Tennis Hits the Books
Ted Tinling is best known as the designer of tennis apparel for some of the early stars of women’s tennis. When Gladys Heldman launched the Women’s Professional Tour, she enlisted Tinling to design the tennis clothes worn by the players. Tinling transformed tennis clothes out of the dowdy ankle-length dresses into something that was glamorous and sexy. He was instrumental in advancing women’s tennis into the modern era.
It may surprise people to learn that there was a lot more to Tinling’s involvement with tennis than just fashion design. English by birth, Tinling had been sent to the French Riviera for treatment of asthma when he was in his early teens. That is where he was in 1924, at the tender age of 13 when he was pressed into service as the chair umpire for one of Suzanne Lenglen’s matches. In fact, following that match she regarded him as her personal good luck charm. He officiated over 104 of her matches over the next several years.
Suzanne Lenglen was a tennis superstar and a big draw for spectators at her matches. After a fiasco involving her play at Wimbledon in 1926 that resulted in an early exit from the event, Tinling was hired as a player liaison for the Championships to prevent future occurrences. He held that post until a falling out over some panties that he had designed for Gussie Moran. Through his involvement at Wimbledon and on the French Rivera, he developed close associations with several of the big personalities of tennis. In fact, his book is presented as a series of portraits of those people and their rivalries.
On the topic of Gussie Moran’s panties, I suspect that most tennis fans have a vague familiarity with the episode by dint of the fact that it became integrated within the tennis vernacular. “Who cares about the lace on Gussie Moran’s panties” is a convenient phrase to communicate that something is being blown out of proportion or given more attention than it deserves. The actual event had so much more nuance and depth than I previously imagined.
The stories about the dresses that Tinling designed are at times just as interesting as the personalities who wore them. As an example, there were two dresses designed for Billie Jean King to wear in the “Battle of the Sexes” match against Bobby Riggs. The “primary” dress was rejected at the last minute because the material was unfamiliar to her and she was afraid that it would be a distraction as she played the match. The standby dress was a remake of her dress from the most recent Wimbledon. After belatedly realizing that it needed some extra “sparkle” for the expansive Astrodome, Tinling was literally sewing sequins to the dress as they drove to the match.
Tinling: Sixth Years in Tennis is a fascinating read. In addition to his own role as a transformative fashion designer for tennis, Tinling had a front row seat as the biggest stars and personalities in the sport plied their craft. His eye for detail and nuance makes him a compelling narrator of events and he clearly understood the significance of the history that unfolded before his eyes.
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