US champion at Forest Hills, beating Jack Kramer in the final
6-0
The last set of the 1943 final, in what proved his last tournament
4
US titles at boys', junior, intercollegiate and men's level, a set no other man has won
2
US semi-finals before the war, 1939 and 1940, both lost to Bobby Riggs
No. 1
His US ranking for 1943
Playing career
Joseph Raphael Hunt was born in San Francisco on 17 February 1919, the youngest child of Reuben Hunt, who had played tournament tennis across the United States from 1898 to 1906. He played his first tournament at five, won the US boys' title in 1934 and the junior title in 1937, and went unbeaten in college tennis for the University of Southern California in 1938. He reached the quarter-finals at Forest Hills in 1937 and 1938 and the semi-finals in 1939 and 1940, losing both times to Bobby Riggs. In 1939 he partnered Jack Kramer in the Davis Cup Challenge Round doubles against Australia.
He entered the US Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1938, played running back for Navy, and won the intercollegiate singles in 1941. His class graduated in December 1941, days after the United States entered the war, and he served on destroyers in the Pacific and the Atlantic. On leave in September 1943 he won the US Championships at Forest Hills, seeded seventh, beating Frank Parker, Bill Talbert and Kramer, and finished the year ranked No. 1 in the country. The Navy did not give him leave to defend the title in 1944.
He then trained as a fighter pilot. On 2 February 1945, during a gunnery practice flight off Daytona Beach, Florida, his Grumman Hellcat went into a spin at 10,000 feet and crashed into the sea. He was 25. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1966, and in 2014 the US Open honoured him in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
On grass
Forest Hills 1943
Quarter-final: beat the top seed Frank Parker 6-8, 6-2, 6-3. Semi-final: beat Bill Talbert 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-4. Final: beat Jack Kramer 6-3, 6-8, 10-8, 6-0, on a humid afternoon of about 90 degrees
Forest Hills before the war
1939: beat Don McNeill 6-4, 15-13, 8-10, 4-6, 6-2 in the quarter-finals, lost to Bobby Riggs 6-1, 6-2, 4-6, 6-1. 1940: beat Frank Kovacs 6-4, 6-1, 6-4 in the quarter-finals, lost to Riggs 4-6, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3, 6-1
Davis Cup 1939
Challenge Round on grass at the Merion Cricket Club, Haverford, Pennsylvania: with Jack Kramer, lost the doubles to John Bromwich and Adrian Quist 7-5, 2-6, 5-7, 2-6. Australia won the tie 3-2
Wartime championship
In 1943 the championships were squeezed into six days so that servicemen would not use up their leave, and rationing meant balls stayed in play long past their best
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
"He was a very good-looking man with a body like Charles Atlas. He drew women to his matches."
Anecdotes
The person behind the player.
Forest Hills, 1940
The sit-down
In the 1940 quarter-finals Frank Kovacs began clowning with the gallery, and the umpire did nothing. Hunt sat down on his baseline and let several of Kovacs's serves go by. Kovacs sat down too, and the two sat for up to five minutes while the crowd jeered and cheered. When play resumed Hunt won in straight sets. Merrihew noted that he was alternately praised and criticised for it.
Hunt arrived at the Naval Academy in 1938 as a member of the Davis Cup squad. A plebe could not leave Annapolis for practice that summer, so, as his class history records, the team came to Annapolis instead, and the midshipmen were treated to some fine tennis.
On match point in the final Hunt collapsed with a cramp. Kramer, who had lost 19 pounds to food poisoning during the week, hit the ball long. Kramer then climbed over the net and sat down on the court beside his friend to shake his hand.
After the 1941 intercollegiate final, Reuben Hunt boarded the train home to California and told Merrihew he would stop following the game as a spectator, since the players he knew had all passed from the scene and his son was leaving it too. Two years later Joe was back, and won the national title.
Late one night in December 2013 a tennis fan bought an unnamed silver bowl on eBay for about $60. It was the Ojai Valley men's intercollegiate singles trophy of 1938. Ojai's staff traced the winner as Joe Hunt of USC, then traced his great-nephew, a Seattle lawyer, who already had the matching 1938 doubles trophy on his mantelpiece. The story reached USA Today, and that September the US Open honoured Hunt in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
In 2015 the Naval Academy named a court after him. Its plaque calls him the most accomplished tennis player in the Academy's history, and the Navy men's team hosts the annual Joe Hunt Invitational in his name.
