Meet Lena Rice: Ireland’s most successful female tennis player

It’s 125 years since the Irish won both the men’s singles and women’s singles at Wimbledon. William O’Riordan looks at the amazing achievement of one Lena Rice.

ON July 4, 1890, a Wimbledon final was in full swing. May Jacks lobbed the ball towards her young Irish opponent and what happened next changed tennis forever. Lena Rice, with a stretch and an arch of her elbow, smashed the ball back across the court, stunning her rival and the vast crowd.

In those few seconds, Rice, a young lady from New Inn, in Co.Tipperary, had invented the forearm smash.