Joan Hartigan

Joan Marcia Bathurst (née Hartigan; 6 June 1912 – 31 August 2000) was an Australian Champion tennis player who was active from the early 1930s until the late 1940s.

Early life and education
Joan Marcia Hartigan was born in Sydney, the daughter of Thomas Joseph (Tom) Hartigan, a railways commissioner, and Imelda Josephine, née Boylson, a schoolteacher; the couple wed on 26 March 1908 at St Thomas's Catholic Church, Lewisham, New South Wales. Tom Hartigan was a clerk in the New South Wales Government Railways and eventually became Railways Commissioner. Joan was educated at the all-girls' Loreto Kirribilli, in the lower north shore of Sydney.

Tennis career
Hartigan learnt to play tennis at the Loreto Convent. She won the NSW junior singles and doubles title and the Australian girls' championship in 1931. In late January 1932 she defeated Margaret Molesworth in the singles final of the New Zealand Championships. In March that year she won the singles title at the New South Wales Championships after a straight-sets victory in the final against Molesworth. Hartigan won the singles title at the Australian Championships in 1933, 1934 and 1936 and was a semifinalist at Wimbledon in 1934 (losing to first-seeded Helen Jacobs) and 1935 (losing to eventual champion Helen Wills Moody). During her stay in Britain in 1934 she won the singles titles at the North of England Championships and the Scottish Championships, both after a win in the final against Susan Noel.

Hartigan three times reached the women's doubles final at the Australian Championships, in 1933, 1934, and 1940. Bathurst teamed with Edgar Moon to win the mixed doubles title at the 1934 Australian Championships. According to A. Wallis Myers of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, Bathurst was ranked in the world top 10 in 1934 and 1935, reaching a career high of world No. 8 in these rankings in 1934.

She was known for her power game with a hard-hitting forehand drive as her main strength. Hartigan hit her backhand with the same side of the racket as her forehand.

Hartigan was posthumously inducted into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame in January 2022 at a ceremony at the Rod Laver Arena.

Personal and family life
In January, 1943 she enlisted in the Australian Army; she served with the Australian Army Medical Women's Service at a Camp Hospital in Sydney and was discharged on 1 September 1943. In 1946, she announced her engagement to Hugh Moxon Bathurst of Melbourne who was then private secretary to Senator James Fraser, Chifley's Health minister. They married at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney on Saturday, 12 April 1947, before flying to Adelaide then Perth to board the RMS Orion at Fremantle for England where they planned to live for a few years while she resumed her tennis career at Wimbledon. In 1950, they returned on the Strathmore after living in Surrey for three years and settled in Sydney. Joan Bathurst died on 31 August 2000, and her husband died 16 April 2001. Their son, Thomas Frederick Bathurst became Chief Justice of New South Wales.

Grand Slam singles tournament timeline


1In 1946 and 1947, the French Championships were held after Wimbledon.