Alice Marble - American Tennis Champions

Carole Lombard, American actress with Alice Marble

Born in the small town of Beckwourth, California, Marble moved with her family at the age of five to San Francisco. A tomboy, she excelled in many sports such as baseball, but her brother persuaded her to try a more lady-like sport, tennis, which she quickly honed while playing in Golden Gate Park. She suffered a setback at age fifteen when she was raped by a stranger, but she overcame the trauma and won several California junior tournaments. She was again challenged in 1934 after collapsing during a match at the French Championships. Doctors diagnosed her with pleurisy and tuberculosis. She took an extended rest but roared back into competition.

At the U.S. Championships, Alice Marble won the singles title in 1936, 1938, 1939, and 1940. She won the women's doubles title with Sarah Palfrey Cooke in 1937, 1938, 1939, and 1940. And she won the mixed doubles title in 1936 (with Gene Mako), 1938 (with Don Budge), 1939 (with Harry Hopman), and 1940 (with Bobby Riggs).

At Wimbledon, Marble won the singles title in 1939. She won the women's doubles title with Cooke in 1938 and 1939. And she won the mixed doubles title in 1937 (with Budge), 1938 (with Budge), and 1939 (with Riggs).

In Wightman Cup competition, Marble lost only one singles and one doubles match during the years she competed (1933 and 1937 through 1940).

Alice Marble was the Associated Press Athlete of the Year in 1939 and 1940.

After capping a stellar amateur career in 1940, Marble turned professional and earned a great sum of money traveling around playing exhibition tournaments.

Through illness and victory, Marble had the support of her coach and mentor, Eleanor "Teach" Tennant, who changed her technique and influenced her life.

During World War II, Marble was married to Joe Crowley, a pilot, who was killed in action over Germany. Only days before his death, she miscarried their child following a car accident. After an attempt to kill herself, she recuperated and in 1945 agreed to spy for U.S. intelligence. Her mission involved renewing contact with a former lover, a Swiss banker, and obtaining Nazi financial data. The operation ended when a Nazi agent shot her in the back. Alice Marble was extracted and recovered from her injury.

Few details of the operation ever emerged because of her silence. The story was told only after her death when Courting Danger ISBN 0-312-92813-0, a second autobiography, was published.

Marble greatly contributed to the desegregation of American tennis by writing an editorial in support of Althea Gibson for the July 1, 1950 issue of American Lawn Tennis Magazine. The article read, in part, "Miss Gibson is over a very cunningly wrought barrel, and I can only hope to loosen a few of its staves with one lone opinion. If tennis is a game for ladies and gentlemen, it's also time we acted a little more like gentlepeople and less like sanctimonious hypocrites.... If Althea Gibson represents a challenge to the present crop of women players, it's only fair that they should meet that challenge on the courts." Alice Marble said that if Gibson were not given the opportunity to compete, "then there is an uneradicable mark against a game to which I have devoted most of my life, and I would be bitterly ashamed." Gibson, age 23, was given entry into the 1950 U.S. Championships, becoming the first African-American player, man or woman, to compete in a Grand Slam event.

In 1964, Marble was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Weakened by pernicious anemia, Alice Marble died at a hospital in Palm Springs, California.

Grand Slam singles finals

Wins (5)Year Championship Opponent in Final Score in Final
1936 U.S. Championships Helen Jacobs 4–6, 6–3, 6–2
1938 U.S. Championships Nancy Wynne Bolton 6–0, 6–3
1939 Wimbledon Kay Stammers 6–2, 6–0
1939 U.S. Championships Helen Jacobs 6–0, 8-10, 6–4
1940 U.S. Championships Helen Jacobs 6–2, 6–3

Go to the List of Male and Female Tennis Players


Source of this Alice Marble article: Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia