Led by Dean Mathey '12 and George M. Church '15, Princeton teams excelled in the years 1910 through 1915. Mathey twice shared intercollegiate doubles championships -- in 1910, with his classmate Burnham N. Dell; and in 1911, with another classmate Charles T. Butler. Singles champion in both 1912 and 1914, Church also won the doubles in 1912 with his classmate Winfred H. Mace. Church later gave the University ten tennis courts, while Mathey, for many years a charter trustee, and Joseph L. Werner '21, a former tennis captain, gave the pavilion in the center of the tennis courts on Brokaw Field.
Princeton had one undefeated team in the first decade of the century (1906), two in the second (1913 and 1915), and five in the third (1921, 1922, 1926, 1928, 1929). Princeton's most renowned player John Van Ryn, Jr. '28 and his roommate Kenneth B. Appel '29 were intercollegiate doubles champions in 1927. Van Ryn, who was noted for his superb low volleying, later teamed with Wilmer L. Allison (University of Texas) to win the Wimbledon doubles championship in 1929 and 1930 and the United States doubles in 1931 and 193~5 -- a partnership honored in 1963 by their joint election to the National Lawn Tennis Hall of Fame.
Under Mercer Beasley, who became coach in 1933, Princeton completed three undefeated seasons in 1933, 1934, and 1938, won Eastern intercollegiate championships in 1933, 1938, and 1941, and produced the 1935 Eastern intercollegiate singles champion -- Norcross S. Tilney '35.
Assistant Coach John Conroy took over as head coach in 1942. During his thirty-year tenure, he directed eight undefeated teams, one in 1942, three from 1950 through 1952, and four from 1961 through 1964. Princeton won the Eastern intercollegiate championship in each of these years, as well as in 1953, 1957, and 1971, and shared it in 1954, 1965, 1968, and 1969. Two of Conroy's teams gained national recognition: the 1942 team was ranked Number 1, the 1951 team Number 2. In the five years from 1949 to 1953, his teams won 42 consecutive victories -- an all-time, all-sport Princeton record which stood only until six more Conroy teams accumulated 54 consecutive victories from 1960 to 1965.
Princeton players of this period won the Eastern intercollegiate doubles championship four times: Edgar M. Buttenheim '44 and Richard J. Bender '44 in 1942, Chadwick Johnson '46 and Frederick C. Prior '47 in 1944, John C. Taylor '48 and Joseph D. Scheerer '48 in 1945, and James S. Farrin '58 and David O. Brechner '59 in 1957. Two of them were singles champions: Chadwick Johnson in 1944, James Farrin in 1956 and 1957. Another outstanding player in the Conroy years was Herbert Fitzgibbon II '64, who played number one on all three undefeated teams in 1962, 1963, and 1964.
Conroy retired as tennis coach at the end of the 1971 season with a Princeton career winning average of .877.
Freshman coach William M. Summers took over the varsity coaching duties in 1971 and was succeeded in the fall of 1974 by David Benjamin, who had been captain of Harvard's 1966 Ivy League championship tennis team. Princeton teams continued in the Conroy tradition, finishing first for four consecutive years: they took the Eastern intercollegiate championship outright in 1974 and 1975, shared it with Harvard in 1976, and won it outright again in 1977.
WOMEN'S TENNIS
First organized in 1970, women's tennis teams proved to be equally formidable, taking the Eastern intercollegiate women's championship the first five years and sustaining a 35-match winning streak from 1971 through 1975. Marjory Gengler '73, the first Princeton woman to be awarded the white sweater with black P traditionally given captains of championship teams, was also Princeton's first winner of the Eastern intercollegiate women's singles championship, in the fall of 1970. Her classmate Jane Kincaid took the same title in both succeeding years, and in 1975, Linda Rice '78 became Princeton's fourth Eastern women's singles champion in six years. In doubles, Susan Epstein '76 and Julie Kirkham '76 won the Eastern championship in 1972. Eve Kraft coached the women until 1973 when she resigned to devote full time to the Princeton Community Tennis Program, in which she was co-director with John Conroy. Her successors have been Anne Marie Hicks, Carla Geiser, and Marie McCallum.