Kay Stammers
Full name: Katherine 'Kay' Esther Stammers
Alias: Mrs Kay Menzies
Alias: Mrs Kay Menzies
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| Bio | Stammers was born in St Albans, United Kingdom. Her father worked in insurance. She was educated at St Albans High School for Girls. She was educated at St Albans High School for Girls and was taught to play tennis by her parents while a young girl. Aged only 17, in 1931 she made her first appearance at Wimbledon - as a qualifier, and wearing pigtails - losing in the second round. In 1934, she was third in the LTA rankings, and the following year won the French women's doubles. Left-handed and with a good forehand, Stammers played an attacking style of tennis and was trained by Dan Maskell. She played in an era when the women's game was dominated by Helen Wills Moody, Helen Jacobs, and Alice Marble. But Stammers defeated Jacobs in a 1939 Wimbledon semifinal and in singles matches at the 1935 and 1936 Wightman Cup. At the 1935 Kent Championships in Beckenham, England, Stammers became the first British player to beat Moody in 11 years. According to A. Wallis Myers and John Olliff of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, Stammers was ranked in the world top ten in 1935, 1936, 1938, 1939, and 1946, reaching a career high of World No. 2 in those rankings in 1939. Stammers won the women's doubles title at Wimbledon in 1935 and 1936 with partner Freda James Hammersley. She also won the women's doubles title at the 1935 French Championships with partner Peggy Scriven. Her best performances in women's doubles at the US Championships were in 1936, 1937, and 1938 when she reached the semifinals and in 1939 when she reached the final. In the 1936 semifinal, she and partner Marble were defeated by Jacobs and Sarah Palfrey Cooke 6–2, 21–19. In the 1939 final, she and partner Hammersley lost to Marble and Cooke 6–1, 6–2. Also in 1939, Kay Stammers married Michael Menzies, a banker who was then serving with the Welsh Guards. During the war Kay Stammers played exhibition matches on behalf of the Red Cross, and served as an ambulance driver. When peace returned she captained Britain's Wightman Cup team for a couple of years before, in 1949, she and her husband went to live in South Africa, where Menzies set up Hill Samuel's South African operation. They remained there for nearly 20 years, until he was transferred to New York to head the office there. She had two sons and a daughter with Menzies. In 1974 she and Menzies divorced, and the following year Kay Stammers married American lawyer Thomas Walker Bullitt whom she had met on the American tennis circuit. The couple lived at Oxmoor Farm, near Louisville, Kentucky. Stammers continued to be interested in tennis throughout her life and attended Wimbledon annually until her age made it impossible to travel. She died at her home in Louisville and was buried in the family cemetery on December 28, 2005. Her children survive her, and two of her teenage grandsons play tennis in the junior national league in the United States. |
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