Hall of Fame

Xavier University of Louisiana men's tennis

Jimmie McDaniel

  • Class
  • Induction
    2022
  • Sport(s)
    Men's Tennis
•  The United States Tennis Association named him the greatest black player of the pre-war (World War II) era
•  Four-time American Tennis Association men's singles champion (1939, 1940, 1941, 1946)
•  McDaniel and three other XULA standouts — Dick Cohen, Louis Graves and Robert Ryland — were part of the International Tennis Hall of Fame & Museum's exhibit at the 2007 U.S. Open to honor black tennis pioneers
•  On July 29, 1940, McDaniel played Grand Slam winner Don Budge in New York City in what has been called the first important interracial tennis match . . . Budge won the exhibition, played before approximately 2,000 spectators at Harlem's Cosmopolitan Tennis Club, 6-1, 6-2 but praised McDaniel's skills afterward
•  Rallied to defeat XULA teammate Dick Cohen 10-12, 5-7, 7-5, 6-3, 6-1 in the 1940 ATA final at Wilberforce, Ohio — part of a dominating run in which McDaniel won 38 of 43 tournaments from 1939 through 1941
•  As a schoolboy in southern California, he competed against Bobby Riggs, about a year and a half younger than McDaniel and an eventual six-time Grand Slam champion
•  Born in 1916 and died in 1990 at age 73
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