Kay Tuckey
Full nameKatherine Lilian Agnes Tuckey
Country (sports) United Kingdom
Born1921 or 1922 [1]
Godalming, England
Died(2016-05-14)14 May 2016 [1]
Singles
Highest rankingNo. 10 (1951)
Grand Slam singles results
WimbledonQF (1951)
US OpenQF (1951)
Doubles
Grand Slam doubles results
WimbledonQF (1950, 1951)
Grand Slam mixed doubles results
Wimbledon4R (1949)

Katherine "Kay" Tuckey, also known by her married name Kay Maule, (1921/1922 – 14 May 2016) was an English female tennis player who was active from the second half of the 1940s until the early 1950s.

Early life

Tuckey was born in Godalming, Surrey. She attended St Catherine's School at Bramley. When the family moved to Bournemouth she went to the local Talbot Heath School. She joined West Hants Lawn Tennis Club, venue of the British Hard Court Championships, when she was 12.

Career

Tuckey won the Rhine Army Championships, held in Hamburg, Germany, in 1946.[2]

Between 1947 and 1951 she competed in five Wimbledon Championships.[3] Her best singles result was reaching the quarterfinal in 1951 where she was defeated by top-seeded Louise Brough in three sets after winning the first set.[4] In doubles she reached the quarterfinals in 1950 and 1951 with compatriots Betty Harrison and Jean Quertier respectively.[3] In 1950 she won the All England Plate, a competition held at the Wimbledon Championships for players who were defeated in the first or second rounds of the singles event. In the final she defeated Betty Rosenquest in straight sets.

At the 1951 U.S. Championships she was the third-seeded foreign player and reached the quarterfinal after a victory in the third round against sixth-seeded Beverly Baker. She lost the quarterfinal in three sets to second-seeded Shirley Fry.

With Betty Hilton she won the doubles title at the British Hard Court Championships in May 1950 against Jean Quertier and Jean Walker-Smith. The level of play in the three-sets final, watched by Wightman Cup selectors, was described as poor.[5][1] She played for the British team in the Wightman Cup, an annual team tennis competition for women contested between teams from the United States and Great Britain, from 1949 until 1951.

According to John Olliff of The Daily Telegraph, Tuckey achieved a highest career ranking of world No. 10 in 1951. [6]

Personal life

In 1951 she met her future husband John Maule and they married later that year in Bournemouth. The couple had four children.[1]

Her mother, Agnes Tuckey, and brother, Raymond Tuckey, were also tennis players.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Caitlin Marsh (1 July 2016). "Former Wimbledon tennis star Kay Maule". Daily Echo.
  2. ^ G.P. Hughes, ed. (1950). Dunlop Lawn Tennis Almanack 1950. London: Ed. J. Burrow & Co. Ltd. p. 306.
  3. ^ a b "Wimbledon players archive – Kay Tuckey". AELTC.
  4. ^ "Wimbledon players archive – Kay Tuckey – Singles" (PDF). AELTC.
  5. ^ G.P. Hughes, ed. (1951). Dunlop Lawn Tennis Annual and Almanack 1951. London: Ed. J. Burrow & Co. Ltd. p. 97, 101.
  6. ^ Collins, Bud (2016). The Bud Collins History of Tennis (3rd ed.). New York: New Chapter Press. p. 763. ISBN 978-1-937559-38-0.
  7. ^ Jon Henderson (27 June 2004). "'It was a sport in my day'". The Guardian.
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