Maud Barger

Maud Barger-Wallach was an American female tennis player of the early 1900s. She was the daughter of Samuel F. Barger, a lawyer and director of the New York Central Railroad, and Edna Jenie LaFavor. In June 1890 she married sportsman Richard Wallach.

She only began playing tennis when she was about 30 years old, but made up her lost time by exuberantly dedicating herself to the sport. In 1908 Barger-Wallach became the oldest U.S. Open champion at the age of 38 when she defeated Evelyn Sears (42 year-old Molla Mallory won in 1926, taking away her old-age record).

A lifetime summer resident of Newport, Rhode Island, she loved playing on the grass courts. In 1909, she was runner-up to the evergreen Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman. Remarkably, she was a quarterfinalist at the U.S. Championships in 1916 at age 46.

At the age of 61 in 1931 she traveled overseas with the U.S. men's tennis contingent, and when Sidney Wood of the U.S. won the Wimbledon Gentlemen's Singles over Frank Shields of the U.S. in the final, in a walkover because Shields was injured, Wood gave his trophy to Barger-Wallach to hold till the next time that he and Shields should play each other on grass (as at Wimbledon), telling her to give it to the winner. Wood finally met Shields in a tournament on grass at Queen's Club in London three years later, beating him, and Barger-Wallach then gave Wood's Wimbledon trophy to him.

She was a right-handed baseline player with an accurate but soft forehand and a weak backhand which, if possible, she tried to run around. She had an unorthodox playing style characterized by an underhand serve, accurate placements as well as tennis intelligence and determination.

Barger-Wallach was inducted in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1958.