Esna Boyd Robertson (née Boyd; 21 September 1899 – 13 November 1966) was an Australian

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

player who reached seven consecutive women's singles finals at the

Australian Championships The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. Th ...

from 1922 through 1928. She won one of those finals, defeating

Sylvia Lance Harper Sylvia Harper (née Lance; 1 October 1895 – 21 October 1982) was an Australia tennis player who won the singles title at the 1924 Australian Championships. She reached the singles final there two other times, in 1927, losing to Esna Boyd, an ...

in 1927. Robertson participated in the first women's singles final at the Australian Championships in 1922 against fellow Australian

Margaret Molesworth Maud Margaret 'Mall' Molesworth (née Mutch; 18 October 1894 – 9 July 1985) was a tennis player from Queensland, Australia who won the inaugural Australasian Championships women's singles title in 1922 and successfully defended her title in 1 ...

. According to Wallis Myers of ''The Daily Telegraph'' and the ''Daily Mail'', Robertson was ranked world No. 10 in 1928. Boyd was born in Melbourne on 21 September 1899, the daughter of James Boyd, a politician, and Emma Flora McCormack. She had a sister, Alva who became a medical practitioner. She married Angus Robertson on 11 March 1929; they had a son, William, in 1930 and a daughter Mary, in 1933.

Grand Slam finals

Singles: 7 (1 title, 6 runners-up)

Doubles: 6 (4 titles, 2 runners-up)

Mixed doubles: 5 (3 titles, 2 runners-up)

Grand Slam singles tournament timeline

¹Through 1923, the French Championships were open only to French nationals. The World Hard Court Championships (WHCC), actually played on clay in Paris or Brussels, began in 1912 and were open to all nationalities. The results from the 1922 and 1923 editions of that tournament are shown here. The Olympics replaced the WHCC in 1924, as the Olympics were held in Paris. Beginning in 1925, the French Championships were open to all nationalities, with the results shown here beginning with that year.

References