Marjorie Leeming (1997)

"She just seemed to grow up with a tennis racquet in her hand," recalled an old Victoria neighbour. He remembered her as a young girl practicing her howitzer serve and overpowering forehand on the family's private court. Marjorie would go on to dominate the tennis world and won more than 100 silver cups throughout her career. She began her all-encompassing domination of women's tennis at the age of 12, when she captured her first of four successive B.C. girls' under-16 titles. Marjorie first won the B.C. women's singles championship in 1923 and was voted the outstanding tennis player in the province that year. She repeated in 1924, 1925, 1926, 1930 and 1931. In 1925 she won everything there was to win in Canada. As usual, she won the B.C. singles, doubles and mixed doubles. She then made headlines across the country with the rare triple sweep-winning the Canadian women's singles and doubles title (the latter with Helen Tatlow) and the mixed doubles (with John Proctor of Victoria). She won the Canadian women's singles title again in 1926 and 1927, and with her sister, Hope, the Canadian doubles title in 1930 and 1932. Marjorie also went to the U.S. Open at Forest Hills in 1932, making it to the third round of the singles before losing.