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Senior Star
Dodo Cheney, 88, Wins International Tennis
Tournament to Add to Legacy
Sept. 27, 2004 Dodo Cheney, 88 years young, won
the championship match of the womens 85 and over bracket at the 24th
International Tennis Federation World Seniors Tennis Championships. It
was just another notch on the racket for the senior star that was
greeted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in July.
Photo by Jerry Lowe |
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The March 2001 issue of Tennis
Magazine carried a story by Dan Markowitz, a 40-year-old player
that played with Dodo. It can be reached online by
Clicking Here |
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Cheney, competing in
tennis events for 8 decades, currently holds the record for the most
United States Tennis Association (USTA) National Senior titles over
340 and has won over 20 Senior Grand Slam titles, another USTA record.
She has been, and
continues to be, victorious on every playing surface and has a winning
streak that may never be equaled. For Cheney, age is no factor, as she
has triumphed in every age group she has ever played in: from the U.S.
Womens 35s through the U.S. Womens 80s she has won titles in singles,
doubles and mixed doubles.
Ranked in the US top 10 on 11 occasions (her
highest was No. 3), Cheney became a legend in the game when she moved
into the senior ranks. I started playing the National Hard Court
Championships at La Jolla when I was 39, she recalled. I won the
singles title 13 years in a row. I was finally dethroned when I was 53,
she told CaliforniaTennis.com.
Dorothy Dodo Cheney,
born September 1, 1916, was the first American woman to win the
Australian National Championships in 1938. She was a member of the
winning Wightman Cup teams, 1937-39, until WWII cut her amateur career
short.
In Grand Slam events,
she also reached the mixed doubles final at both the French and
Wimbledon in 1946.
In 2002 at age 85,
Cheney and her daughter Christine Putnam won the USTA National Grass
Court Super-Senior Mother Daughter Championships held at the
International Tennis Hall of Fame. This marked her 311th career win.
Cheney is the daughter
of 1956 Hall of Famer May Sutton Bundy, winner of 1904 U. S.
Championships and Wimbledon in 1905 and 1907, and Tom Bundy, a U.S.
doubles champion (1912, 1913, 1914). Dodo and her mother became
the first mother-daughter combination in the International Tennis Hall
of Fame.
The mother of three and
grandmother of eight lives in La Jolla, California.
She one of 700 seniors from around the world that
competed in this two-week tournament that ended yesterday at the
Philadelphia Cricket Club.
Copyright: SeniorJournal.com |
