The amateur years
Australia · born Sydney, 1918 · died 2015 · twice Australian champion, 12 times in doubles
All playersBack to the rankings
12
Australian women's doubles titles, a record
10
Australian doubles titles with Nancye Wynne Bolton
35
Her age at the 1954 Australian singles title
3
Australian titles in 1952: singles, doubles, mixed
19
Major titles, 18 of them in Australia
Thelma Coyne was born in Sydney in 1918, went to Sydney Girls High School and won the national junior singles at 16. With Nancye Wynne she won the Australian women's doubles five years running, from 1936 to 1940. During the Second World War she drove for the Red Cross and rose to captain in the Australian Women's Army Service, and she married in 1941, playing afterwards as Thelma Long. She won the Australian singles in 1952 and 1954 and lost four other finals. Of her 19 major titles, 18 came in Australia; the exception was the 1956 French mixed with Luis Ayala. She became a teaching professional in 1960 and coached juniors in New South Wales for many years. She entered the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2013 and died in Sydney in 2015, aged 96.
| Major singles titles | 2: Australian (1952, 1954) |
|---|---|
| Major singles finals lost | 4: Australian 1940, Australian 1951, Australian 1955, Australian 1956 |
| Other grass singles titles | 12: NSW Championships 5 (1935, 1938, 1940, 1951, 1953); Victorian Championships 4 (1935, 1951, 1953, 1954); Queensland Championships 2 (1947, 1954); Irish Championships (1949) |
| Major doubles titles | 12 doubles (Australian 12), 4 mixed (Australian 4) |
| Australian doubles partners | Nancye Wynne Bolton, ten titles: 1936 to 1940, 1947 to 1949, 1951 and 1952. Mary Bevis Hawton, 1956 and 1958. Finals lost with Bolton in 1946 and 1950 |
| Australian mixed partners | George Worthington 1951, 1952 and 1955; Rex Hartwig 1954 |
| Wimbledon | Singles quarter-final 1952. Doubles final 1957 with Mary Hawton, lost to Althea Gibson and Darlene Hard 6-1, 6-2. Mixed final 1952 with Enrique Morea, lost to Doris Hart and Frank Sedgman |
| US Championships | Mixed finals lost in 1938 with John Bromwich, to Alice Marble and Don Budge 6-1, 6-2, and in 1952 with Lew Hoad, to Hart and Sedgman 6-3, 7-5 |
| Finals to remember | Adelaide 1952: beat Helen Angwin 6-2, 6-3, won the doubles with Bolton 6-1, 6-1 and the mixed with Worthington 9-7, 7-5. Sydney 1954: beat Jenny Staley 6-3, 6-4 |
| Australian Championships | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1936 | Women's doubles | with Nancye Wynne Bolton |
| 1937 | Women's doubles | with Nancye Wynne Bolton |
| 1938 | Women's doubles | with Nancye Wynne Bolton |
| 1939 | Women's doubles | with Nancye Wynne Bolton |
| 1940 | Women's doubles | with Nancye Wynne Bolton |
| 1947 | Women's doubles | with Nancye Wynne Bolton |
| 1948 | Women's doubles | with Nancye Wynne Bolton |
| 1949 | Women's doubles | with Nancye Wynne Bolton |
| 1951 | Women's doubles | with Nancye Wynne Bolton |
| 1951 | Mixed doubles | with George Worthington |
| 1952 | Women's doubles | with Nancye Wynne Bolton |
| 1952 | Mixed doubles | with George Worthington |
| 1952 | Women's singles | |
| 1954 | Mixed doubles | with Rex Hartwig |
| 1954 | Women's singles | |
| 1955 | Mixed doubles | with George Worthington |
| 1956 | Women's doubles | with Mary Bevis Hawton |
| 1958 | Women's doubles | with Mary Bevis Hawton |
| New South Wales Championships | ||
| 1935 | Women's singles†| |
| 1938 | Women's singles†| |
| 1940 | Women's singles†| |
| 1951 | Women's singles†| |
| 1953 | Women's singles†| |
| Victorian Championships | ||
| 1935 | Women's singles†| |
| 1951 | Women's singles†| |
| 1953 | Women's singles†| |
| 1954 | Women's singles†| |
| Queensland Championships | ||
| 1947 | Women's singles†| |
| 1954 | 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
"I'm very proud to receive the award because it was a bit tougher to be a good tennis player back then."
The person behind the player.
Australian Championships 1936 to 1952
She and Nancye Wynne won their first Australian doubles title together in 1936, when Coyne was 17, and kept winning it until the war stopped play. By the time she took her first singles title in 1952 she had nine Australian doubles titles. Their partnership finished with ten, still the record for a pair.
Source: International Tennis Hall of FameMelbourne and Brisbane · 1941 to 1945
She joined the Red Cross in 1941 and trained as a transport driver, then enlisted in the Australian Women's Army Service in 1942. She rose from corporal to captain, toured for three weeks as a staff officer to Lady Gowrie and ended the war instructing at the service's officers' school.
Source: The Australian Women's RegisterWhite City, Sydney 1954
She beat Jenny Staley 6-3, 6-4 in the final to win her second Australian singles title at 35 years and 109 days. No older woman won the singles at the Australian championships until Serena Williams in 2017, 63 years later. Long had lost the final in 1940 and 1951 and would reach two more.
Source: International Tennis Hall of FameWimbledon 1957 · Australian 1958
At 38 she reached the Wimbledon doubles final with Mary Hawton and lost to Althea Gibson and Darlene Hard 6-1, 6-2. Early in 1958 she and Hawton won the Australian doubles, beating Lorraine Coghlan and Angela Mortimer 7-5, 6-8, 6-2. At 39 years and seven months she remains the oldest winner of that event.
Source: WikipediaWimbledon 1971
More than a decade after she began coaching, she returned to Wimbledon in 1971 to play the women's doubles with Lorraine Coghlan, her opponent in the 1958 Australian final. They lost in the first round. She was 52, and her major results by then spanned the years 1935 to 1959.
Source: WikipediaSydney · from 1960
She turned teaching professional in 1960 and spent many years developing junior players in New South Wales. Away from the court she volunteered at the State Library of New South Wales, which gave her its Volunteer Service Award in 1999, and helped archive the records of the Australian Women's Army Service Association.
Source: The Australian Women's RegisterFree membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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