Tennis champion dies

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32775, 27 November 1971, Page 18

Tennis champion dies

(N.Z. Press Association) HASTINGS. A notable New Zealand sportswoman who won 11 national tennis titles between 1924 and 1933 died in Hastings this week. She was Mrs Mary Mitchell, who, as Miss Spiers and later as Mrs Dykes, won the womens singles in 1924, 1926, 1928 and 1931, the doubles in 1926, 1929, 1931 and 1933, and the mixed doubles in 1926, 1927 and 1929.

She was born in Christchurch in 1903 and won the first tennis tournament she i played in, the Canterbury ! championship. Her tennis career began .with the Avonside Club, and | she represented both Canterbury and Wellington in Nun-

Ineley Casket and won the I Auckland championship on (several occasions. From tennis, Mrs Mitchell went on to golf and bowls. She won the Wellington champion-of-champions bowls singles and skipped a Sea£ toun four to the Wellington rinks championship in 1947. * During the Second World War she received a citatioq from King George VI for her services to the Red Crosl movement.

South African cricket.—P, I Pocock, the Surrey and formes England spin bowler, took five i for 52 before Border declared iat 260 for nine in the first day iof its. Currie Cup cricket match [against Northern Transvaal in Pretoria. B. Long (93) and I« McCleneghan (65) top scored for Border. *