealand to work as a lawyer. It also allowed him to amass a fortune that would enable him to get married. The owner, CT Craig, was the father of a fellow Wilding student, Archibald Craig. In the following years he reduced his commitment to tennis, but continued to take part in tournaments to a lesser extent. He made frequent business trips to Scandinavia for the company . After the Wimbledon Championships in 1912 , he wanted to retire from the tennis circuit entirely, but rejected this idea a little later.

Wilding, who was never enthusiastic about a desk job, left the company in September 1913 in a dispute with CT Craig; Through Reader Harris, a member of the London Queen's Club , he got a job at the Victor Tires Company .

Other interests

With his motorcycle, England, 1908

Wilding was a passionate motorcyclist. In 1908 he crossed the British Isles and drove from Land's End in Wales to John o 'Groats in Scotland . During his stay in New Zealand in 1909, he opened a motorcycle workshop and made long tours around the island. In 1910 he drove almost 500 km from Evian to Paris in one day , and from London to Lake Geneva and back in autumn. In the winter of 1910/11 he took a trip from London to Istanbul with his friend, the Australian tennis player Eric Olbasditon Pockley in the pillion . However, the two had to give up after 3,200 km in Niš, Serbia , after the motorcycle was damaged many times and the road conditions had also deteriorated significantly.

On its first flight, 1910

Wilding made his first flight in 1910 while staying in Reims, France . He had previously met the owner of the aircraft manufacturer Société Antoinette , who invited him on a sightseeing flight with a flight instructor.

Wilding was also good friends with Arthur Balfour , a British politician and Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905, with whom he also competed in doubles in tournaments (e.g. in Nice 1914).

First world war and death

After the outbreak of World War I, Wilding volunteered. Because of his experience with cars and motorcycles, he was deployed in a motorized reconnaissance unit shortly after arriving in northern France in October 1914 . A little later, Wilding was transferred to a newly formed naval aviation unit ; he rarely flew, however, but drove an armored car.

Inside the Rolls-Royce armored car, Dunkirk , April 1915

In February 1915 the flying unit, without the vehicles, was transferred to the Dardanelles in the course of the Battle of Gallipoli . Wilding himself spent a week's leave from the front in London and on his return to France was given command of a motorized unit with three Rolls-Royce armored cars and three howitzers . Around April 26, 1915, his unit went to Ypres together with soldiers from the British Indian Army , where a few days earlier the German army had launched a major offensive ( Second Battle of Flanders ). Wilding's unit initially remained stationed about four kilometers from the village. On May 2nd he was promoted to captain . On May 9, at 4:45 p.m., the dugout Wilding was staying in was hit by an artillery shell and Wilding was killed.

Wilding was first buried near Neuve-Chapelle; after the war, his grave was reburied in a military cemetery near Richebourg-l'Avoué .

In 1976 he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame .

Title (selection)

singles

No.	year	competition	Final opponent	Result
1.	1906	Championships of Australia and New Zealand	Francis Fisher	6-0, 6-4, 6-4
2.	1909	Championships of Australia and New Zealand	Ernest Parker	6: 1, 7: 5, 6: 2
3.	1910	Wimbledon Championships	Arthur Gore	6: 4, 7: 5, 4: 6, 6: 2
4th	1911	Wimbledon Championships	Herbert Roper Barrett	6: 4, 4: 6, 2: 6, 6: 2 r
5.	1912	Wimbledon Championships	Arthur Gore	6: 4, 6: 4, 4: 6, 6: 4
6th	1913	World Hard Court Championships	André Gobert	6: 3, 6: 3, 1: 6, 6: 4
7th	1913	Wimbledon Championships	Maurice McLoughlin	8: 6, 6: 3, 10: 8
8th.	1913	World Covered Court Championships	Maurice Germot	5: 7, 6: 2, 6: 3, 6: 1
9.	1914	World Hard Court Championships	Ludwig von Salm	6: 0, 6.2, 6: 4

Double

No.	year	competition	partner	Final opponent	Result
1.	1906	Championships of Australia and New Zealand	Rodney Heath	Harry Parker Charles Cecil Cox	6: 2, 6: 4, 6: 2
2.	1907	Wimbledon Championships	Norman Brookes	Beals Wright Karl Behr	6: 4, 6: 4, 6: 2
3.	1908	Wimbledon Championships	Josiah Ritchie	Arthur Gore Herbert Roper Barrett	6: 1, 6: 2, 1: 6, 1: 6, 9: 7
4th	1910	Wimbledon Championships	Josiah Ritchie	Arthur Gore Herbert Roper Barrett	6: 1, 6: 1, 6: 2
5.	1914	Wimbledon Championships	Norman Brookes	Herbert Roper Barrett Charles Percy Dixon	6: 1, 6: 1, 5: 7, 8: 6

Works

• On the court and off. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York 1912. (online)

swell

• AW Myers: Captain Anthony Wilding. Hodder and Stoughton, London 1916. (online)
• B. Collins: History of Tennis. 2nd Edition. New Chapter Press, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-942257-70-0 , pp. 660 f.

Web links

Commons : Anthony Wilding  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• ATP profile of Anthony Wilding (English)
• ITF Profile of Anthony Wilding (English)
• Anthony Wilding in the "International Tennis Hall of Fame" (English; with picture)
• Anthony Wilding in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Anthony Frederick (Tony) Wilding. tennisarchives.com, accessed on January 4, 2016 (English). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ AW Myers: Captain Anthony Wilding. 1916, p. 7 ff.
2. ↑ Australia and New Zealand competed with a common team
3. ↑ AW Myers: Captain Anthony Wilding. 1916, p. 148 f.
4. ↑ AW Myers: Captain Anthony Wilding. 1916, p. 168 f.
5. ↑ AW Myers: Captain Anthony Wilding. 1916, p. 190 ff.
6. ↑ Sporting Heroes: Anthony Wilding - Wimbledon champ died on Western Front , independent.co.uk, January 24, 2014
7. ↑ AW Myers: Captain Anthony Wilding. 1916, p. 200.
8. ↑ AW Myers: Captain Anthony Wilding. 1916, p. 223 ff.
9. ↑ AW Myers: Captain Anthony Wilding. 1916, p. 199 f.
10. ↑ AW Myers: Captain Anthony Wilding. 1916, p. 253 ff.
11. ↑ AW Myers: Captain Anthony Wilding. 1916, p. 233 ff.
12. ↑ AW Myers: Captain Anthony Wilding. 1916, p. 261.
13. ↑ AW Myers: Captain Anthony Wilding. 1916, p. 279.