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He is the only man in history to win the U.S. national boys’ (then 15-and-under), juniors’ (18-and-under), collegiate and U.S. men’s singles titles.
Source: Department of Defense
By David Vergun
Photo: Courtesy
Navy Lt. Joe Hunt won the 1943 U.S. Open Tennis Championships in New York City while on leave from the Navy in early September of that year.
He is the only man in history to win the U.S. national boys’ (then 15-and-under), juniors’ (18-and-under), collegiate and U.S. men’s singles titles.
Hunt also played football at the U.S. Naval Academy, winning a game ball in the 1941 Army-Navy game after beating Army 14-6 in Philadelphia, Nov. 29, 1941. Eight days later, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Due to wartime needs, Hunt’s class graduated early on Dec. 19, 1941, instead of in the spring of 1942. Upon graduation, he was assigned to the destroyer USS Rathburne, an antisubmarine warfare training ship homeported in San Diego.
At the end of September 1943, Hunt was assigned to the destroyer USS Kearny, which escorted a merchant convoy to Casablanca, Morocco. However, he wanted to fly and was eager for combat duty, according to his grand-nephew Joe Hunt, a Seattle attorney named for his great uncle.
Hunt requested a transfer to aviation, and it was granted. His training began at Naval Air Station Dallas on Dec. 30, 1943. In May 1944, he received advanced aviation training at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. He wanted to defend his tennis title that year, but his leave request was denied.
On Feb. 2, 1945, Hunt’s F6F Hellcat fighter aircraft crashed into the Atlantic Ocean east of Daytona Beach, Florida, during a training flight. Hunt and his aircraft were never recovered.
Hunt left behind a wife, Jacque Virgil Hunt, who he married in 1942.
Hunt was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1966.
On Sept. 1, 2014, Hunt was honored on center court at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York during the U.S. Open, an event he won 71 years earlier.
Every year since 2019, the U.S. Open has celebrated his service and honored service members and veterans on “Lt. Joe Hunt Military Appreciation Day.”
Present at the 2019 honor was Hunt’s grand-nephew, Joe Hunt, who said, “I always really love watching the tennis at the U.S. Open, but what I really look forward to more than anything is being with the veterans and their families and watching them enjoy the day, meeting new people, and having an opportunity to thank them. That’s the most important thing for me.”
Joe Hunt’s profile page on the International Tennis Hall of Fame website states, “Hunt’s heroism that fortnight brought him considerable acclaim. The tribute on Labor Day was a long-overdue homage to a life tragically cut short.”
