Anita Kanter
Anita Kanter (born 1933) is a former amateur tennis player from the U.S. who played in the 1950s. In singles, Kanter was ranked # 6 in the United States (and # 10 in the world by World Tennis magazine) in 1952, and # 9 in the US in 1953.[1][2][3]
Born | 1933 (age 86–87) Santa Monica, California |
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College | University of California-Los Angeles |
Medal record | ||
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Representing | ||
Maccabiah Games | ||
Women's tennis | ||
1953 Israel | Women's Singles | |
1953 Israel | Mixed Doubles | |
1953 Israel | Women's Doubles |
Early life
Kanter was born in Santa Monica, California, and is Jewish.[4][5][5] She attended Santa Monica High School.[6]
Tennis career
Kanter won the 1949 US Girls National Hard Court Singles Championship.[3] She won the US girls tennis championship in 1951 as an 18-year-old sophomore at the University of California-Los Angeles, as well as the 1951 National Hard Court Doubles and Mixed Doubles championships.[7][3]
In 1952, she won the U.S. Women's Clay Court Championships, and was the runner-up at the Foothills Cup.[7][3] That year at the Cincinnati Masters, she won both the singles and doubles titles.[8]
In 1953 she won the US National hard court tennis championship,[5] successfully defended her doubles title,[3] and reached the singles final. She was seeded no. 1 in singles and doubles in both appearances in Cincinnati. In doubles in those two years, she paired with Joan Merciadis in 1952 and with Thelma Long of Australia in 1953.[9]
Maccabiah Games
Kanter, who is Jewish, competed in the 1953 Maccabiah Games—the "Jewish Olympics".[10] At the Games, Kanter, ranked #9 in the US at the time, lost the women's singles title to Angela Buxton and ended up with the silver medal,[11][12][13] but won two gold medals, one as she won the mixed doubles title with Grant Golden and one as she won the women's double title with Toby Greenberg - beating Angela Buxton and Carol Levy of Britain in the final.[7][14][3]
Hall of Fame
In 2014, she was inducted into the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.[15][3]
See also
References
- Bernard Postal, Jesse Silver, Roy Silver (1965). Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports
- Martin Harry Greenberg (1979). The Jewish lists: physicists and generals, actors and writers, and hundreds of other lists of accomplished Jews
- "ANITA KANTER-KAPPEl; Tennis - 2014". Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
- Ron Kaplan (2015). The Jewish Olympics: The History of the Maccabiah Games
- Bob Wechsler (2008). Day by Day in Jewish sports history. Retrieved March 20, 2011.
- "UCLA Daily Bruin". August 4, 1912 – via Internet Archive.
- Kanter, Anita: Jews In Sports
- "Tennis - WTA Tour - Cincinnati : Medal winners and event presentation". www.the-sports.org.
- Best Sports Stories, 1954.
- "Anita Kantor Wins in Tel Aviv Games". Retrieved March 20, 2011.
- Bruce Schoenfeld (2004). The match: Althea Gibson and Angela Buxton: how two outsiders--one Black, the other Jewish--forged a friendship and made sports history. HarperCollins. Retrieved March 20, 2011.
- Robert Slater (2000). Great Jews in Sports. Retrieved March 20, 2011.
- Jack Leon (June 28, 1957). "ISRAEL'S LEADING NETTER Arieh Avidan Will Be at Forest Hills". Jewish Post.
- "The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle from Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 2, 1953 · Page 3". Newspapers.com.
- Eric Sondheimer (September 16, 2013). "15 selected for Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame," Los Angeles Times.