Pat Spence

Patrick Spence began his tennis prominence in Great Britain in 1922 when he became Scottish champion after winning the local tournament.[1] The next year he defended his title.[1]

In 1924. he took the Middlesex Championships against compatriot Louis Raymond, with whom he also won the doubles title, but lost the mixed doubles title against him.[5] He first became the covered courts champion at the Queen's Club the same year by beating reigning champion Patrick Wheatley in three sets.[6]

In April 1925 he won the British Hard Court Championships over Charles Kingsley.[7] He also won the mixed doubles with Evelyn Colyer.[7] A week later, at the Surrey Hard Court Championships, he defeated Randolph Lycett of Australia in straight sets.[8] At another hard court tournament in London he was defeated by Indian Sydney M. Jacob in five sets.[9] He shared the doubles victory with Raymond and the mixed doubles with Colyer.[9] In September he won the North London Hard Courts Championships on clay at the Gipsy Lawn Tennis Club, Stamford Hill against Harry Lewis-Barclay.[10] In October he successfully defended his covered courts title against Edward Higgs.[11] That month he failed to capture the Drive Club Open Tournament title.[12]

In 1926 he was a finalist for the Kent Championships.[13]

In 1927 Spence reached the semi-finals of the French championships, beating Frank Hunter before losing to René Lacoste.[14] He met Lacoste for his second British Hard Court Championships trophy but was subdued in straight sets. He also lost the doubles against the French team of Lacoste and Brugnon.[15] The next year they had their rematch also in the final and Lacoste overcame Spence for the second time.[16]

In 1928, he was upset in the final of the Kent Championships for the second time.[13] He also lost the Middlesex Championships to Randolph Lycett.[17] However, he was more successful in his mixed doubles matches, including the final of the Nottingham Championships, which he won with Betty Nuthall.[18] One of his bigger accomplishments came when he took the 1928 Wimbledon Championships mixed doubles contest with Elizabeth Ryan.[3]

In 1930, as a member of the International Tennis Club of Great Britain, he participated in the team challenge against Rot-Weiss Club of Berlin, winning all of his four matches (two singles and two doubles) and defeating high-profile players such as Daniel Prenn and Heinrich Kleinschroth.[19] Also in 1930 he lost the London Covered Courts Championships to Yoshiro Ohta, but as many times before he was triumphant in the mixed contest with his recurring partner Nuthall.[20]

In 1931, he was a runner-up for the doubles tournament of the West-England Championships with Edward Avory, losing to the Japanese pair of Jiro Satoh and Ryuki Miki.[21] He was also runner up in the Championship of London in doubles.[22] As in his previous years his breakthrough came in the mixed doubles competitions; first he and Betty Nuthall went for the British Hard Court Championships in April and were only eliminated in the final,[23] while in May they won the mixed title at the French Championships (now the French Open).[3]

A couple of years later, in 1935, he reached the final of the Surrey Grass Court Championships, where he was stopped by New Zealand's Eskell D. Andrews.[24] The importance of that particular match was the test of a new service rule implemented for the first time there, which allowed the server to swing his leg over the baseline on serve but introduced the service box.[25] In 1936 he won the Queen's Club hard court doubles with John Olliff.[26]

In the Davis Cup, he set a 14–7 match record (66% winning ratio) and represented South Africa from 1924 to 1931.

Patrick Spence was born 11 February 1898 in Queenstown, Cape Colony. He moved to Edinburgh after the First World War.[27] He graduated from Edinburgh University with a doctorate in medicine.[27] Apart from playing tennis, he was an amateur rugby player.[1] He worked at Guy's Hospital in London and then in Richmond, London in 1930.[27] Later with several colleagues, he was in private practice in Kingston-on-Thames as Howlett, Kemp, Carson and Spence, from which he retired in 1934.[28] He formed a real-life couple with his 18-year-old doubles partner Betty Nuthall,[27][29] with whom he won the French Open mixed doubles tournament in 1931.[3] He married Joy Robson, a ballerina with Sadler Wells Ballet, and had four children: Mikael, Stephen, Mandy and Charles

British Davis Cup team member Nigel Sharpe described him as an attacking type of player. He preferred to pace the ball rather than give it a spin. He tended to go to the net, but his volley showed indecisiveness. He possessed a severe overhead shot. He had a long-swinged forehand, on which he applied a moderate topspin. His backhand was weak, and he always placed himself to receive the ball to his forehand side.[1]

• Pat Spence at the International Tennis Federation
• Pat Spence at the Davis Cup
• Pat Spence at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)