Dick Savitt

Wimbledon King 

 

The rise of the Jew in tennis in recent years is a most interesting gauge of growing American tolerance and democracy. It was long recognized that tennis, because it was a "social" sport, was reluctant to accept members of minority groups with the same eagerness that it embraced Protestant white Americans. Arnold Forster, in the Anti-Defamation League report on democratic trends, A Measure of Freedom (published in 1950), wrote that "in tennis ‘the best man wins’ - if he is free, white and Gentile." Forster further explained that many ranking tennis clubs throughout the United States practice discrimination against minority groups, although this fact does not prevent these groups from producing an occasional star.

According to Forster, "the Anti-Defamation League believes that the West Side Tennis Club, ‘the capital of the tennis world,’ has practiced a policy of discrimination," and that the Los Angeles Tennis Club, too, keeps out Jews and Negroes. The ADL pointed out that Jews, Negroes, Mexican Americans, etc., "are discouraged from making tennis their careers simply because they are unable to obtain the expert instruction required for a player of championship caliber." The report also stated that in smaller tennis clubs, bias is as strong as it is in the larger clubs.

Nevertheless, in spite of the bias reported by the ADL,