The Tea Planter Who Conquered Wimbledon

by Rajesh Thomas

A trivia question. Which planter had the unique honor of winning the Men's singles title at the Wimbledon Tennis Championship?

Before you could question my sanity, a planter certainly did have his name up, along with the hallowed immortals of the sport on the Wimbledon honors board.

On a sunny afternoon in London in 1877, a certain Spencer Gore emerged victorious against William Marshall in a tennis match, setting off one of tennis and sports' greatest legacies, known as Wimbledon or simply the Championships.

The settings those days was a far cry to what we imagine Wimbledon or the sport of tennis to be when men played in full pants and shirt sleeves and the ladies played in floor-length skirts, stockings, and long-sleeved tops, where hardly 200 spectators watched the proceedings, unlike the millions of television viewers nowadays. More importantly, the winner did not earn millions in prize money and endorsements! The winner's prize was 12 guineas and a silver cup. The guineas adjusted for inflation would total around 700 pounds today.

Wimbledon 1877

Tennis was still the gentle sport played in the front lawns by the rich people of England over evening tea.

The first edition of the championships was considered a big success and the tournament was set for a sequel in 1878.

Just before the start of the 1878 Championships a tea planter from Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then known) Patrick Francis (Frank ) Hadow was on furlough* in his home country. He was a good cricketer in his younger days, having represented the MCC and Middlesex. He did his schooling at Harrow, the famous English public school where he excelled at racquets (an indoor game similar to squash).

Frank Hadow being a natural sportsman was persuaded by his friends to take part in the second edition of the Wimbledon Championship. He quickly adapted to the new game and reached the finals, where he was slated to meet the defending champion Spencer Gore. Frank Hadow defeated Spencer Gore in a tactical match 7–5, 6–1, 9–7 to claim the trophy.

Frank Hadow

Hadow noted that Gore's chief tactic was to approach the net and finish the points with his volley: a style Gore had mastered when everyone else played from the backcourt. Hadow countered the volley tactics of Gore by developing his new shot, the lob ( A lob is a shot which sails over the opponent when he is standing near the net, waiting to volley and into the open court behind him or her ), which he played to devastating effect.

The tables were reversed this year. While the rest of the field had no answer to Gore's net rushing tactics the previous year, Gore couldn't cope with Hadow's lob. Sport, like life, evolves, and in a few years William Renshaw, one of tennis's early greats ( he won seven Wimbledons and six in a row ) developed the overhead smash to counter the Lob.

Hadow's invention of the lob would be his greatest contribution to the game of tennis.

Frank Hadow never returned to defend his title at Wimbledon; the only champion in the history of the game to have done so. When queried on this, he is supposed to have remarked that it was 'boring' and 'tennis was a sissies sport played with a soft ball'.

It is rumored that he never played tennis again. More likely the logistics of running a tea estate and travel by ship would have also been a reason for the same. His next appearance at Wimbledon was in 1926, when he was invited for the fiftieth anniversary of the tournament,  and as a former champion he was given a commemorative medal by the All England Club.

Frank Hadow's planting career was reputed to be mainly in the Uva planting district of Ceylon. One of his brothers also served as a planter along with him in Ceylon in the 1870s and 1880s. It is assumed that they were a part of the early batch of planters who oversaw the transformation of the plantations from coffee to tea following the devastation of rust which completely decimated the coffee in Ceylon.

Little else is known about the life of Frank Hadow. After his retirement, he migrated to East Africa to pursue his interests in big game hunting. He had very good success in hunting returning with record size trophies in sable antelope, Cape buffalo, Uganda kob and eland.

No wonder he considered tennis a sissy game.

Postscript
Being a planter and a tennis aficionado, I would be grateful if anyone, especially from the planting community of Sri Lanka if they could add more to the life of Frank Hadow.

*Author's note: Historically, expatriate planters enjoyed annual leave of one month which they could spend in India, and once in three years they were given four to six months leave - or furlough - to enable them to go to their home town in Britain. This long period of leave was given to accommodate the long journey by ship.

Meet the writer:

 Rajesh Thomas introduces himself:
"A second generation planter. Born and grew up in the planting districts of Southern India. Started my career in the High Ranges and Annamallais Planting Districts for twelve years. Had a stint in Africa for two years. Since 2009 been planting in the Nilgiris.

Read all of Rajesh's stories at this link: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/J.Rajesh%20Thomas

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My name is Gowri Mohanakrishnan and I'm a tea planter's wife. I started this blog because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always), maybe a tall tale, long, or short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull.
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