Katherine "Kay" Tuckey, also known by her married name Kay Maule, (1921/1922 – 14 May 2016) was an English female

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

player who was active from the second half of the 1940s until the early 1950s.

Early life

Tuckey was born in

Godalming Godalming ( ) is a market town and civil parish in southwest Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, at the confluence of the Rivers Wey and Ock. The civil parish covers and includes the settl ...

, Surrey. She attended St Catherine's School at Bramley. When the family moved to Bournemouth she went to the local

Talbot Heath School Talbot Heath School is a selective, private day and boarding school for girls aged 2–18 located in Talbot Woods, Bournemouth, Dorset, England. The school was founded as Bournemouth High School in 1886 by founding headmistress Mary Broad. Ta ...

. She joined West Hants Lawn Tennis Club, venue of the

British Hard Court Championships The British Hard Court Championships was a Grand Prix tennis and WTA Tour affiliated tennis tournament, played in the Open Era from 1968 to 1983 and again (albeit not named as such) from 1995 to 1999. History As an amateur tournament, the inaug ...

, when she was 12.

Career

Tuckey won the Rhine Army Championships, held in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, Germany, in 1946. Between 1947 and 1951 she competed in five

Wimbledon Championships The Wimbledon Championships, commonly called Wimbledon, is a tennis tournament organised by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in collaboration with the Lawn Tennis Association annually in Wimbledon, London. It is chronologically the ...

. Her best singles result was reaching the quarterfinal in

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the Uni ...

where she was defeated by top-seeded

Louise Brough Althea Louise Brough Clapp (née Brough; March 11, 1923 – February 3, 2014) was an American tennis player. In her career between 1939 and 1959, she won six Grand Slam titles in singles as well as numerous doubles and mixed-doubles titles. At ...

in three sets after winning the first set. In doubles she reached the quarterfinals in 1950 and 1951 with compatriots Betty Harrison and

Jean Quertier Jean Rinkel-Quertier (née Quertier; 12 November 1925 – 23 January 2019), was a female former tennis player from England who was active in the late 1940s and 1950s. Career Her best performance at a Grand Slam tournament was reaching the final ...

respectively. In 1950 she won the

All England Plate The All England Plate, also referred to as the Wimbledon Plate, was a tennis competition held at the Wimbledon Championships which consisted of players who were defeated in the first or second rounds of the Tennis singles, singles competition. The ...

, a competition held at the Wimbledon Championships for players who were defeated in the first or second rounds of the singles event. In the final she defeated Betty Rosenquest in straight sets. At the 1951 U.S. Championships she was the third-seeded foreign player and reached the quarterfinal after a victory in the third round against sixth-seeded Beverly Baker. She lost the quarterfinal in three sets to second-seeded

Shirley Fry Shirley June Fry Irvin (née Fry; June 30, 1927 – July 13, 2021) was an American tennis player. During her career, which lasted from the early 1940s until the mid-1950s, she won the singles title at all four Grand Slam events, as well as 13 dou ...

. With Betty Hilton she won the doubles title at the British Hard Court Championships in May 1950 against

and Jean Walker-Smith. The level of play in the three-sets final, watched by Wightman Cup selectors, was described as poor. She played for the British team in the

Wightman Cup The Wightman Cup was an annual team tennis competition for women contested from 1923 through 1989 (except during World War II) between teams from the United States and Great Britain. History U.S. player Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman wanted to generat ...

, an annual team tennis competition for women contested between teams from the United States and Great Britain, from 1949 until 1951. According to

John Olliff John Sheldon Olliff (1 December 1908 – 29 June 1951) was an English tennis player, author and sports journalist. Life Olliff took part in the Wimbledon Championships from 1928. In singles, he advanced to the fourth round several times unti ...

of ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', Tuckey achieved a highest career ranking of world No. 10 in 1951.

Personal life

In 1951 she met her future husband John Maule and they married later that year in Bournemouth. The couple had four children. Her mother,

Agnes Tuckey Agnes Katherine Raymond Tuckey (née Daniell; 8 July 1877 – 13 May 1972) was an English tennis player. With Hope Crisp, she was the winner of the first Wimbledon mixed doubles in 1913. In 1906 she married Charles Orpen Tuckey who taught Ma ...

, and brother, Raymond Tuckey, were also tennis players.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tuckey, Kay 2016 deaths British female tennis players Sportspeople from Godalming Year of birth uncertain Tennis players from Surrey English female tennis players Sportspeople from Bournemouth People educated at Talbot Heath School 20th-century English sportswomen