by Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Until the emergence of Casper Ruud, Norwegian tennis did not have much of a history. However, a player from Norway, who was at this time already a naturalized American, registered what might be the biggest surprise in tennis history.
As documented in my book “On This Day In Tennis History” ($19,95, for sale and download here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0942257421/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_KK8J14CZXMYTMBYWK1R3),
Molla Bkirstedt Mallory, the first ever female Olympian for Norway, handed the Grand Dame of tennis, Suzanne Lenglen, her only post World War I loss of her amateur career in the second round of the U.S. Championships (the modern-day U.S. Open) at Forest Hills.
The excerpt from my book is found below:
August 16
1921 – In her much anticipated debut at the U.S. Championships, Suzanne Lenglen causes one of biggest controversies the tournament has ever experienced, quitting her first match of the tournament with defending champion Molla Bjurstedt Mallory after Mallory leads 6-2 and 0-30 on Lenglen’s serve in the first game of the second set. Lenglen claims to be short of breath and stricken with a cough and starts to cry as she tells the chair umpire that she is too ill to continue. Mallory and Lenglen are regarded as the best two players in the draw, but the U.S. Championships are still six years removed from instituting seedings into the composition of the draws. A crowd of approximately 8,000 fans – the largest to ever witness a women’s match in the United States – are disappointed not to see the match reach a proper conclusion – some fans even hissing, suspecting that the seemingly invincible Lenglen quits the match as not to acknowledge a proper defeat by the hands of Mallory.
The full bio of Molla Bjurstedt Mallory as seen in “The Bud Collins History of Tennis” (For sale and download here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937559386/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_75TM2T56YMQT5B34RK2N
MOLLA MALLORY
Norway/United States (1884-1959)
Hall of Fame 1958
Anna Margarethe Molla Bjurstedt Mallory had less in the way of stroke equipment than most players who have become tennis champions. But the sturdy, Norwegian-born woman, the daughter of an army officer, had the heart and pride of a gladiator, could run with limitless endurance, and was a fierce competitor. She won the U.S. Championship a record eight times and she administered the only post-World War I defeat that Suzanne Lenglen suffered as an amateur.
It was her match with Lenglen in the second round of the U.S. Championship at Forest Hills in 1921 that won Mallory her greatest celebrity. She won the first set, 6-2, playing with a fury that took her opponent by surprise, running down balls interminably to wear out the French girl in long rallies, and hitting her mighty topspin forehand down the line for blazing winners. Lenglen, the Wimbledon queen, out of breath from running, coughing and weeping, walked to the umpire’s stand after two points of the second set and informed the official that she was ill and could not continue. This was as sensational a reversal as ever recorded on the courts. Mallory, a right-hander, whose game was developed in Oslo, Norway, where she was born March 6, 1884, came to the United States as Molla Bjurstedt in 1915. She won the U.S. Championships of 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1920, 1921, 1922 — and in 1926 at age 42, as the elder among all major singles champions. She was a player of the old school, believing that a woman could not sustain a volleying attack in a long match, and she put her reliance on her baseline game. That game amounted to a forehand attack and an omnivorous defense that wore down her opponents. She took the ball on the rise and drove it from corner to corner to keep her foe constantly on the run and destroy her control. The quick return made her passing shots all the more effective. In her first U.S. Championship final — 1915, against Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, who had won the title three times — Mallory yielded only the first set, after which Wightman began to tire and could not get to the volleying position, and won, 4-6, 6-2, 6-0. Eleanor Goss in the 1918 final, 6-4, 6-3, and Marion Zinderstein in the 1920 final, 6-3. 6-1, were strong volleyers, like Wightman, but neither could win a set against the Norwegian native, who had won 18 straight U.S. matches until losing to Zinderstein in the 1919 semis, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.
Mallory yielded her title to 17-year-old Helen Wills in 1923, 6-2, 6-1, after defeating her in the 1922 final, 6-3, 6-1, and lost to her again in 1924, 6-1, 6-3. In 1926 Mallory hit one of the heights of her career when she came back from 0-4 in the third set of the final against Elizabeth Ryan and saved a match point in winning her eighth championship, 4-6, 6-4, 9-7. Never had a gallery at Forest Hills in the years of her triumphs cheered her on as it did in this remarkable rally.
Mallory reached the final at Wimbledon in 1922 and lost to Lenglen, 6-2, 6-0. Mallory was twice a semifinal,st at Wimbledon, and she played on the winning Wightman Cup teams in 1923, 26-27.
Although she had won an Olympic bronze in singles for Norway in 1912 at Stockholm, and was the champion of her homeland, Molla was relatively unknown when she arrived in New York as Miss Bjurstedt to begin work as a masseuse in 1915. She entered the U.S. Indoor Championships that year, unheralded, and beat defending champ Marie Wagner, the first of five singles titles (1915-16, 18, 21-22) on the boards. Having thus made something of a name, she went outdoors to enlarge on it on Philadelphia turf by beginning her record collection of eight U.S. titles, winning. the fifth as Mrs. Franklin Mallory in 1920. In 15 U.S. Championships her worst finish was a quarter-final in 1927, age 43! She bade farewell to Forest Hills as a 45-year-old semi-finalist in 1929, double-bageled by Wills.
She was in the World Top Ten in 1925, 1926 and 1927, Nos. 5, 4, 4, and the U.S. Top Ten 12 years between 1915 and 1928 (no ranking roll in 1917) — No. 1 seven years, 1915-16, 18, 20-21-22, 26. 1929. She entered the Hall of Fame in 1958 and died Nov. 22, 1959, in Stockholm.
MAJOR TITLES (13) — US. singles, 1915-16-17-18, 20-21-22, 26; U.S. doubles, 1916-17; U.S. mixed 1917, 22-23. OTHER U.S. TITLES (11) — Indoor singles, 1915-16, 18, 21-22; Indoor doubles, 1916, with Marie Wagner; Indoor mixed 1921-22, with Bill Tilden; Clay Court singles, 1915-16; Clay Court mixed, 1916, with George Church. WIGHTMAN CUP – 1923-24-25, 27-28, 5-5 singles, 1-1 doubles. SINGLES RECORD IN THE MAJORS — French (1-1), Wimbledon (19-9), U.S. (67-7).
