tennishistory.com.au

In the 1920’s racquet manufacture took a giant leap forwards with the introduction of metal racquets. In the USA it was Dayton and in the UK it was a Company called the Birmingham Aluminium Company. Their first racquet, was the all metal “BIRMAL” which I think you will agree would not look out of date lined up against many of the 1970’s metal derivatives.

The first grip option was the (pictured) cord wrapping which was then followed by a traditional leather grip variation. The strings as per Dayton were also piano wire. They are highly sought after by collectors and come up rarely on the international market and this photo was kindly supplied by Joe from www.woodtennis.com in the USA. A UK patent was granted in 1922 so it would certainly appear to be one of the the first all metal racquets produced at least for the mass market, remembering that Dayton were principally a wood handle steel head/throat combination. In Jeanne Cherry’s book Tennis Antiques and Collectibles, she lists a company in Scotland called the Metallic Racquet Corp. advertising a metal racquet with standard gut stringing in 1887, so quite a few attempts may have been made in this area.

Do you think we might find one of these Birmal racquets as originally supplied to Australia? Well amazingly, we might and maybe moreso in Queensland/NT. In a moment of good luck we spotted this advertisement from March 1924 which clearly points to the Birmal’s unique qualities of aluminium and the steel strings. The ad was published in the Northern Territory Times where heat extremes may well have been a factor in choosing a racquet. We are yet to find any advertising in the southern states, so perhaps the tropical areas (Toowoomba, Townsville etc.) were the prime targets.

If anyone has more information about the Birmal racquets please contact us.

And if you do find one, hang onto it. It will go up in value faster than any superannuation scheme. Approx. value $ 450-$1000 depending on condition.

If you don’t find one, fear not, Tennis Australia have a couple in their museum collection which will only be a few years away from being displayed.

While we have focussed on the website about the 1920’s being a boom time for local tennis racquet manufacturers and ball production, other industries also capitalised on tennis.

Globite Tennis Case

Recently, I found this old Globite tennis case and dressed it up as best I could.

Leather bags to hold racquets have been around since the 1880’s and some of the French designer label variants can cost into the hundreds. At least this is Australian made.

The brand in the picture was produced in Melbourne, by a company called Globite, who made a wide range of general luggage as well. They commenced manufacture in 1921 as you can see in the newspaper article below.

The photo isn’t quite right, as the racquet and press is actually meant to sit behind the dark leather flap thereby protecting the strings and clothing from contact.

Keep an eye out at the markets and you might get one for $30-60 depending on condition.

This seems to be a question often raised around tables, at least when the veterans are sipping on a cup of tea (nee Bundy, Jack Daniels, Beer).

In an article, in USA Tennis Magazine March 1997, written by Tennis Authority Alan Trengove, Mark Phillippousis was given the task of testing out woodies versus a standard graphite (his own) and a superlong. The reason the article was written was because the ITF had just banned the SuperLong’s being marketed by both Dunlop and Gamma. This meant that all professional racquets had to be under 29″ in length. I recently saw a Gamma 32″ and it really is a massive racquet with a 137″ head size. See the pic below compared to a standard woodie. To meet the new rules they just chopped the length back to 28″.

Anyway back to the test. All the racquets were strung by Mark’s personal stringer using the strings and tensions he was used to and grips were adjusted as well. They were the Dunlop Superlong 29 1/2″, his standard 27″ Dunlop and the recently voted number one racquet of significance over the past 50 years, the wonderful Dunlop Maxply Fort specially flown over from the UK.

The test was conducted at the Melbourne Park, home of the Australian Open.

The results were very interesting. Wood Ave Speed 122mph, Top Speed 124mph and accuracy 60%. Standard length 124mph, 127mph, 52% and Superlong 126mph, 127mph, 80%.

On speed it is surprising that only 4mph separates the woodie from the two hi tech racquets and the woodie even gave Mark some more accuracy over his standard racquet. Maybe Bjorn should have persisted with his woodie in his infamous come back!!! Then maybe Mark should have tried a Woodie more often!!

In a separate, similar test in the USA, four players confirmed these results but found the woodies accuracy levels very low. I guess this does highlight the impact of frame strength and sweet spot size. However, given that these 4 hadn’t played with a Woodie at all or for many years, it also highlights how stroke techniques have changed with racquets. The importance of hitting with woodies using a more flat stroke and good follow through is certainly not in vogue today as follow throughs are moving across the body or at seems in full circle watching the almost table tennis style forehands seen today.

Were the players of old serving at Speeds like Mark? There may have been some big guns back then, but the rules for foot faulting didn’t allow both feet to be off the ground and over the line, so the level of forward momentum couldn’t have been the same.

The other factor was championship play was continuous so there were no sit down breaks between end changes because there were no chairs and no tie breaks which meant a match could easily go 3-4 hours. The wise players of the day relied more on accurate first serves with more twist than pace as way of conserving energy.

The conclusion of the test was that while extra longs seem to assist with accuracy, the additional size, weight and therefore swing speed didn’t create the massive increase in serve speed the ITF were worried about preventing. It is also proves that you really can generate some service speed using an old woodie afterall and suprisingly not that much slower than today’s technologically advanced racquets.

While not thoroughly researched, many players over the course of their careers have had involvement with a host of tennis racquet manufacturers all vying for player endorsements designed to create credibility and sales. (Just another project to get stuck into)!!

As the Australian Professional players, particularly in the late 1960’s – 1970’s, were proving themselves on the World stage the racquet endorsements proved very lucrative. While often contracted to use Slazenger, Spalding or Dunlop in Australia, contracts often allowed players the opportunity to accept contracts within certain overseas markets and you will discover many racquets in the USA endorsed
by Aussies that were never sold here or were available only as a boutique line if their Australian contracts had expired.

By far most Australian players were with either Rawlings or Chemold, but occasionally there were some other interesting liaisons. Rod Laver, Margaret Court and Roy Emerson were in this former category, however Ken Rosewall became an advisor/ consultant to the
The Seamless Sporting Goods Company and a quite unusual racquet was created. The racquet right is a Rod Laver version.

Seamless started business in the rubber industry in 1877 and had been making rubber tennis balls since the early 1920’s, however in the early 1970’s, decided to move into racquets. Attracting Ken was
a real coup and the signature SEAMLESS Ken Rosewall aluminium racquet was launched in c 1971. The actual racquet, according to Siegfried Kuebler’s book, was made by Acro USA and marketed under the SEAMLESS name which the changed from 1973 onwards to SEAMCO. Where the word Seamless appears in the throat, below, on the later model the words Ken Rosewall are printed on a red sticker with white reversed text.

These racquets were sold in Australia by agents and stringing experts Reynold Racquets in Victoria.

As a design , they are really very sleek. Their external part of the frame has no stringing holes like a normal racquet and the string supports were slotted into the inside channel. Consequently, the external frame is very smooth and elegant.

Please see more racquets and other tennis memorabilia at www.tennishistory.com.au

When I first caught a glimpse of the 1920’s Dayton Steel racquets made in the USA, I was struck by the range of colours and the uniqueness of the design and the indestructible steel piano wire strings. While often quoted as specially suited to schools, these racquets did make their way to Australia in 1923.

The article (very bottom) was published in January 1923 while Australian Tennis champion Gerald Patterson on the right (below) is shown using one in Melbourne in March 1923. He went on to become a Sales Manager at Spalding in 1925 who also produced an early metal/ wood racquet. We also have an article about Jean Borotra from France arriving in Melbourne in January 1928 and playing with Pat O’Hara Wood at South Yarra tennis Club using steel racquets in very wet conditions and the Frenchman (like many first class players) was not very complimentary towards them even though this was the first time he had ever used them. See more about Dayton racquets under unusual racquets at www.tennishistory.com.au

I am thrilled to find this valid connection linking Dayton racquets to Australian collectors.

Metal tennis racquets were first developed in the early 1920’s which is often not known. The most famous UK racquet was the Birmal Aluminium racquet which was extremely well forged and certain models had cord wound handles whilst others had the more standard leather grips. Whilst this was the first all metal version, combination metal head-wood handle versions were developed not only by Birmal but with huge success in the USA by a company called Dayton. These racquets were strung with piano wire strings and were reputedly highly regarded by schools for their sheer ability to survive. As a collectable, the difficulty is finding good examples with minimal paint loss.

Spalding by the way, had an aluminium head-wood handle racquet in the 1930’s shaped much like a wood racquet with relatively flat edges. Dayton’s early racquets were quite thin steel frames, however they also started a similar design with a brand called the ‘Aviator’.

Jumping up to the 1960’s, there was little development of successful metal racquets until the launch of the Wilson T-2000 was in fact designed by Frenchman, Renee Lacoste’s firm, Lacoste and versions of the racquet are available under both brands. I am no steel expert, but I believe these were made from carbon steel.

In Australia, as the reign of the local wooden racquet manufacturers was ending due to worldwide shortages in Ash plus the interest in lightweight stronger metals, a few locals began to experiment in metal racquet production. While the likes of Spalding, Slazenger, Yonex and others lauched racquets in Aluminium one innovator in South Australia was an expert in Stainless Steel, which is a much more complex metal to adapt. Nevertherless, from a backyard workshop in the early 1970’s, came the ARCO Stainless steel racquet in a standard size (at first) then oversize version. We gather people loved them. They were super strong and quite flexible and with 19lb/16lb stringing provided strength and power. See www.tennishistory.com.au for more details. If you had one let us know how they played. There were some thousands made so maybe you will be lucky enough to find one for your vintage tennis racquet collection. The green covers are the really early standard size racquets. The later models had blue covers, some were powdercoated and if you find bright silver model called a “Starmaker” that was an ARCO first attempt at a carbon steel racquet before the big switch to Stainless Steel………….. Rod