Sports Then and Now

Suzanne Lenglen won 12 Grand Slam titles.

She was called ‘La Divine.’  Some say in the 1920s Suzanne Lenglen was a bigger name in sports than that of Babe Ruth.

Between 1919 and 1926, at a time when three and not four tennis majors were played, she won twelve Grand Slam titles, on three different surfaces, and an Olympic Gold medal (Antwerp). Notably in seven of 81 singles titles she did not lose a game!

She was dominant in a way that only a handful of male stars have been since the open era of tennis.  More than that, she imposed her personality on the sport, and the entertainment world of the day.  We recognize such a personality in contemporary terms, in modern English, we might call her a diva. Read the rest of this entry →

Helen Wills Moody won 19 Grand Slam singles titles during her career.

The relatively unknown Molla Mallory holds the record for the most U.S. Open singles titles—eight. But it was the remarkable Helen Wills Moody who, at the age of just 17, relieved Mallory of her U.S. crown in 1923, and went on to hold the record of 19 singles Grand Slam titles for a third of a century.

This is the second in a series celebrating some of the most inspiring and influential women to have played tennis.

All the signs were that Helen Wills would make a success of her life.

She graduated from one of California’s top schools and won an academic scholarship to study fine arts at the University of California. She went on to be honored as a Phi Beta Kappa, one of the most prestigious liberal arts and sciences awards in the United States.

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Helen Wills Moody

Few women’s tennis players have enjoyed greater success in Grand Slam championships than this week’s Sports Then and Now Vintage Athlete of the Week.

Between 1923 and 1938, Helen Wills Moody was victorious in 19 of the 24 major tournaments in which she participated. Except for two defaults due to an appendectomy in 1926, she reached the finals of every Grand Slam tournament in which she participated.

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