The early years
United States · born Plymouth, England, 1886 · died 1975 · twice Wimbledon champion
All playersBack to the rankings
2
Wimbledon singles titles, 1905 and 1907
1905
First American and first overseas Wimbledon champion
0
Sets lost on her first English tour, 1905
17
Age at her 1904 US title
1956
First woman in the Hall of Fame
May Sutton was born in Plymouth in 1886, the youngest of seven children of a Royal Navy captain, and moved with her family to a ranch near Pasadena when she was six. In 1904, aged 17, she won the US Championships, the youngest champion until Tracy Austin in 1979. She won Wimbledon in 1905 and again in 1907. In 1912 she married Tom Bundy, three times US doubles champion, and stepped away to raise a family. She returned in 1921 and was ranked fourth in the United States, played in the 1925 Wightman Cup, and reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals in 1929, aged 42. She turned professional in 1930 and taught for the next 34 years. In 1956 she became the first woman inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She died in Santa Monica in 1975.
| Major singles titles | 3: Wimbledon (1905, 1907); US (1904) |
|---|---|
| Major singles finals lost | 1: Wimbledon 1906 |
| Other grass singles titles | 6: Welsh Championships 3 (1905, 1906, 1907); Eastern Grass Court Championships (1928); Kent (1907); Northern Championships (1905) |
| Major doubles titles | 1 doubles (US 1) |
| Wimbledon Challenge Rounds | 1905: beat Dorothea Douglass 6-3, 6-4. 1906: lost to Douglass 6-3, 9-7. 1907: beat Dorothea Lambert Chambers 6-1, 6-4 |
| 1905 All-Comers | Beat Ethel Thomson 8-6, 6-1 from 2-5 down in the first set; beat Constance Wilson 6-3, 8-6 in the final |
| US Championships | 1904 singles: beat Elisabeth Moore 6-1, 6-2. 1904 doubles with Miriam Hall. 1925 doubles final with Elizabeth Ryan, lost to Mary K. Browne and Helen Wills |
| Late return | Wimbledon 1929: quarter-finals at 42, her first appearance since 1907 |
| Wimbledon | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1905 | Women's singles | |
| 1907 | Women's singles | |
| Welsh Championships | ||
| 1905 | Women's singles†| |
| 1906 | Women's singles†| |
| 1907 | Women's singles†| |
| US Championships | ||
| 1904 | Women's doubles | with Miriam Hall |
| 1904 | Women's singles | |
| Northern Championships | ||
| 1905 | Women's singles†| |
| Longwood Bowl | ||
| 1906 | Women's singles†| |
| Kent Championships (Beckenham) | ||
| 1907 | Women's singles†| |
| Eastern Grass Court Championships (South Orange) | ||
| 1928 | 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
"If any one had pluck it was Miss Sutton. To come to a strange country, practically friendless, and to play and defeat one after another of the best players in this country, was a feat which filled us all with unbounded admiration."
The person behind the player.
Wimbledon 1905
She shocked spectators by rolling her sleeves up to show her elbows and wearing a skirt that showed her ankles. Billie Jean King later wrote that she "dressed for the game, not the show", in oversize shirts that some thought belonged to her father, and that it was questionable whether she wore a corset at all.
Source: Encyclopedia.com, Women in World HistoryEngland, 1905
She made her first visit to England alone and, in the words of the woman she beat for the title, "carried all before her", winning the championship and many other events without losing a set. Douglass, who lost to her, wrote that Sutton arrived practically friendless and left with many friends.
Source: Lawn Tennis for Ladies, Project GutenbergServing, 1900s
She liked to serve from as near the centre mark as she could get, so close that umpires found it hard to tell whether she was serving from the right court or the wrong. Lambert Chambers believed she had been pulled up at least once for stepping over the centre line.
Source: Lawn Tennis for Ladies, Project GutenbergPasadena, 1899 to 1915
She and her sisters Ethel, Adele, Florence and Violet played each other daily on the family's clay court. A saying grew up that it takes a Sutton to beat a Sutton, and between 1899 and 1915 every singles title at the Southern California championships went to one of the sisters.
Source: Encyclopedia.com, Women in World HistoryEngland and California, 1905 to 1910
She and Dorothea Lambert Chambers met five times, Sutton winning three; Lambert Chambers called her 1906 Wimbledon win over Sutton the most exciting match she ever played. Off court they kept in touch: Lambert Chambers printed in her 1910 book a picture postcard sent to her by Sutton from California, captioned "My sisters and myself".
Source: Lawn Tennis for Ladies, Project GutenbergUS Championships, 1928 and 1929
Her daughter Dorothy Bundy also played. In 1928 and 1929 they became the only mother and daughter seeded at the US Championships, and Dorothy went on to win the Australian title in 1938. May kept playing into her late 80s.
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