The early years
United States · born Carson City, Nevada, 1890 · died 1957 · right-handed · the California Comet, first American to reach a Wimbledon singles final
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2
US singles titles, 1912 and 1913
3
US doubles titles in a row with Tom Bundy, 1912 to 1914
5
US singles finals in a row, 1911 to 1915
1913
First American in a Wimbledon singles final
1914
Ranked world No. 1
Maurice Evans McLoughlin was born in Carson City, Nevada, in 1890; his family moved to San Francisco in 1903, where he went to Lowell High School and learned the game on the public courts of Golden Gate Park. At 17 he won the Pacific Coast singles, and in 1909 he was sent east and into the United States Davis Cup team.
He played in five US singles finals in a row from 1911. He lost the 1911 Challenge Round to William Larned, then became the first player from the West to win the title, in 1912, and kept it in 1913. Richard Norris Williams beat him in the 1914 final and Bill Johnston in 1915. With Tom Bundy he won the US doubles three years running from 1912 to 1914. In 1913 he reached the Wimbledon Challenge Round, the first American to do so, and helped the United States win the Davis Cup; in 1914 he was ranked world No. 1.
He served during the First World War and was never the same player afterwards; Williams beat him easily in the quarter-finals of the 1919 US Championships, and shoulder trouble ended his career. He married Helen Mears in 1918 and settled in Los Angeles. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1957 and died at Hermosa Beach, California, in December that year, aged 67.
| US singles finals | 1911: lost the Challenge Round to William Larned 4-6, 4-6, 2-6. 1912: beat Wallace Johnson 3-6, 2-6, 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 at the Newport Casino, from two sets down. 1913: beat Richard Norris Williams 6-4, 5-7, 6-3, 6-1. 1914: lost to Williams 3-6, 6-8, 8-10. 1915: lost to Bill Johnston 6-1, 0-6, 5-7, 8-10 |
|---|---|
| Wimbledon 1913 | Won the All-Comers final against Stanley Doust 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, then lost the Challenge Round to Tony Wilding 6-8, 3-6, 8-10. It was his only Wimbledon |
| US doubles | Finalist in 1909 and every year from 1912 to 1916; champion with Tom Bundy in 1912, 1913 and 1914 |
| Davis Cup 1914 | At Forest Hills, days after war broke out, he beat Norman Brookes 17-15, 6-3, 6-3 and also beat Wilding, but Australasia won the final 3-2. Davis Cup record 9-4 in singles, 3-4 in doubles |
| US Championships | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1912 | Men's doubles | with Tom Bundy |
| 1912 | Men's singles | |
| 1913 | Men's doubles | with Tom Bundy |
| 1913 | Men's singles | |
| 1914 | Men's doubles | with Tom Bundy |
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
"In McLoughlin, America undoubtedly has the greatest tennis player of all time."
The person behind the player.
San Francisco, 1903 to 1907
He learned on the concrete public courts of Golden Gate Park, in the Golden Gate Park Junior Tennis Club run by Sidney Marvin, who also taught Little Bill Johnston. Most of his rivals had learned at private clubs.
Source: The Olympic ClubSydney, 1909
He was 19 when he travelled with the American Davis Cup team to Sydney for the final against Australasia. The United States lost, but the trip gave him his nickname, the California Comet, for the speed and power of his play.
Source: The Olympic ClubForest Hills, August 1914
The 1914 Davis Cup final was played in New York a few days after the outbreak of the First World War. On the first day McLoughlin, 24, beat the 36-year-old Norman Brookes 17-15, 6-3, 6-3. Brookes then beat Williams in four sets and Australasia took the Cup 3-2. The Hall of Fame says the matches drew 14,000 people a day.
Source: Sport Australia Hall of Fame; International Tennis Hall of FameNew York, 1915
His instruction book, Tennis as I Play It, came out in 1915 under his name. It is said to have been ghost-written by Sinclair Lewis, then unknown and later a Nobel Prize-winning novelist.
Source: Grasso, Historical Dictionary of Tennis; Wikipedia1914
In November 1914 Munsey's Magazine published a piece by the sportswriter Damon Runyon under the title McLoughlin, The World's Greatest Tennis Player.
Source: WikipediaFree membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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