Federation Cup History- 1963

August 26, 2008

The Federation Cup, an International Event for Woman’s Tennis was inaugurated in 1963 after considerable effort by Nell Hopman, wife of Harry Hopman.  Individually Harry and Nell were elite tournament tennis players and even played mixed doubles together winning the Australian Open Mixed in 1930, 1936,1937 and 1939. Apart from being great players, they also […]

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Unusual Modern Tennis Racquets 4

August 14, 2008
Thumbnail image for Unusual Modern Tennis Racquets 4

In this section we present some of the modern unusual models that designers have been trying to create some differentiation. As pointed out previously, many different designs have been tried over the years, but still we have today new racquets being launched with unusual features that have been seen before in one form or another. […]

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Hedley’s

August 4, 2008

  Of all the top brands in Australian tennis history, Hedley’s were a National brand and part of the top five which enjoyed an export business into the USA. In relation to when they began, the earliest reference point we have found is a 1924 annoucement that the firm was entering the tennis racket market […]

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Brewer

August 4, 2008

 In the world of small business the personal traits of the entrepreneur can play a big part in the direction of a new business. As with so many other new business people, Albert Brewer had a strong sense of independence and this combined with an aversion to bank loans, an aversion to insurance and an […]

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Chesterfield

August 4, 2008

The Chesterfield Racquet factory began c 1923 and was located in Hyde St Alexandria, NSW. In a small article from 1942 there was a fire at their Trafalgar St. Annandale factory. The primary timber was Canadian Ash, imported as wood blocks. The parent company Best & Gee is still operating today and owns numerous business […]

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Colin Long

August 2, 2008

The article below was published August 2008.  Sadly Colin passed away on November 8th 2009. We have elected to leave the article as written. At aged 90, Colin Long and great mate Jack Noseda, both well known from Spalding Sporting Goods Management kindly gave me some time to discuss Colin’s interesting tennis career. Being nothing […]

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Australian Tennis Advertisements

August 2, 2008

The ability to date equipment in particular, requires access to both manufacturer catalogues and advertisements. Under the arriving in Australia section you will find the earliest known ad for tennis sets being Jan. 1876 The first Australian made products started to appear in the 1920′s. This section is purely to take you back to the […]

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When Tennis Arrived in Australia

July 29, 2008

Tennis was established in the UK throughout 1874 thanks to the marketing genius of Major Walter Wingfield, who created the first boxed sets of portable lawn tennis equipment with rules for play on an hour glass shaped court. His brand name for this new game was “Sphairistike” which perhaps wasn’t a great choice since no-one […]

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Tennis Racquet Presses

July 28, 2008

While creative design was certainly evident in the racquet shapes and construction methods, even the humble racquet press came in many shapes and sizes. Presses go back as far as the racquets themselves due to the fact that under enormous pressure from string tautness and combined with often damp or humid conditions racquets would warp or […]

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Stringing Machines

July 19, 2008

Tennis Stringing was long done by hand using awls to jam strings into holes and using the plucked pitch of a string to test the tension. Recently we uncovered a fascinating and very early 1937 stringing machine that shocked us by its quite modern style featuring tension measurement and wind up adjustment.   The machine was […]

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