The amateur years
United States · born Chickasha, Oklahoma, 1918 · died 1996 · right-handed · US champion in 1940 from two sets down against Bobby Riggs
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1940
US champion at Forest Hills, beating the holder Bobby Riggs
0-2
Sets down in that final before he won 4-6, 6-8, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5
3
Grass titles in the summer of 1940: Southampton, Newport, Forest Hills
No. 1
US ranking for 1940
1944
US doubles champion with Bob Falkenburg, while on Navy leave
William Donald McNeill was born in Chickasha, Oklahoma, in 1918 and won five state titles before going to Kenyon College in Ohio. An all-court player, as strong at the net as from the back of the court, he won the US indoor title in 1938. In 1939, unseeded, he won the French singles, beating Bobby Riggs 7-5, 6-0, 6-3 in the final, and the doubles with Charles Harris.
1940 was his grass summer. He won the intercollegiate title in July, then beat Frank Kovacs in the finals at Southampton and Newport. At Forest Hills he beat Jack Kramer in the semi-finals and came from two sets down to beat Riggs, the holder, 4-6, 6-8, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5. He finished the year ranked No. 1 in the United States.
During the Second World War he served as a lieutenant in the US Navy, posted to the embassy in Buenos Aires as assistant naval attaché, and won the Argentine championship. On leave in 1944 he won the US doubles with Bob Falkenburg. He won the Eastern Grass Court Championships in 1946 and a second US indoor title in 1950, then spent three decades as an advertising executive in New York. He entered the Hall of Fame in 1965 and died in Vero Beach, Florida, in 1996.
| Forest Hills 1940 | Semi-final: beat Jack Kramer 6-1, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4. Final: beat Bobby Riggs 4-6, 6-8, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5, before a crowd of 7,000 |
|---|---|
| Southampton and Newport | 1940 Southampton final: beat Frank Kovacs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. Newport finals: lost to Elwood Cooke 8-10, 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 in 1939; beat Kovacs 9-7, 6-2, 6-4 in 1940 and Ted Schroeder 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 in 1941 |
| Eastern Grass Courts 1946 | At the Orange Lawn Tennis Club, South Orange: beat Gardnar Mulloy 3-6, 4-6, 12-10, 7-5, 6-3, from two sets down again |
| US doubles and mixed | 1944 doubles with Bob Falkenburg: beat Bill Talbert and Pancho Segura 7-5, 6-4, 3-6, 6-1. 1944 mixed final with Dorothy Bundy: lost to Margaret Osborne and Talbert 6-2, 6-3. 1946 doubles final with Frank Guernsey: lost to Mulloy and Talbert |
| Wimbledon 1939 | Lost in the second round of the singles, then won the All England Plate, beating J. van den Eynde of Belgium 8-6, 6-2 in the final |
| Newport, Rhode Island | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1940 | Men's singles Newport Casino Invitational | |
| 1941 | Men's singles Newport Casino Invitational | |
| US Championships | ||
| 1940 | Men's singles | |
| 1944 | Men's doubles | with Bob Falkenburg |
| Southampton (Meadow Club) | ||
| 1940 | Men's singles Southampton Invitational | |
| Eastern Grass Court Championships (South Orange) | ||
| 1946 | Men's singles | |
Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. †single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions
The person behind the player.
Asia, late 1930s
While still at college he was one of five Americans chosen by the Indian Lawn Tennis Association to play a series of exhibitions in Yokohama, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Calcutta.
Source: International Tennis Hall of FameSouthampton, August 1940
TIME described "Oklahoma's solemn Don McNeill" beating "California's frivolous Frank Kovacs" 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. After the handshake, Kovacs got McNeill to join him in one of his irreverent poses.
Source: TIME, "Sport: Who Won, Aug. 12, 1940"Forest Hills, September 1940
TIME called him "an honor student at Kenyon College", overshadowed until that week. In the final, with the crowd of 7,000 pulling for him, he took "a sound thwacking for two sets", then came to the net and dethroned Riggs. "But McNeill does not scare easily," the magazine wrote.
Source: TIME, "Sport: King Don II", 16 September 1940Buenos Aires, 1941
In the final of the 1941 Campeonato de la República, Argentina's national championship, he beat Jack Kramer 6-2, 8-6, 0-6, 7-9, 7-5 in great heat. The umpire let the finalists sit down at the changeovers, which was officially forbidden; it was the first time this had been allowed in an Argentine championship final.
Source: Roberto Andersen, Set de Lectura, 2025Hurlingham, 1943
To reach the Argentine grass court championship in time he flew his own Piper Cub, which he kept at the Club de Tortugas. He landed without permission and was reprimanded by the president of the Hurlingham Club.
Source: Roberto Andersen, Set de Lectura, 2025Buenos Aires
He kept up a correspondence with the figure skater Helen Hull Hyde of Long Island and married her in Buenos Aires, with many Argentine players he counted as friends at the ceremony. He became the first foreign player to top the Argentine national ranking, in 1943.
Source: Roberto Andersen, Set de Lectura, 2025Free membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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