By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
At the age of 14, Guan Tianlang of China became the youngest player to ever compete at the Masters golf tournament.
The success of this young man on the grandest stage in golf brings to mind of similar circumstance on the grandest stage in tennis.
Browsing at THE BUD COLLINS HISTORY OF TENNIS record book and tennis encyclopedia, one will find that the youngest player to compete at Wimbledon was Jennifer Capriati, who made her debut in 1990 at the grandest tournament in tennis at the age of 14 years, 90 days, just one day younger than Kathy Rinaldi, who debuted in 1981.
The youngest “man” to compete at Wimbledon came a generation earlier in 1927 when Sidney Wood debuted at the age of 15 years, 234 days.
Wood, who passed away at age 97 in 2009, was one of the most charismatic and interesting characters in the history of the sport. Among his many fascinating life stories, including winning the Wimbledon title in a defaulted final, Wood describes when he became the youngest man to compete at Wimbledon in his posthumously published memoir THE WIMBLEDON FINAL THAT NEVER WAS… AND OTHER TENNIS TALES FROM A BYGONE ERA, available here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0942257847/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=tennisgrancom-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0942257847&adid=0113H5XY9AVE1Y16RW7S&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tennisgrandstand.com%2F
The exclusive excerpt is found below.
I finally went to school in New York one winter, when I was 14. I suffered so much that I lost 14 pounds in the space of three months and was immediately rushed to Arizona because I developed some problems with my lungs.
For four months, I rested and played checkers with some older people in Memorial Park in Tucson. I always wondered why these people would always have colds and be coughing a lot (nobody told me they were there because of tuberculosis).
I learned to play checkers with a passion, but continued to keep up with my tennis. I went off to Phoenix to play in the Arizona State Men’s Tennis Championship at the age of 14 and weighing well under 90 pounds. To some surprise, I won the title, beating in the final a young guy who was very frightened because all of my friends from my checkers games came over to watch me play. And I got a headline in the Tucson paper about four inches high “Tucson Boy Genius Returns.”
The win got me an invitation to play in the French Championships and Wimbledon. In Paris, I won my first round match 0-6, 8-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 over Paul Barrelet de Ricou of France, but I lost in the second round to Jack Condon of South Africa 6-3, 6-1, 6-4.
From there, I played my first Wimbledon. I met the great Frenchman Rene Lacoste, the No. 1 seed, in the first round. (They probably wanted to get this over-precocious American out of the tournament.) One of my nicest memories is that I have a picture of the scoreboard and it shows me leading 3-1 in the second set, either because of his kindness, or carelessness. I lost the match 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 but entered the record books as the youngest man to ever compete at The Championships at age 15 years, 231 days.
The next year, at the age of 16, I returned to Wimbledon and got to the third round where I lost to Pierre Henri Landry of France in four sets. The next day, Landry lost to Bill Tilden in five sets.
Wood would famously win the Wimbledon title in 1931 at age 19, becoming the youngest man to win the singles title at the All England Club until an 17-year-old Boris Becker broke his record in 1985.
