Judy Devlin Hashman, who won England’s badminton singles championship 10 times, more than any other player, man or woman, died on Monday. She was 88 years old.
He died at a cancer hospice in Oxford, England, his son Geoff said.
Before badminton established a world championship or joined the Olympic Games, the All England Open Badminton Championships were the pinnacle of the sport. Hashman won the women’s singles title in that event for the first time in 1954 at age 18. She later added nine more, the last in 1967.
Her 10 individual titles are the most for any player. She also won seven women’s doubles titles, six of them with her sister Susan Devlin, later known as Susan Peard.
Judy Devlin was born on October 22, 1935 in Winnipeg, Canada, the daughter of J. Frank Devlin, a badminton coach who excelled in several sports, and Grace (Steed) Devlin, a scientist who was a good enough tennis player to to play doubles at Wimbledon. The family moved to Maryland. when she was a girl.
Her 17 total titles at the All-England Championships places her tied for third behind Sir George Thomas and his father, who played in the 1920s.
He also played field hockey, lacrosse and tennis, but made badminton his number one priority. “I started badminton when I was 7, by choice,” she told the Badminton World Federation in 2020. Her father had suggested tennis, but she “didn’t want that.”
“One of the neighbors was playing badminton in the backyard,” he said. “I remember very well pointing and saying, ‘That’s the one I want to play.’ The one with the long name. But he couldn’t remember the name.”
She told how her father was standing at the bottom of a hill and “had to throw a ball into his hand without him having to move his arm.”
“Everything was guided by tracking,” he said. “That’s basically what gave me precision in badminton.”
After marrying George Cecil Kenneth Hashman, an Englishman known as Dick, who worked for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, in 1960, she began participating in tournaments under the name Judy Hashman.
She reached every English final between 1954 and 1967, except in 1965, when she had given birth to Geoff, two months earlier (she still reached the fourth round).
He is survived by his sister, Mrs. Peard; two sons, Geoff and Joe, and one grandson.
For her last all-English title in 1967, she faced a formidable challenge from Noriko Takagi of Japan, who had defeated her earlier in the year in the Uber Cup, a team competition. In the deciding set, Hashman trailed 5-1 but fought back to claim a 12-10 victory for her tenth title.
Hashman also won 12 US singles titles, the last in 1967, after which he retired. “I accomplished what I set out to accomplish,” he told Sports Illustrated at the time. “This game demands a lot from you both physically and mentally. I have nothing more to gain from it. And besides, if you’ve been good at a sport, you don’t like playing less than your best and I’m not willing to put in the time it would take to do that.”
His achievements earned him a place in the Badminton Hall of Fame.
His game was known for its simplicity. “Dad always thought that the simplest shot for anything was the least tiring,” he told Sports Illustrated, “and that he didn’t make sense of an elegant conclusion.”
As badminton was an amateur sport, there was no way to make a living from it, and he taught English and geography at Josca Preparatory School (now Abingdon Prep) in Abingdon, England.
“You didn’t play for money,” he said of the English championships in a video interview posted online. “If you played badminton, that was what you wanted to do more than anything else. “That was enough.”
With the expenses, the sport was clearly negative from a financial point of view. “It was a hobby,” he said. “And you spend money on your hobbies, everyone does.”
When he retired, he rarely watched the modern game, he said in a 2020 video released by the England Championships. “Everything is fitness; None of us could be that fit,” he said, because the sport had been amateur. “My exercise regimen was 10 minutes a day.”
“The idea,” he said, “that ‘Oh, you should practice this until you throw up,’ that I’ve heard some coaches say. What nonsense is that. “No one should be throwing up.”
In 1970, Hashman appeared on the BBC’s basic radio program “Desert Island Discs” and selected songs by Mitch Miller, Perry Como and Mario Lanza, with Richard Burton’s “Camelot” as his first choice. The luxury item he chose was a stamp album.
Although tennis champions have always received more attention, Hashman said he has no regrets about his choice.
“Tennis is very slow; you have a lot of time to worry,” he told the Badminton World Federation. “Badminton is much faster, the brain has to continue working all the time, you don’t have to rest.”
“Once the rally is over, you have to look at the next one immediately,” he added. “You don’t have time to wander around the court and bounce the ball God knows how many times before serving. You just have to keep going.”
“Temperamentally, badminton suited me that way,” he said. “I don’t see this as beating around the bush, having a lot of time to do things. “Just move on and get it over with.”
Derrick Taylor contributed to this report from London.