Molla Mallory

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Molla Mallory (1915)

Anna Margarethe "Molla" Bjurstedt Mallory (born March 6, 1884 in Oslo , † November 21, 1959 in Stockholm , Sweden ) was a Norwegian - American tennis player .

Life

Starts in Norway and the United States

Molla Bjurstedt was born in Oslo in 1884 as the daughter of a Norwegian officer. In 1915 she decided to go to the USA because of better professional prospects , where she was offered a job as a masseuse. Bjurstedt was at that time already eight times national Norwegian tennis champion and had won a bronze medal in the women's singles at the Olympic Games in 1912 . Nevertheless, she was almost unknown in the USA as a tennis player.

In the same year she registered at the American Indoor Championships and defeated the defending champion Marie Wagner 6: 4 and 6: 4. This was the first of a total of five titles at the US Indoor Championships. In the same year Bjurstedt also won in Cincinnati. In her strokes she did not have the range and variety of many other successful tennis players; but she made up for this small flaw thanks to an extremely hard hit forehand, immense fighting spirit and outstanding athleticism. Bjurstedt was a classic baseline player. The characteristic of her game was to hit the ball very early in the ascent and then chase it from corner to corner, thus keeping the opponent moving. Their briefly played service returns were also the ideal strategic response to attacking players who storm the net.

Record victories at the American Championships

Mallory won the American tennis championships (now the US Open ) from 1915 to 1918, 1920 to 1922 and 1926 - a total of eight times and a record that still stands. Her record series of seven US Open triumphs with eight finals (only defeat in 1919), which began in 1915, did not end until 1923. She was defeated by the young Helen Wills Moody with 2: 6 and 1: 6. But one year later, at the age of 42, she had one last great success: Mallory, who was 4-0 down in the final and later had to fend off a match point against the serving Elizabeth Ryan, was able to turn the game around. A year later, Mallory reached the quarter-finals at the age of 43 - the worst result Mallory had in Forest Hills in all these years . Her final farewell to the US Open was in the semifinals in 1929. She was 45 years old at the time. Her greatest triumph is her victory in 1921, in which she defeated French tennis legend Suzanne Lenglen in the second round in her only appearance in America by breaking off. With Bill Tilden she won the American Championships in 1922 in mixed.

Summit: Mallory beats Lenglen

Her most notable success and greatest fame, however, Mallory achieved in 1921 in a second round game of the American Championships, which ended in a demolition victory for the Norwegian-born American. Mallory's opponent was Suzanne Lenglen . The Frenchwoman, one of the most famous players of her time, is considered the first female world star in the sport. In this respect, the first meeting between the two best players from North America and Europe received a very special, eagerly anticipated explosiveness.

Mallory won the first set 6-2 and played - as the American press reports of the time say -, especially on her strong forehand side with a punch and precision that obviously surprised her opponent. Lenglen, who had to walk a lot to get Mallory's punches at all, suffered from increasing coughing fits and crying fits over the course of the game and finally declared her job after the first two points of the second set. This decision was received very negatively by the audience. Lenglen's lifelong asthmatic problems are documented: a doctor, according to her Italian biographer Gianni Clerici, diagnosed whooping cough after the game. The real reason for the trip was Lenglen's intention to raise money for war-torn France through exhibition fights.

Molla Mallory Bjurstedt's demolition victory over Suzanne Lenglen was to be the only defeat for the French woman between the end of the war in 1919 and her transition to the professionals in 1927. This fact and the character of a summit meeting between the old and the new world made the game and its unexpected result a much discussed and controversial talk of the day on both sides of the Atlantic.

A year later Mallory met Lenglen again at Wimbledon , but could not repeat the sensation: she lost the game in just 26 minutes 6-2 and 6-0. A few weeks later, in the final of the tournament in Cannes, Mallory could not win a single game in another duel and lost 6-0 and 6-0. It was also the last duel between Mallory and Lenglen.

After the career

In 1958 Mallory was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame . She died on November 21, 1959 at the age of 75.

swell

  • Gianni Clerici: Suzanne Lenglen - La Diva du Tennis (1984)

Web links

Commons : Molla Mallory  - collection of images, videos and audio files