Robert Lindley Murray: the Reluctant U.S. Tennis Champion

Includes “The First Forty Years of American Tennis”

Robert Lindley Lin Murray, a middle-distance runner and tennis player and a Phi Beta Kappa chemical engineer at Stanford University, went east after graduating in 1914 to play tennis. He beat the top intercollegiate players, won several tournaments, and earned a fourth place national ranking. Murray won the 1916 U.S. Indoor title and joined Hooker Electrochemical in Niagara Falls, New York. Reluctant to play in the 1917 and 1918 national championships due to wartime contracts, Murray was persuaded by Hookers president to play and he won them both, the latter over Bill Tilden. Murray rose through the ranks of Hooker to president, CEO, and chairman of the board and was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame a year before retiring.

Leading into Murrays exploits is a concise history of tennis, when and where the game was introduced to the United States, and American tennis through Lin Murrays brief but brilliant career. Also included is a review of California tennis and the significant impact of its players during the second decade of the twentieth century. The book concludes with short biographies of Murrays female and male contemporaries, before shorts and skirts replaced flannels and petticoats.