Jane Davies

There’s interesting facets on sports history that perhaps have never been presented to us but when we do get to discover them, we acknowledge the evolution of these games. Take tennis for example, ‘real tennis’ – as it was first called, was played in monastery courtyards in France. At the time, there were no racquets and players used their hands instead. As if that wasn’t challenging enough, the female players were required to wear full length dresses made from heavy materials with corsets underneath. Then, the ball’s speed was still as fast and these players were still required to have the precision and power to hit the balls without breaking a sweat

Sound challenging? You bet!

This was the mid-1800s all through to the mid-1900s.

In extremely humid conditions, some women would faint and this was used as evidence to claim that women were too weak and fragile to play five set matches.

Tennis became an Olympic sport in 1896 but the first women’s match was played at the following Games four years later. By 1922, the women’s dress code was more allowing with less restriction on the length and a favourable fabric was used to design their clothes. By the 60s there were shorter skirts which created more room for speed and ease of movement.

Kenya’s first tennis courts were constructed in Laikipia County in the 1920s by the early settlers. They were about eleven in number and by 1927 The Kenya Lawn Tennis Association was registered in order to oversee the maintenance of a regular tennis calendar.

The height of tennis in Kenya came about between the 60s all through to the end of the 70s when several world tennis champions visited Kenya to play exhibition matches. Our first major exposure in the international scene came at the 1974 All Africa Tennis Championships hosted by the Egyptian Lawn Tennis Association in Cairo. We sent out a strong, competitive team to not only represent our ten year old nation, they went with one aim – to win.

Among our players was Jane Davies – Kenya’s best female court champion who was set to play in both the women’s singles and doubles. For Jane, this was not just her first time showing off our Kenyan flag, she was also one of two Kenyan ladies representing our nation.

In the singles games, she was up against one of Egypt’s players. The game lasted for nearly two and a half hours as both ladies worked hard to make it to the finals. Jane succeeded through each set and emerged victorious with a gold medal – Kenya’s first by a female athlete in tennis. For the doubles, she combined efforts with fellow country sportswoman Sue Langridge where they faced an Egyptian duo. Rackets against balls and a good strategy had our Kenyan ladies take the podium once the  final sets were through.. Jane and Sue were the real heroes of the entire tournament and they proudly waved our #KeFlag above Egyptian soil.

Four years later at the Algeria hosted All Africa Games, Jane Davies retained her position as a the Africa ladies champion when she returned home with another gold medal. We applaud her skill and ambition that enabled her to proudly break gender barriers and set us on a new path in the world of sport under the Kenyan flag.

#KeWachezaji #OurFlagBearers #PaukwaPeople