Molla Bjurstedt Mallory
Molla Bjurstedt Mallory in 1909
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| Full name | Anna Margrethe Bjurstedt Mallory | |||||||||
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| Country (sports) |
 Norway United States
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| Born |
March 6, 1884 Mosvik, Norway |
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| Died | November 22, 1959 (aged 75) , Sweden |
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| Plays | Right-handed | |||||||||
| Int. Tennis HoF | 1958 (member page) | |||||||||
| Singles | ||||||||||
| Highest ranking | No. 1 (US Ranking) | |||||||||
| Grand Slam Singles results | ||||||||||
| Wimbledon | F (1922) | |||||||||
| US Open | W (1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1926) | |||||||||
| Doubles | ||||||||||
| Grand Slam Doubles results | ||||||||||
| US Open | W (1916, 1917) | |||||||||
| Grand Slam Mixed Doubles results | ||||||||||
| US Open | W (1917, 1922, 1923) | |||||||||
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Medal record
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Anna Margrethe "Molla" Bjurstedt Mallory (née Bjurstedt; March 6, 1884 – November 22, 1959) was a Norwegian tennis player, naturalized American. She won a record eight singles titles at the U.S. Championships.
Although she had won a bronze medal in singles for Norway at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, and was the many-time champion of her homeland, Mallory was relatively unknown when she arrived in New York City to begin work as a masseuse in 1915. She entered the U.S. Indoor Championships that year unheralded and beat three-time defending champion Marie Wagner 6–4, 6–4, which was the first of her five singles titles at that tournament. She also won the singles title in Cincinnati in 1915.
Mallory had less in the way of stroke equipment than most tennis champions. But the sturdy, Norwegian-born woman, the daughter of an army officer, was a fierce competitor, running with limitless endurance.Robert (Bob) Kelleher, a former president of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and a ball boy during Mallory's era, once said, "She looked and acted tough when she was on the court hitting tennis balls. She walked around in a manner that said you'd better look out or she'd deck you. She was an indomitable scrambler and runner. She was a fighter."
She was a player of the old school. She held that a woman could not sustain a volleying attack in a long match. "I do not know a single girl who can play the net game." Therefore, she relied on her baseline game, consisting of strong forehand attacks and a ceaseless defense that wore down her opponents. She took the ball on the rise and drove it from corner to corner to keep her opponent on the constant run. Her quick returns made her passing shots extremely effective. She once said, "I find that the girls generally do not hit the ball as hard as they should. I believe in always hitting the ball with all my might, but there seems to be a disposition to 'just get it over' in many girls whom I have played. I do not call this tennis."
Her second round match with Suzanne Lenglen at the 1921 U.S. National Championships brought Mallory her greatest celebrity. Before the match, Bill Tilden advised Mallory to "hit the cover off the ball." Once the match began, Mallory "attacked with a vengeance" and was ahead 2–0 (40–0) when Lenglen began to cough. Mallory won the first set 6–2 and was up 40–0 on Lenglen's serve in the first game of the second set when Lenglen began to weep and walked to the umpire's stand and informed the official that she was ill and could not continue. After the match, the USTA accused Lenglen of feigning illness. The French Tennis Federation (FTF) exonerated Lenglen and accepted her testimony (and a doctor's) that she had been ill. However, Albert de Joannis, vice president of the FTF who accompanied Lenglen during her trip to the United States, quit his post in protest of the FTF's conclusion. He claimed that Lenglen was "perfectly fit" during the match and that, "She was defeated by a player who on that date showed a better brand of tennis."
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