Helen Wainwright at the Regatta, 1926

This photograph features Olympic swimming champion Helen Wainwright trying out a different kind of sport on the newly constructed tennis courts on Davis Islands in March 1926.

Wainwright earned renown as a two-time Summer Olympics medal winner. In the 1920 games in Antwerp, Belgium, she won a silver medal in the 3 metre springboard diving competition, and in the 1924 games in Paris she won a silver medal in the 400 metre freestyle event.

The native-New Yorker came to Tampa to serve as the chairperson of the water sports meet during the 2^nd Annual Tampa Bay Regatta. In this role, Wainwright presided over sail boat, canoe, outboard motor and aquaplane races, as well as canoe tilting and aquaplane acrobatics. She also participated in Tampa Bay-bie races, which contested using 150-horse power mahogany speed boats 21 feet in length.

The Tampa Bay Regatta, which ran from March 4-6, was touted as "one of the most elaborate programs of races ever planned for Florida." The races were conducted on a two and on-half mile course located on the west side of Davis Islands in Tampa Bay. The event proved quite successful in its inaugural year of 1925 as over 10,000 spectators attended the three days of races.

Dixie International Tournament, 1940

The scene is the International Dixie Tournament. The place is the Davis Islands Tennis Club in January 1940. Participating in the finals of the tournament were Bobby Riggs and Bitsy Grant. Riggs, the world's amateur singles and doubles champion, won the tournament in 1938 and sought his second Dixie championship. Grant, dubbed "126 pound of tennis dynamite" by Tampa Tribune writer Pete Norton, had already won two Dixie titles.

The match began on Sunday afternoon in front of a tournament-record 2,000 fans, but was postponed by rain until the following day with Riggs leading by a set. Grant would storm back when play resumed, winning a five-set thriller 1-6, 6-2, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 to capture his third Dixie title in five years. He then delighted the crowd during the trophy presentation by accepting the D.P Davis Trophy and then handing it right back to the presenter, Tampa’s mayor R.E.L. Chancey.

"Tampa has always been one of my favorite places," Grant said. "I want this cup to stay right here so when I get too old to play for it, some of you good people will remember me."

The crowd then rewarded Grant, the Dixie Tournament's greatest and most gracious champion, with a five minute standing ovation.