Sports Then and Now

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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Molla Mallory won the U.S. Nationals women's singles title eight times, including four straight years from 1915-1918.

This is the first of a regular series of articles featuring some of the “Queens of the Court” in the history of women’s tennis.

When Anna Margarethe Bjurstedt was born in Oslo in March 1884, few could anticipate the mark she would make both on tennis and on women’s participation in sport.

This was the latter stages of the 19th century, when the modern rules of lawn tennis were still just 10 years old.

It was a world where Otto von Bismarck was Chancellor of Germany and Victoria was Queen of the British Empire.

There was no such thing as Greenwich Mean Time (that was set in October), and New York harbor was yet to receive the Statue of Liberty from France (on the 4th July that same year).

Van Gogh had not painted his “Sunflowers”, and Tchaikovsky had yet to write his “Sleeping Beauty.”

But this daughter of a Norwegian army officer was soon to introduce a new attitude and new approach to tennis.

In doing so, she won a record eight U.S. women’s singles titles and became the only woman—along with Chris Evert—to hold four of them consecutively. And her win in 1926, at the age of 42, established her as the oldest singles Grand Slam champion in history.

When Bjurstedt— Molla Mallory, as she was to become in 1919—first arrived in the United States in 1915, she had already won an Olympic bronze medal, but she was still a complete unknown. That was until she beat three-time defending champion Marie Wagner in straight sets to take the first of five singles titles at the national indoor championships.

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Dinara Safina surpasses Serena Williams to once again be ranked number one at Sony Ericsson Championships that begin on October 27 in Qatar.

Finally the end of another agonizing year for the women’s tour is upon us.  As the eight top seeds in the women’s game head off to Doha, the tournament will reveal once and for all who will end 2009 ranked
numero uno.

Poetically, Dinara Safina surpasses Serena Williams to once again be ranked number one as they enter the season-ending Sony Ericsson Championships that begin on October 27 in Qatar.  Currently Safina is
ranked five points behind Serena Williams.

As of October 26 when the new rankings come out, the points from last year’s championship will come off the totals.  Safina has earned more points than any other player after winning titles in Rome, Madrid and Portoroz as well as reaching six finals.  Therefore, she has earned the number one seed.

Throughout the year players earn points but only the top eight players are awarded entry into the Sony Ericsson Championship Tournament.  For doubles, it is the top four teams that gain entry into the year-ending championship.

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The 1980s were a Golden Era for Professional Tennis.

It was the best of times – Tennis in the Eighties – when the thrill of tense tiebreaks entered everyman’s domicile, highlighted by exotic locales like Paris, Melbourne, London and New York.

The 1980s tennis also ushered in exciting yet exasperating players whose on-court conduct thrilled, engaged and enraged fans across the globe.

The ’80s energized the popularity base and took tennis out of country clubs and landed estates and into public parks and arenas.  It became a sport in contrast to an amenable pastime.

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Is it the end of the line for Amelie Mauresmo?

Headlines whispered earlier this week that Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo was considering retirement from tennis. At the age of 30, it may seem that Mauresmo has been around forever. She has, in fact, been playing tennis professionally for 16 years.

According to Peter Scrivener’s BBC report, Mauresmo stated “Since the U.S. Open, I’ve been trying to practice but I can’t seem to find the desire to come back to competition…I don’t want to rush or force things. I will take some time to think before making a decision regarding the remainder of my career.”

It is not the first time that Mauresmo has used the press to announce her intention or a change in her life.

Although it raised a few eyebrows and created a stir in the locker room, Mauresmo’s admission in 1999 that she is a lesbian brought another kind of pressure to bear on the young woman—then aged 19.

The fact that Martina Hingis called her “half a man” and Lindsay Davenport actually stated that she felt Mauresmo played like a man were remarks dismissed by the young Frenchwoman. She felt that coming out enabled her to be successful on the tennis court—this according to Kathy Beige, About.com.

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The 1981 season proved to the final one of Bjorn Bjorg's career.

The Iceman Melts Away…

It was like being evicted from your neighborhood playground where you practiced ball all of your life, where you reigned as King of the Mountain, swatting down the little kids who scrabbled toward you to reach the top.  That is what Bjorn Borg felt like after being dethroned during the trophy presentation at the conclusion of Wimbledon in 1981.

This new kid, this John McEnroe, was taking away his perch and making him feel ordinary.  So what do you do when someone invades your kingdom and steals your crown? You storm his castle and try to take what belongs to him—tit for tat or an eye for an eye.

This, according to Lesley Visser of The Boston Globe (Sept. 1, 1981), caused Bjorn Borg to declare that winning the U.S. Open was his greatest passion—which he had been trying unsuccessfully to accomplish since he was 16 years of age.

At the time he uttered this fateful sentiment, Borg was 25 years of age and had been playing professional tennis for 11 years, since the age of 14.

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