Sylvester Smith (tennis)

{{short description|American tennis player}}

Dr Sylvester B Smith was an American black tennis player. He won the 1919 ATA Championships {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=euvpZqqEZGEC&pg=PA4 |title=Blacks at the Net: Black Achievement in the History of Tennis |first=Sundiata A. |last=Djata |publisher=Syracuse University Press |year=2006 |volume=1 |page=44|isbn=9780815608189 }} and also the Penn Tennis Open Championship.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JC4EAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT279 |title=A Spectacular Leap: Black Women Athletes in Twentieth-Century America |first=Jennifer H. |last=Lansbury |publisher=University of Arkansas Press |year=2014 |page=279|isbn=9781610755429 }}

Smith was based in New York and also won the 1929 National Colored Doubles Title as well as the 1930 New England Tennis Championship.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DDO3sdV6ytsC&pg=PA419 |title=Basketball: A Biographical Dictionary |first=David L. |last=Porter |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2005 |page=419|isbn=9780313309526 }} From 1917–1929, he was the co-holder of the national men's doubles championships title.{{cite news|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DzkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA61 |work=Jet |page=61 |date=October 30, 1969 |title=Ex-Tennis Champion and Philadelphia Dentist Dies }} In 1959, Smith served as the president of the American Tennis Association.

Outside of tennis, Smith worked as a dentist in Philadelphia, where he died in 1969.