"This being tennis week, the hotels of the valley are crowded to their utmost capacities. Some of the regular boarders at the Ojai Inn 'doubled up' in order to make room for the throng of young tennis players. At the Foothills Hotel, we were told, the billiard table was even made up as a bed."
- The Ojai, April 7, 1906

As the excitement gathers for the 100th Ojai Tennis Tournament, which will be held this year on April 27 through 30, a lot of time has been spent in remembering the tennis games of the past years. The first tournament was actually held in 1896, but was eliminated during a few of the early years.
In 1949, the 50th Tennis Tournament, "Golden Jubilee" as the famous author David Lavender referred to it, was centered around curious bits of lore that emerged from the first tournaments.
From the beginning, hospitality had been the keynote. It had to be. Since there wasn't even a train into the valley until 1898, the early contestants, arriving from Los Angeles, Pasadena and San Francisco, had to travel by stage across the mountains. When the train did start to run into the valley, many of the players still preferred to travel by buggy, some coming over the Casitas Pass from Santa Barbara.
Players arriving after dark were usually met by members of the tournament's hospitality committee, bearing lanterns and driving buckboards in which to convey the visitors to shelter. The Ojai people took the players into their homes and it helped to make the tournament fun and enjoyable for all.
In the early days of the tournament, the refreshments were quite conventional; ice cream and cake were sold under the live oaks of the park by the ladies from the various valley churches. 
In 1904, the refreshment booth, which was garlanded with wildflowers, gave way to a very unconventional substance, when players and spectators were served afternoon tea. This custom has never died, although the flowers garlands did in the 1920s, when the spread of cultivated land in the valley made wildflowers difficult to secure.
The booth was replaced by a pavilion-style tent in 1925 and the Tea Tent then became the tournament's social center. Massive silver heirlooms graced the serving table, while gallons of tea were poured and bushels of cookies were distributed to the guests.
The orange juice stand, an hexagonal hutch which was located on the east side of the courts, dispensed orange juice during the day when the tea tent wasn't open. The little stand was the happy by-product of the depression of the 1930s. Citrus was cheap then, and when someone thought juice would make a welcome addition to the tournament, the local packing house donated several dozen crates of fruit.
Originally, the orange juice stand was to be done only one year, but its success was so overwhelming, it was continued. Indeed it had been the salvation of some youthful players who had exceeded their allowances. One year, for example, Jack Kramer of Montebello High School, who had not yet gained his reputation as the world's greatest tennis player, found himself flat broke.
"The poor guy," reminisced Ted Schroeder, the Davis Cup star and later Jack's national doubles partner, "subsisted for three days on orange juice. He was too proud to say anything to his friends, though any of us would have been delighted to assist him - up to 50 cents apiece, that is, our allowances being what they were."
Ozzie Nelson, (before his television fame) consumed about a gallon of fresh orange juice after a hot doubles match in which he was teamed with Joe Hunt.
Like the tea and cookies, the juice was free to all. The last commercial concession of any kind had been rigorously barred from the grounds in 1923.
For many years, entertainment consisted of a Friday night dance at the Foothills Hotel, sandwiched in between a Thursday night dramatic production and a Saturday evening party, which were both held at The Thacher School.
Everyone looked forward to the social events during the tournament. As one person described it in 1897: "After a long railroad ride on a branch road to Ventura, a 15-mile stage trip into the wilds, and a further drive of five miles up into the brushlands of the foothills, the bright picture of the Thacher School in its gay attire was a great surprise."
In 1905, when the players exceeded 100, the Thacher parties were abandoned. The tennis dance was eventually moved from the Foothills Hotel to the Nordhoff High School gymnasium. 
The one necessary component to the successful tournament was the courts to play on. By 1900, with help from a four-horse team, plow and scrapers, the little town of Nordhoff (now Ojai) boasted no less than seven courts for its 400 residents. This, the local newspaper; The Ojai, proudly noted, was a greater number of courts than were available at either the California Tennis Club in San Francisco or at the Santa Monica Club.
But the Ojai courts were dirt and they stayed dirt until 1925, when asphalt was introduced. The paving of the courts only added to the great success of the Ojai Tennis Tournament which would continue throughout the years.
By 1949, as the 50th anniversary arrived, the town was in readiness. Visitors began to stream into the Ojai Valley for the Golden Anniversary of the Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament. They came from far and near - players, their chaperons, their friends, their mothers and dads, and a few "early-bird" spectators.
Among the first stars to check in was Beverly Baker, former National U.S. Girls' champion. She was soon followed by Louise Brough of Beverly Hills, second-ranking woman player in the country. School and college players came in droves to fill an entry list estimated at nearly 600, up to that point, it was the largest in the history of the tournament, and the most expensive.
Richard (Pancho) Gonzales, top-ranking player in the United States, captured the Invitation Men's Singles Championship from Bob Falkenburg, who had defeated Gonzales for the honor the year before.
Gonzales, a Los Angeles native, came from a poor Chicano family and had a history of truancy, which became a factor that worked against him as he struggled to win acceptance in the tennis community. Acceptance came during the late 1940s, Gonzales won U.S. National Singles titles in 1948 and 1949. He helped the United States hold the Davis Cup against Australia in 1949. He won eight professional singles titles, and also captured doubles titles at Wimbledon and the French Open in 1949. 
Gonzales was married six times. Among his ex-wives was the older sister of Andre Agassi. Gonzales was an early influence on Agassi's career, and shortly before he died, in 1995, he was able to watch Agassi win at Wimbledon.
At the 1949 Ojai Tournament, Louise Brough, always a great Ojai favorite, won the Invitation Women's Singles for the third straight year, then teamed up with the popular Ted Schroeder to win the Open Mixed Doubles.
Ted Schroeder, along with Bob Falkenburg, also won the Open Men's Doubles. Schroeder, who was as much an Ojai Tournament tradition as the tournament is a tradition, had just come from winning the Three Rivers Tournament at Houston, Texas.
As the tournament came to an end, there could be no doubt about it, the 50th annual Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament was a great success from just about every point of view. It had the greatest number of players, the largest crowd of spectators, the heaviest gate receipts, and the best weather of any tournament in the past.
Never had the members of the Tennis Club committees worked harder. The staging of the tournament represented months of planning which culminated in three days and nights of staying on the job.
There are few, if any, other community enterprises in California which have achieved the solid prestige of our tournament and it is a source of pride to all the people of the Ojai Valley who, over the years, have cooperated in staging this great event.
Now it is only natural that our tournaments should be close to the hearts of those of us who live here. But they also occupy a warm spot in the hearts of those who have come here each spring, either to take part in the matches or to just watch them.
The Secretary of the Southern California Tennis Association, well-expressed these sentiments when he wrote, in regards to the 50th anniversary: "For the past half century, all of the players prominent in the game of tennis in California have in their day been singularly privileged to come and play in 'The Ojai' and no event in all the annals of our fine game is more highly regarded than this unusually attractive tournament played at springtime each year here in this peaceful valley. I always think of this tournament more than any other event in our annual sports calendar, 'The Ojai' has given all of us - both young and old - the opportunity of making a trek to this garden spot of the world."

The Ojai Tennis Club has chosen this Sunday to honor third generation Venturan Dick Gould, the Stanford Men's Tennis Coach with a Pac-10 Alumni event. For a closer look at the Ojai Tennis Tournament's 100th year celebration and a glimpse into the tournament's past, an exceptional exhibit is also on display in the beautiful Ojai Valley Museum.

© 2000 The Ojai Valley News

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