28/09/2025
Some people accused her of playing tennis like a man—too aggressive, too ferocious, too unyielding. When she traded long skirts for shorts on the court, scandal followed. She didn’t mind. She just kept winning. She simply was the best.
It was the late 1930s then. The world teetered on the edge of war; the N**i regime was beginning its attempt for conquest across Europe. Americans at home continued to struggle through the tail end of the Great Depression. In this uncertain time, sports heroes offered hope and captured the public’s imagination.
One name amongst women stood above all others on the tennis courts. That name was Alice Marble.
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Born in 1913 in a small northern California town, Alice grew up tough. Her father died when she was young, and her mother moved the family to San Francisco. There, Alice found the city playgrounds and through her avid athlete uncle, sports. Her first love was baseball. But women who played were called tomboys. Alice’s oldest brother, and now head of the family thought tennis would be more fitting. It was more socially acceptable for a woman to play.
What began with a borrowed racket soon revealed extraordinary talent. Alice rose quickly. Even as a young girl, she had been local legend for her baseball prowess. That talent and refusal to conform now turned her into the same on the tennis court.
By the late 1930s, Alice dominated the sport. In 1939, she swept Wimbledon, winning singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. Then she repeated the feat at the U.S. Championships. She was ranked world number one that year. By then, everyone seemed to know her name. In a time long before social media, she appeared everywhere—on radio, in newsreels, and across magazines. Alice was a celebrity in the truest sense.
But then came war. When World War II broke out, she set aside her career. She toured to raise funds for the war effort, and later, in a lesser-known but dramatic chapter of her life, Alice claimed to have worked with U.S. intelligence in Europe. According to her memoir, one mission ended in a car chase in which she was shot, but survived.
After the war, Alice continued to shape the game of tennis. She coached, wrote, and advocated for equality, including calling for the desegregation of the sport when she publicly urged the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association to allow Althea Gibson, a young black player, to compete. She wrote in an essay:
“If tennis is a game for ladies and gentlemen, it’s also time we acted a little more like gentlepeople and less like sanctimonious hypocrites…If Althea Gibson represents a challenge to the present crop of women players, it’s only fair that they should meet that challenge on the courts.”
Alice continued: “If Gibson were not given the opportunity to compete, then there is an ineradicable mark against a game to which I have devoted most of my life, and I would be bitterly ashamed.”
The essay helped break open doors in the sport.
For Alice, speaking up wasn’t an act of courage. It was just the right thing to do. And that’s who she was. Always bold, unconventional, unforgettable.
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