A Lifetime of Golden Years Rewarded

The eternal “Dodo,” a 5-foot 3-inch dynamo looks up at you with those bluer-than-blue eyes, and says, “Well, I guess it was 77 years ago.”

She is thinking back to the first of her innumerable tennis championships. “I was 10, and I won the 12-and-under singles championship held at the Midwick Country Club in Pasadena. I’ve still got the trophy. About this big.” She held two fingers three inches apart.

Of course that isn’t the reason the unsinkable -- and darned near unbeatable -- Dorothy May “Dodo” Bundy Cheney will be standing beside Steffi Graf and Stefan Edberg on a grass court this afternoon to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Those three are the Class of 2004 as the Hall celebrates its golden anniversary at the Casino, the elder of the world’s tennis grounds. It’s an annual rite during the Jimmy Van Alen Cup tournament, a way station on the ATP Tour.

You might call Cheney a work in progress. On the retirement heap are Graf, the only player to win each of the four majors at least four times (a Grand Slam achiever in 1988), and Edberg, winner of six majors, and a Swedish hand in four Davis Cup victories. But Dodo keeps campaigning across the country, ringing up U.S. championships in the -- shall we say? -- very mature reaches of the game. Her next start: the U.S. grass-court 85s a few days hence at Philadelphia.

“Retire? Never,” she laughs merrily. Why should she? She won’t be 88 until Sept. 1, and there’s more gold in them thar courts. A gold ball is awarded for every U.S. title, from the victors at Flushing Meadows, right down through the adult age groups, and Cheney has collected more with a racket than most of the original ‘49ers could with a shovel. At latest count, 347 gold balls decorated her Santa Monica home.

Don’t bet there won’t be more. “At first I just loved to play,” she said. “But the more I played the more I loved to win.” No one has won more at a national tournament level.

Turned out immaculately in a pale mauve linen suit, she said she was “having so much fun” signing autographs amid such Hall of Famers as Rod Laver, Jack Kramer, Chris Evert, Margaret Court, Guillermo Vilas, Maria Bueno, Stan Smith, Virginia Wade, Rosie Casals and Ken Rosewall. Fifty of them were here for the anniversary reunion. To the cheers of almost 5,000, they paraded on the turf where the original U.S. championships were played in 1881.

Earlier Cheney was on that court in tennis garb, playing a brief, victorious four-game exhibition with 7-year-old Nils Harder as her partner against 90-year-old Hall of Famer Gardnar Mulloy, an ex-U.S. Davis Cup player, and 8-year-old Hanna Zangari.

“It was a thrill to be on that historic court,” Dodo said. “Women’s tournaments weren’t played on it in my day.”

Nevertheless, her day continues. One reason, she says, is “my very good genes. My father and mother were both champions.” Mom, May Sutton, the U.S. champ in 1904, was the first American to win the Wimbledon title, in 1905, and repeated in 1907. Pop, Tom Bundy, won the U.S. doubles titles of 1912-13-14 with Maurice McLoughlin. A cousin, Johnny Doeg, was the U.S. singles champ in 1930.

Dodo completes a unique mother-daughter combo in the Hall. May Sutton Bundy was in the Class of 1956.

Ten times Dodo was ranked in the U.S. top 10 between 1936 and 1946, and once the world top 10, No. 6 in 1946.