Australasian tennis team in the international competitions
Australasian tennis team in the international competitions
[1905]
"For the first time in the history of lawn tennis, an international tournament of a thoroughly respectable character was decided in competitions held at Wimbledon, England, recently, for a trophy known as the Davis Cup. The quartet pictured represented Australasia. Reading from the left, they are: Messrs Norman Brookes and J. Dunlop (Victoria), Anthony Wilding and H. Parker (New Zealand). This team made a remarkably good showing amongst the pick of British and foreign representatives and Brookes crowned himself with glory by reaching the final round of the Singles Championship. The team demonstrated conclusively that the standard of Australasian tennis is fully equal to that of the older countries." Anthony Wilding was born at Opawa, Christchurch on 31 October 1883. As a child Anthony enjoyed swimming, cricket and rugby but when his father began to teach him the rudiments of tennis, it seemed he had found his niche. His fitness training included long gruelling runs over the Cashmere Hills, and by the age of seventeen he had won his first Canterbury championship. Wilding spent six months at Canterbury University but his parents moved him to Cambridge University in 1903. In between studying law he played a great deal of sport. He watched his first Wimbledon in 1903 and played his first tournament the next year. He would become Wimbledon champion four times and champion of New Zealand three times. When the first World War broke out, Wilding enlisted in England. His leadership qualities were quickly recognised and he became a captain in the British Expeditionary Force. At about 4 pm on 9 May 1915, the shell fire became so intolerable that Wilding and his crew left their vehicle for shelter in the trenches. There, he and many of his men were killed by a direct hit from an artillery shell. The city of Christchurch, his home town, paid tribute to the man by making a memorial for him in Wilding Park - a grand and hard tennis complex in Woodham Road." -- Centrecourt : a century of New Zealand tennis / Paul Elenio.
File Reference CCL-KPCD16-0011
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