Sarah Palfrey Cooke Biography

Sarah Hammond Palfrey Danzig (ne Palfrey; September 18, 1912 - February 27, 1996) was a female tennis player from the United States whose career spanned two decades from the late 1920s until the late 1940s. She won the singles title at the U.S. Championships in 1941 and 1945.

Career

Palfrey twice won the singles title at the U.S. Championships, the second time in 1945 at the age of 32. She was only the second mother to have won the title, with Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman being the first. Palfrey won the 1945 title after being down 4-3 in the third set to Pauline Betz, with Betz serving. Betz was the three-time defending champion, and Palfrey had defeated her in the 1941 and 1945 finals.

Palfrey is one of the few women, if not the sole woman, to appear on a top-level male championship honor roll. Because of the manpower crisis during World War II, she and second husband Elwood Cooke were permitted in 1945 to enter the men's doubles of the Tri-State Championships in Cincinnati. They reached the final, losing to Hal Surface and Bill Talbert.

Palfrey won 16 Grand Slam championships in women's doubles (11) and mixed doubles (5). She teamed with Betty Nuthall to win the 1930 U.S. Championships and with Helen Jacobs to win the 1932, 1934, and 1935 championships. Palfrey and Alice Marble won the U.S. Championships from 1937 to 1940. At Wimbledon, Palfrey and Marble won the 1938 and 1939 women's doubles championship. Palfrey's final U.S. women's doubles championship was in 1941 with Margaret Osborne. In mixed doubles, Palfrey teamed with four different partners to win the U.S. Championships: Fred Perry (1932), Enrique Maier (1935), Don Budge (1937), and Jack Kramer (1941). Palfrey also won the mixed doubles title at the 1939 French Championships, teaming with her future husband Elwood Cooke. Palfrey and Marble were undefeated in doubles for four years (1937-40).

In 1947, Palfrey turned professional and went on a "barnstorming" tour of one-night stands with Betz, who had been stripped of her amateur status by the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) for merely inquiring about the possibility of creating a tour for professionals. They earned about US$10,000 each.

According to A. Wallis Myers and John Olliff of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, Palfrey was ranked in the World Top Ten 1933-36 and 1938-39 (no rankings issued 1940-45), reaching a career high in those rankings of World No. 4 in 1934. Palfrey was included in the year-end Top Ten rankings issued by the USLTA 1929-31, 1933-41, and 1945. She was the top-ranked U.S. player in 1941 and 1945.

Palfrey and Marble lobbied the USLTA to remove the color bar and allow Althea Gibson to play at heretofore whites-only tournaments beginning in 1950. "She [Palfrey] was calmly persuasive, had clout as an ex-champ, and got Althea into the U.S. Championships in 1950," said Gladys Heldman, founder of the Women's Professional Tennis Tour.

Palfrey once said, "Tennis is the best game there is. It combines mental and physical qualities and is the sport for a lifetime. And there are many living examples at the age of 80 to prove it. So it is enough for us to know that tennis will remain, under whatever conditions, whether amateur or pro, the finest game there is for us, for our children, and our children's children."

Palfrey was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1963.

Personal life

She was married three times; to Marshal Fabyan, Elwood Cooke, and Jerome Alan Danzig and had two children. She married Fabyan on October 6, 1934, but divorced him in Reno, Nevada on July 20, 1940. She married Cooke on October 2, 1940, and had a daughter with him who was born on December 22, 1942. She divorced him on April 29, 1949, on grounds of cruelty. She married Danzig on April 27, 1951, and remained married to him until her death of lung cancer in 1996. She had a son with Danzig who was born December 19, 1952.

Her brother, John Palfrey, also an excellent tennis player and an expert on atomic energy, married Belle "Clochette" Roosevelt Palfrey, a granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt and a daughter of Kermit Roosevelt. She also had four sisters, who were all fine tennis players.

Grand Slam finals

Singles (2 titles, 2 runners-up)

Outcome	Year	Championship	Surface	Opponent	Score
Runner-up	1934	U.S. Championships	Grass	Helen Jacobs	1-6, 4-6
Runner-up	1935	U.S. Championships	Grass	Helen Jacobs	2-6, 4-6
Winner	1941	U.S. Championships	Grass	Pauline Betz	7-5, 6-2
Winner	1945	U.S. Championships	Grass	Pauline Betz	3-6, 8-6, 6-4

Doubles (11 titles, 3 runner-ups)

Outcome	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Winner	1930	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Betty Nuthall	Edith Cross Anna McCune Harper	3-6, 6-3, 7-5
Winner	1932	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Helen Jacobs	Alice Marble Marjorie Morrill	8-6, 6-1
Runner-up	1934	French Championships	Clay	Helen Jacobs	Simonne Mathieu Elizabeth Ryan	6-3, 4-6, 2-6
Winner	1934	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Helen Jacobs	Carolin Babcock Dorothy Andrus	4-6, 6-3, 6-4
Winner	1935	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Helen Jacobs	Carolin Babcock Dorothy Andrus	6-4, 6-2
Runner-up	1936	Wimbledon Championships	Grass	Helen Jacobs	Freda James Kay Stammers	2-6, 1-6
Runner-up	1936	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Helen Jacobs	Marjorie Gladman Van Ryn Carolin Babcock	7-9, 6-2, 4-6
Winner	1937	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Alice Marble	Marjorie Gladman Van Ryn Carolin Babcock	7-5, 6-4
Winner	1938	Wimbledon Championships	Grass	Alice Marble	Simonne Mathieu Billie Yorke	6-2, 6-3
Winner	1938	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Alice Marble	Simonne Mathieu Jadwiga J?drzejowska	6-8, 6-4, 6-3
Winner	1939	Wimbledon Championships	Grass	Alice Marble	Helen Jacobs Billie Yorke	6-1, 6-0
Winner	1939	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Alice Marble	Kay Stammers Freda Hammersley	7-5, 8-6
Winner	1940	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Alice Marble	Dorothy Bundy Marjorie Gladman Van Ryn	6-4, 6-3
Winner	1941	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Margaret Osborne	Dorothy Bundy Pauline Betz	3-6, 6-1, 6-4

Mixed doubles (5 titles, 5 runner-ups)

Outcome	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Winner	1932	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Fred Perry	Helen Jacobs Ellsworth Vines	6-3, 7-5
Runner-up	1933	U.S. National Championships	Grass	George Lott	Elizabeth Ryan Ellsworth Vines	9-11, 1-6
Winner	1935	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Enrique Maier	Kay Stammers Roderich Menzel	6-4, 4-6, 6-3
Runner-up	1936	Wimbledon Championships	Grass	Don Budge	Dorothy Round Fred Perry	9-7, 5-7, 4-6
Runner-up	1936	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Don Budge	Alice Marble Gene Mako	3-6, 2-6
Winner	1937	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Don Budge	Sylvie Henrotin Yvon Petra	6-2, 8-10, 6-0
Runner-up	1938	Wimbledon Championships	Grass	Henner Henkel	Alice Marble Don Budge	1-6, 4-6
Winner	1939	French Championships	Clay	Elwood Cooke	Simonne Mathieu Franjo Kukuljevi?	4-6, 6-1, 7-5
Runner-up	1939	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Elwood Cooke	Alice Marble Harry Hopman	7-9, 1-6
Winner	1941	U.S. National Championships	Grass	Jack Kramer	Pauline Betz Bobby Riggs	4-6, 6-4, 6-4

Grand Slam singles tournament timeline

Tournament	1928	1929	1930	1931	1932	1933	1934	1935	1936	1937	1938	1939	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	Career SR
Australian Championships	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	NH	NH	NH	NH	NH	0 / 0
French Championships	A	A	A	A	A	A	3R	A	A	A	A	QF	NH	R	R	R	R	A	0 / 2
Wimbledon	A	A	2R	A	4R	A	QF	A	2R	A	QF	SF	NH	NH	NH	NH	NH	NH	0 / 6
U.S. Championships	1R	3R	3R	3R	2R	QF	F	F	1R	1R	SF	QF	3R	W	A	QF	A	W	2 / 16
SR	0 / 1	0 / 1	0 / 2	0 / 1	0 / 2	0 / 1	0 / 3	0 / 1	0 / 2	0 / 1	0 / 2	0 / 3	0 / 1	1 / 1	0 / 0	0 / 1	0 / 0	1 / 1	2 / 24

R = tournament restricted to French nationals and held under German occupation.
SR = the ratio of the number of Grand Slam singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.

See also

• Performance timelines for all female tennis players who reached at least one Grand Slam final