Anna Margarethe Bjurstedt Mallory “Molla”
Born: March 06, 1884
Died: November 22, 1959
Hometown: Oslo, Norway
Citizenship: Norway
Handed: Right
Inducted: 1958
Grand Slam Record
U.S. Singles 1915-18, 1920-22, 1926
Singles finalist 1923, 24
Doubles 1916-17
Doubles finalist 1918, 22
Mixed 1917, 1922-23
Mixed finalist 1915, 18, 20, 21, 24
Wimbledon Singles finalist 1922
Tournament Record
Wightman Cup 1923, 1925, 1927-28
Olympics Bronze Medal 1912
Anna Margarethe “Molla” Bjurstedt Mallory had less in the way of stroke equipment than most players who have become tennis champions. But the sturdy, Norwegian-born woman, the daughter of an army officer, had the heart and pride of a gladiator, could run with limitless endurance, and was a fierce competitor. She won the U.S. Championship a record eight times and she administered the only post-World War I defeat that Suzanne Lenglen suffered as an amateur.
It was her match with Lenglen in the second round of the U.S. Championship at Forest Hills in 1921 that won Mallory her greatest celebrity. She won the first set, 6-2, playing with a fury that took her opponent by surprise, running down balls interminably to wear out the French girl in long allies, and hitting her mighty topspin forehand down the line for blazing winners. Lenglen, the Wimbledon queen, out of breath from running, coughing and weeping walked to the umpire stand after two points of the second set and informed the official that she was ill and could not continue. This was as sensational a reversal as ever recorded on the courts.
Mallory, a right-hander, whose game was developed in Oslo, Norway, where she was born March 6, 1884, came to the United States as Molla Bjurstedt in 1915. She won the U.S. Championship 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1920, 1921, 1922, and in 1926 at age 42, as the elder among all major champions.
She was a player of the old school. She held that a woman could not sustain a volleying attack in a long match and she put her reliance on her baseline game. That game amounted to a forehand attack and an omnivorous defense that wore down her opponents. She took the ball on the rise and drove it from corner to corner to keep her rival on the constant run and destroy her control. The quick return made her passing shots all the more effective.
In her first U.S. Championship final–in 1915, against Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, who had won the title three times–Mallory yielded only the first set, after which Wightman began to tire and could not get to the volleying position, and won, 4-6, 6-2, 6-0.
Eleanor Goss in the 1918 final and Marion Zinderstein in the 1920 final were strong volleyers, like Mrs. Wightman, but neither could win a set against the Norwegian native.
Mallory yielded her title to Helen Wills in 1923, 6-2, 6-1, after defeating her in the 1922 final, and lost to her again in 1924. In 1926 Mallory hit one of the heights of her career when she came back from 0-4 in the third set of the final against Elizabeth Ryan and saved a match point in winning her eighth championship. Never had a gallery at Forest Hills in the years of her triumphs cheered her on as it did in this remarkable rally.
Mallory reached the final at Wimbledon in 1922 and lost to Lenglen, 6-2, 6-0. Mallory was twice a semifinalist at Wimbledon, and she played on the Wightman Cup team in 1923, 1924, 1925, 1927 and 1928.
Although she had won an Olympic bronze in singles for Norway in 1912 at Stockholm, and was the champion of her homeland, Molla was relatively unknown when she arrived in New York as Miss Bjurstedt to begin work as a masseuse in 1915. She entered the U.S. Indoor Championships that year unheralded and beat defending champ Marie Wagner, 6-4, 6-4, the first of five singles titles on the boards. Having thus made something of a name, she went outdoors to enlarge on it on Philadelphia turf by beginning her record collection of eight U.S. titles, winning the fifth as Mrs. Franklin Mallory in 1920. In 15 years at Forest Hills her worst finish was a quarterfinal in 1927 at age 43!
She was in the World Top Ten in 1925, 1926 and 1927, its first three years, and the U.S. Top Ten 13 times between 1915 and 1928, No. 1 in 1915, 1916, 1918 through 1922, and 1926. She bade farewell to the U.S. Championships as a 45-year-old semifinalist in 1929. She entered the Hall of Fame in 1958 and died November 22, 1959, in Stockholm.
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