Tom Pettitt
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2015) |
Tom Pettitt | |
|---|---|
 Tom Pettitt at the 1890 Championship in Dublin | |
| Born | 19 December 1859 |
| Died | 17 October 1946 (aged 86) |
Tom Pettitt (19 December 1859 - 17 October 1946) was the real tennis world champion from 1885 to 1890.
Biography[edit]
Born in Beckenham, Kent, England, Pettitt emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, United States, as a penniless teenager. He quickly rose from being the dressing-room boy at a Boston Tennis & Racquet Club, to being the club’s head tennis professional,[1] at age seventeen.[2] He began playing matches in Great Britain and France to improve his game, and finally challenged George Lambert at the Royal Tennis Court, Hampton Court Palace, for the world championship in 1885. He defended his title in Dublin in 1890, then retired the title the same year. He is credited with inventing the railroad, a fast overarm service that runs the length of the penthouse with a reverse twist.
Pettitt continued to work in Boston at various clubs, retiring from the Tennis and Racquet Club in 1927 after half a century of service. He also taught lawn tennis at the Newport Casino during the summers from 1876–1929, and afterwards continued as a supervisor there.
Pettitt died in Newport, Rhode Island. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1982.[3]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "Inductee: Tom Pettitt: Class of 1982". www.tennisfame.com. International Tennis Hall of Fame. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
- ^ James Zug (1 November 2007). Squash: A History of the Game. Simon and Schuster. pp. 47–. ISBN 978-1-4165-8483-4.
- ^ International Tennis Hall Of Fame & Museum (June 2011). Tennis and the Newport Casino. Arcadia Publishing. pp. 71–. ISBN 978-0-7385-7482-0.
External links[edit]
- 1859 births
- 1946 deaths
- 19th-century American people
- American real tennis players
- English emigrants to the United States
- People from Beckenham
- Sportspeople from the London Borough of Bromley
- Tennis players from Boston
- Sportspeople from Newport, Rhode Island
- International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
- Professional tennis players before the Open Era