How a Tasmanian tennis racquet helped Jack Crawford claim Australia's first French Open title

The northern hemisphere summer of 1933 was nearly perfect for the man tennis fans used to call Gentleman Jack.

At the age of just 25, Jack Crawford won the men's singles final at the French Open in early June, then won Wimbledon a month later, before finishing as runner up in the US Open final in September.

At the start of the year Crawford also won the Australian Open, defeating America's Keith Gledhill in the decider in four sets.

Until that point it was the closest anyone had ever gone to claiming a Grand Slam and it was achieved with a very special racquet in his right hand.

Called the Cressy Wizard, the "flat top" racquet was made by Launceston's grandly named Alexander Patent Racket Company.

The Wizard was known as a flat top racquet because it was mainly oval in shape with a squared off top edge. The design had been settled on personally between Crawford and Bill Sheehan, Alexander's enterprising business manager, a few years earlier.

While not being the first example of its kind, Alexander was the first to bring the flat top design to Australia, according to local historian Christopher "Gus" Green who has written a book on the company called What A Racket!

"It was the power they were able to put into the head," he said.

"Originally they flattened the head too much, so they had to get the balance right.

"If you notice today, most racquets have still got a very pronounced wideness at the head."

Two years after Crawford's French Open and Wimbledon triumphs, there were five models of Alexander flat top racquets available to the public — the Cressy Wizard, Defender, Hurricane, Fearless and Dauntless.

While the racquets were turning heads, Alexander's Launceston factory remained a relatively humble setting. The typical saw-tooth factory was covered by a thin corrugated iron roof and workers would huddle around heaters in their breaks during winter.

Almost all the production in the factory, including the accelerated bending of the racquet frames, was done by hand and one of the most important positions on staff was that of the racquet stringers.

John Ellis's father, Bert, started working at Alexander in 1927 as a stringer. Bert's brother William Allan Ellis (known as Bonny) designed all the logos on the racquets, and another brother, Jack, also worked at the factory.

With Bert being known across Tasmania as the fastest racquet stringer in the state, Mr Ellis is pretty sure that Crawford's 1933 batch of world-beating racquets were strung by his father.

"I can remember different conversations that we had," said Mr Ellis, from Breadalbane, south of Launceston.

"He was a pretty proud fellow, about his achievements with stringing racquets."

By 1927, the Alexander factory was producing about 750 racquets a week. In time, production increased, and the company started making cricket bats and golf clubs too.

By the late 1930s, demand for Alexander's wooden tennis racquets had risen so high the company planted 21,600 English ash trees at nearby Hollybank, in an effort to source their timber locally.

Alexander North led the project, stating that the area chosen for growing the trees was "ideal" and predicted the trees would grow to "gigantic proportions". But, it didn't turn out that way.

By 1943 it was clear that the timber at the Hollybank site was unusable. It was just one of several errors of judgement by the company's leadership, after the early glory days and Jack Crawford's on-court success.

"The heritage of the seedlings didn't suit our climate conditions," says Rod Groom, a local tennis enthusiast, who now restores old Alexander racquets for collectors.

"[It was] … a long, long time until they started to grow.

"They wanted to have production like we do with the pine forests, fast growing, so they could get timber straight away."

Historian Gus Green says unnecessary building developments, as well as a refusal to adopt modern production methods and materials, also played a role in the company's demise.

Unsuccessful talks with sports giant Spalding about taking over the factory did take place but eventually Alexander was forced to shut down in 1961 and the company went into liquidation.

A large part of the Alexander factory building is still standing today and remains in use as a Police Community and Youth Club.

Mr Green would like to see the heritage-listed building become a tennis museum at some point, if the site was to become available in future.

"I walked through the old factory the other day with a guest," he said.

"The fabric in the office is still the same, it's the same layout.

"I see a great future in the site, but that all takes time for things to sort themselves out."

For the moment, a small display of old Alexander racquets and memorabilia in the foyer is all that stands as a reminder of the building's important role in Australian sporting history.

In the middle of the wooden display cabinet, which is built partly out of Hollybank ash, is one of Crawford's Wizard Cressy racquets from his memorable year, 1933.

On the handle it says, in faded print, "World's Record Breaker."

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