Mabel Cahill

Playing career

Mabel Esmonde Cahill was born on 2 April 1863 at Ballyconra House, Ballyragget, County Kilkenny, the twelfth of thirteen children of Michael Cahill, a landowner and barrister. She first appears in the records winning a handicap event at the Kilkenny County and City Tournament at Archersfield in 1884 and played tournaments across Ireland until 1886, without much success in the open events.

She emigrated to New York in 1889, joined the New York Tennis Club and found the American standard lower and her own game improving against male practice partners. In 1890 she was the only non-American in the US women's championship at the Philadelphia Cricket Club and retired with cramp against Ellen Roosevelt. In 1891 she beat Roosevelt for the title, the first player from outside the United States to win it, and added the doubles. In 1892 she kept the singles and won the doubles and mixed as well. She did not defend in 1893 and played her last open event that July.

She then tried to live by writing, publishing a novel, Her Playthings, Men, in 1891 and two shorter works in 1892, and later took up riding and hunting. By 1897 she was in London, writing for magazines and working in music halls as a singer, actress and chorus girl. She died of tuberculosis in the Union Workhouse at Ormskirk, Lancashire, on 2 February 1905, aged 41, and was buried in a pauper's grave. Her death went unnoticed for decades. She was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1976.

On grass

Every grass title: 5

Show every title, tournament by tournament

US Championships
1891	Women's doubles	with Emma Leavitt-Morgan
1891	Women's singles
1892	Women's doubles	with Adeline McKinlay
1892	Mixed doubles	with Clarence Hobart
1892	Women'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

"Those who have never seen her play can form no idea of the dash and spirit she puts into her game."