Patricia Henry Yeomans

In a career spanning 70 years, Patricia Henry Yeomans (b.1917) spearheaded many of the century’s tennis milestones. The daughter of California champion Corinne Stanton and sportswriter Bill Henry, Yeomans was a tennis natural, winning the national junior title in 1935. At Occidental College, she worked her way to No. 1 on the men’s freshman team before being banned from competition. She swept the College Girls’ Invitational in 1936 and 1937, the ‘unofficial’ intercollegiate tournament of the era.

Involved in every level of tennis from juniors to seniors, Yeomans helped Helen Lewis organize the first sanctioned women’s collegiate championship in 1958 and pioneered tournament play for 50-and-over age groups. With tennis official Joseph Bixler and former champion Jack Kramer, Yeomans began lobbying in 1972 to bring tennis back to the Olympics. Her dream was achieved in 1984 when tennis premiered at the L.A. Olympics and was approved as a full medal sport for the ’88 Games.