The following is an excerpt from the November, 1981 issue of WORLD TENNIS magazine where 1931 Wimbledon Champion Sidney Wood discusses how tennis scored him a Thanksgiving Day turkey. Wood, a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, was also a member of the U.S. Davis Cup team in 1931 and 1934 and was a singles finalist at the U.S. Championships in 1935. He passed away at the age of 97 on January 10 of this year.
Compared to the “Greatest Moments” of others that have regaled us, my own is somewhat fleeting and brief in the telling. The score is forgotten; of the four people playing, I can summon to mind the names of only two-and-one-halt—including me—and I don’t even remember if the sun was shining. However short-lived and relatively inconsequential it is, my moment has had a lasting effect on me.
It was not Wimbledon, nor any other major tournament, not even the National Father and Son—perhaps a greater strain on family harmony than husband and wife bridge. No, it was the Golden Gate Public Park Thanksgiving Handicap Mixed Doubles Championship, played in San Francisco, California when 1 was one year short of teenage and could check the height of the net by putting my nose on the tape.
Our considerable handicap (we had several points a set as I recall) notwithstanding, it was inconceivable that I and my partner, Pauline (that’s the half-a-name I recall), a substantially structured 18-year-old damsel of about twice my heft, could prevail over the frighteningly famous Bobby Sellers, winner of the National Junior Singles that season, and his high-ranked lady partner whose name escapes me. But win we did, and with it the prize of two enormous turkeys. For reasons never clearly understood, certain memories are forever etched on one’s mind’s eye. Perhaps this one took root because I’d never won so much as a blue ribbon.
On the ferry and train ride home to Berkeley (that was before Bechtel built the bay-spanning Golden Gate Bridge—even before Alcatraz!), the huge, nude bird, plus my three rackets and tennis bag, must have given me trouble, but 1 would have been too euphoric to notice.
On reaching home, I rang the door-bell to assure an audience for my grand entrance, and when my normally self-contained mother opened the door, and saw me with my first-ever prize extended, she swept me up, then burst into tears. Of course, another turkey was well along in the oven, but no matter, out it came, and in went my winnings, and for days the Woods feasted on drumsticks and the warm glow of hope that their oft-bedridden, miniscule Sidney had a fighting chance to make the tennis world take notice.