Wightman, Hazel Hotchkiss

Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, née Hazel Virginia Hotchkiss, (born Dec. 20, 1886, Healdsburg, Calif., U.S.—died Dec. 5, 1974, Newton, near Boston, Mass.), American tennis player who dominated women’s competition before World War I. Known as the “queen mother of American tennis,” she was instrumental in organizing the Wightman Cup match between British and American women’s teams.

The winner of 45 U.S. titles, Hazel Hotchkiss overpowered her opponents in the U.S. championship from 1909 to 1911, winning every event she entered in each year: the women’s singles, the women’s doubles, and the mixed doubles. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1911 and married George Wightman in 1912 (divorced 1940). She went on to win another singles title in 1919 and also won six doubles titles (1909–11, 1915, 1924, and 1928), the last two with Helen Wills.

In 1923 she donated a silver cup (the Wightman Cup) to the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association to be used as a prize for an annual match between British and American women’s teams. Wightman led the United States to victory in the first match, 7–0, and was captain of the team until 1948.

Wightman also won a national women’s singles championship in squash and a Massachusetts state title in table tennis, and she once made the national finals on a mixed doubles badminton team.