Phyllis Satterthwaite


Phyllis Helen Satterthwaite was a female tennis player from Great Britain who was active from the early 1910s until the late 1930s.

Tennis career

In 1911 she participated for the first time in the Wimbledon Championships. In 1919 she reached the final of the All-Comers competition in which she was defeated by eventual champion Suzanne Lenglen in two sets. Two years later, in 1921, she again made it to the final of the All-Comers competition, but this time lost to American Elizabeth Ryan in two straight sets. In total she competed in 20 Wimbledon Championships between 1911 and 1935.
In 1920 she won the women's doubles title at the World Hard Court Championships in Paris. Playing alongside her compatriot Dorothy Holman they defeated the French team Germaine Golding and Jeanne Vaussard. She was selected to play in the 1923 Wightman Cup but was unable to participate.
In 1924 she participated in the Olympic Games in Paris. Via a bye in the first round and a walkover in the second she reached the third round in the singles competition which she lost in straight sets to Helen Wills who would go on to win the Gold medal.
In 1919, 1920 and 1921 she won three consecutive singles titles at the Welsh Covered Court Championships.
Satterthwaite was a baseline player with a game based on safety and keeping the ball in play. In 1930 she played against Lucia Valerio in the final of the Bordighera tournament on the Italian Riviera. At match point her determination not to make an error resulted in a rally which lasted 450 strokes. Satterthwaite won the point and the match.
In 1931 she competed in several Riviera open championships, reaching the final on 13 occasions and winning eight titles, defeating among others Cilly Aussem and Betty Nuthall. including the South of France Championships.

Personal life

She married Clement Richard Satterthwaite on 13 April 1912. Satterthwaite lived in London with her husband until April 1923 when she divorced and moved to Cannes and resided on the French Riviera thereafter. She wrote tennis reports to magazines for a living. In 1928 she visited England where he was charged by the King's Bench for tax evasion.
In 1924 she published a book titled Lawn Tennis for Women. The following year she published Tips for Tennis Players.

Death and legacy

Satterthwaite died on 20 January 1962, aged 72, in the London borough of Westminster. Upon her death, her estate was valued at £50,000 net. She had instructed the executor of her estate to make her will on the basis that she “hated all human beings and would leave her money to animals”, and told him to write a list of animal charities selected from the phone book, between whom her estate should be divided. This led to litigation , because one of the named beneficiaries, the London Animal Hospital, was not a charity. Competing claims to a share of the estate by a private individual who operated a business under that name, and by Blue Cross failed, and Lords Justice Harman and Russell ordered that a scheme cy-pres be set up.