Mary Cartwright Heeley was a British female tennis player. Heeley was born on 30 March 1911 in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

and was educated at the Edgbaston High School. In 1928 she won the Junior Championships of Great Britain. Heeley reached the doubles final at the 1933

Wimbledon Championships The Wimbledon Championships, commonly known simply as Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely regarded as the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London, since 1877 and is pla ...

with

Norman Farquharson Norman Gordon Farquharson (18 July 1907 – 11 August 1992) was a male tennis player from South Africa. In 1931 Farquharson and his compatriot partner Vernon Kirby were runners-up in the doubles final of the French Championships, losing in st ...

but were defeated in the final by

Hilde Krahwinkel Sperling Hildegard "Hilde" Krahwinkel Sperling ( née Krahwinkel; 26 March 1908 – 7 March 1981) was a German tennis player who became a dual-citizen after marrying Dane Svend Sperling in December 1933. She won three consecutive singles titles at the Fr ...

and

Gottfried von Cramm Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm (; 7 July 1909 – 8 November 1976) was a German tennis champion who won the French Open twice and reached the final of a Grand Slam on five other occasions. He was ranked number 2 in ...

in two straight sets. Her best singles performance at a Grand Slam tournament was reaching the semifinal at the 1932 Wimbledon Championships which she lost in straight sets to eventual champion Helen Wills Moody. In May 1929 she was a runner–up at the

British Hard Court Championships The British Hard Court Championships is a defunct Grand Prix tennis and WTA Tour affiliated tennis tournament played from 1968 to 1983 and 1995 to 1999. The inaugural edition of the tournament was held in 1924 in Torquay, moving to the West Han ...

losing the final in straight sets to

Simonne Mathieu Simonne Mathieu ( Passemard; (Spelled "Simone" in many sources.) 31 January 1908 – 7 January 1980) was a female tennis player from France, born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine who was active in the 1930s. During World War II, she creat ...

. In 1931 she defeated Jeanette Morfey in the final of the

British Covered Court Championships The British Covered Court Championships (BCCC) was an indoor tennis event held from 1885 through 1971 and played in London, England. The dates of the tournament fluctuated between October and March. History For its first five years the tournament ...

, played on wood courts at the

Queen's Club The Queen's Club is a private sporting club in West Kensington, London, England. The club hosts the annual Queen's Club Championships men's grass court lawn tennis tournament (currently known as the "cinch Championships" for sponsorship r ...

in London, with the loss of just one game. In 1932 she won the

Kent Championships The Kent Championships also known as the Kent All-Comers' Championships was a tennis tournament held in Foxgrove Road, Beckenham, Kent, England between 1886 and 1996 and was held in the first half of June. From 1887 until 1910 the tournament was ...

after a three–sets victory in the final over

Freda James Winifred Alice "Freda" James (married name Hammersley) (11 January 1911 – 27 December 1988) was a British female tennis player of the 1930s. She won the women's doubles in Grand Slam events three times : in 1933 at the US Women's National Ch ...

. That year she was ranked No.1 in Britain. She was part of the British team that lost the

1933 Wightman Cup The 1933 Wightman Cup was the 11th edition of the annual women's team tennis competition between the United States and Great Britain. It was held at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, Queens in New York City in the United States. See als ...

against the United States at the

West Side Tennis Club The West Side Tennis Club is a private tennis club located in Forest Hills, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. The club has 38 tennis courts in all four surfaces ( clay court, Har-Tru, grass court and hardcourt), a jun ...

in New York. She played a doubles match with

Dorothy Round Dorothy Edith Round (13 July 1909 – 12 November 1982), was a British tennis player who was active from the late 1920s until 1950. She achieved her major successes in the 1930s. She won the singles title at Wimbledon in 1934 and 1937, and the ...

which they lost in straight sets to

Helen Jacobs Helen Hull Jacobs (August 6, 1908 – June 2, 1997) was an American tennis player who won nine Grand Slam titles. In 1936 she was ranked No. 1 in singles by A. Wallis Myers. Early life Jacobs was born in Globe, Arizona, and was Jewish. Her par ...

and

Sarah Palfrey Sarah Hammond Palfrey Danzig (née Palfrey; September 18, 1912 – February 27, 1996) was an American tennis player whose adult amateur career spanned 19 years, from June 1926 until September 1945. She won two singles, nine women's doubles, and ...

. That same year she won the doubles title with Round at the

Pacific Coast Championships The Pacific Coast Championships was an annual men's tennis tournament. It was the second-oldest ongoing tennis tournament in the United States and ran from 1889 until 2013. Its final edition, known by its sponsored name SAP Open, was an ATP World ...

. Mary Heeley died in 2002.

Grand Slam finals

Mixed doubles (1 runner-up)

References

External links

National Portrait Gallery – Mary Heeley images

1931 British Pathé filmreel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heeley, Mary British female tennis players 1911 births 2002 deaths English female tennis players Tennis people from the West Midlands (county)