Hazel Virginia WIGHTMAN

A top player in all age groups, renowned coach and administrator, and donor of the Wightman Cup, Hazel Wightman was one of the legendary figures of lawn tennis. In 1912, Hazel Hotchkiss married George Wightman, who later became the president of the USLTA, and although she gave birth to three children during the following seven years, she still won a total of 16 U.S. championships between 1909 and 1928. She would win 50 national titles in all. She donated the Wightman Cup as the trophy for an international team match between the best female amateurs of Britain and the U.S., and the first competition for the cup was held in 1923. Hazel not only was the donor of the cup that year, but she played on the U.S. team, a feat she repeated in 1924, 1927, 1929, and 1931. Though in recent years the competition has been rather one-sided, the Wightman Cup is still a coveted trophy. In 1924, Hazel Wightman journeyed to Paris, where she opted not to play in the Olympic ladies' singles event. She saved her best for the ladies' and mixed doubles events and partnered Dick Williams and Helen Wills to comfortable victories in those events. Though in later years she continued to play tennis, and win championships, she also became a well-known coach, numbering among her pupils Marion Zinderstein Jessup and Helen Wills-Moody. At the Jubilee Wightman Cup match at Boston in 1973, Hazel Wightman was accorded perhaps her greatest honor – an Honorary C.B.E.