Daphne Ackhurst a trailblazer who created a tennis legacy

Naomi Osaka and Jennifer Brady will compete to hold aloft the Daphne Ackhurst Memorial Trophy in the Australian Open final played on Rod Laver Arena on Saturday night

Sofia Kenin kisses the Daphne Ackhurst Memorial Cup after winning the Australian Open last year

Australian Open finalist Jennifer Brady has been widely applauded for adopting an approach to strict quarantine which has allowed her to flourish over the past fortnight.

The American faces three-time major winner Naomi Osaka on Rod Laver Arena on Saturday night seeking to have her name engraved on the Daphne Ackhurst Memorial Trophy.

The difficulties modern-day players are facing to compete during the pandemic are clear given the travel restrictions and health protocols currently in place.

When Australians including Ash Barty leave later this month, there is no certainty about when they will be able to return home.

But as a new book on Ackhurst makes clear, the challenges she faced to become a trailblazer of Australian tennis in the period post World War I were far more testing.

Richard Naughton, a senior fellow in the law faculty at Monash University, details the exploits of the five-time Australian Championships winner in a new book titled “Daphne Ackhurst: The woman behind the trophy”.

Naughton, who has written books on Norman Brookes and Ken Rosewall, told The Weekend Australian Ackhurst deserves to be remembered for far more than simply being a name on a trophy.

She was a concert pianist, a music teacher and also a newspaper columnist during a rich life which ended prematurely when she died aged 29 due to complications in pregnancy.

While the travel and quarantine costs of every Australian Open competitor in 2021 were covered by Tennis Australia, Ackhurst had no such support early in her fledgling career.

A graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, she played concerts along with other fundraising measures in order to pay for an opportunity to test her skills against the world’s best in England in 1925.

“Daphne had to start playing piano concerts and they were raffling the racquets of famous male tennis players,” he said.

“Nothing had been arranged for them when they arrived in England either. They needed to collect more money so there would be sufficient expenses to get them home.”

On Ackhurst’s only other international trip in 1928, she defeated a string of top players from around the world and reached the quarter-finals at Roland Garros and the semi-finals at Wimbledon.

Her deeds saw her rated the world No 3 but, more importantly, Naughton said it made local tennis administrators realise that “Australian women’s tennis had a future”.

Legends including Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong and current No 1 Ash Barty have furthered the legacy started by Ackhurst.

Judy Dalton, a member of the Original 9 who paved the way for women’s tennis to enjoy the riches of today, writes in a forward that Ackhurst’s “story is engrossing”.

“Her wonderful tennis game, her personality, her musical gifts, her popularity with the Australian crowds and her tragic death at age 29,” she wrote.

“It all makes for a great understanding of the era and the growth of tennis, particularly among women.

“Billie Jean King has a catchphrase: ‘History matters’. And it does. The young players of today are playing a sport that has existed for 150 years.”

The second episode of AO on the Road sees the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup and Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup continue on their journey across regional Victoria along the Great Ocean Road.
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