Vines, H. Ellsworth, Jr.

▪ American athlete

in full  Henry Ellsworth Vines, Jr. 

born Sept. 28, 1911, Los Angeles

died March 17, 1994, La Quinta, Calif.

      U.S. tennis player of the 1930s who bounced back after a series of losses at age 18 to win the Wimbledon and U.S. singles championships.

      A versatile athlete, he attended the University of Southern California on a basketball scholarship before making his tennis debut on grass courts. After losing the 1929 Seabright tournament to Sidney Wood, Vines practiced in California for a year, coming back to win the U.S. singles championship in 1931. In 1932 he became the first player since Bill Tilden (Tilden, Bill) in 1921 to win both at Forest Hills (U.S.) and Wimbledon. Vines's unusual stroke, in which the racket traveled almost a complete circle before returning the ball, was considered to be almost unreturnable, and it helped him and Keith Gledhill to win U.S. doubles in 1932.

      After losing twice in the 1933 Davis Cup match, Vines turned professional, touring with Tilden. In 1940 he abandoned tennis for amateur golf. Vines turned professional in 1942, and, though he never won a Professional Golfers' Association tournament, he usually ranked high among the money winners during his 15-year career. Vines was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1962.

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