Suzanne Lenglen
Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen was a French tennis player. She was the inaugural world No. 1 from 1921 to 1926, winning eight Grand Slam titles in singles and twenty-one in total. She was also a four-time World Hard Court Champion in singles, and ten times in total. Lenglen won six Wimbledon singles titles, including five in a row from 1919 to 1923, and was the champion in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles at the first two open French Championships in 1925 and 1926. In doubles, she was undefeated with her usual partner, Elizabeth Ryan, highlighted by another six titles at Wimbledon. Lenglen was the first leading amateur to turn professional. She ranked as the greatest women's tennis player from the amateur era in the 100 Greatest of All Time series on the Tennis Channel in 2012.
Coached by her father Charles throughout her career, Lenglen began playing tennis at age 11, becoming the youngest major champion in history with her 1914 World Hard Court Championship title at age 15. This success, along with her balletic playing style and brash personality, helped make Lenglen a national heroine in a country coping with the aftermath of World War I. After the war had delayed her career four years, Lenglen was largely unchallenged. She won her Wimbledon debut in 1919 in the second-longest final in history, the only one of her major singles finals she did not win by a lopsided scoreline. Her only post-war loss came in a retirement against Molla Mallory, her only amateur match in the United States. Afterwards, she began a 179-match win streak, during which she defeated Helen Wills in the high-profile Match of the Century in 1926. Following a misunderstanding at Wimbledon later that year, Lenglen abruptly retired from amateur tennis, signing to headline a professional tour in the United States beginning that same year.
Referred to by the French press as La Divine, Lenglen revolutionised the sport by integrating the aggressive style of men's tennis into the women's game and breaking the convention of women competing in clothing unsuitable for tennis. She incorporated fashion into her matches, highlighted by her signature bandeau headwear. Lenglen is recognised as the first female athlete to become a global sport celebrity and her popularity led Wimbledon to move to its larger modern-day venue. Her professional tours laid the foundation for the series of men's professional tours that continued until the Open Era, and led to the first major men's professional tournament the following year. Lenglen was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1978, and the second show court at the site of the French Open is named in her honour.
Early life and background
Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen was born in the 16th arrondissement of Paris on 24 May 1899 to Charles and Anaïs Lenglen. She had a younger brother who did not live past the age of three. Lenglen's father was a pharmacist who became wealthy by inheriting a horse-drawn omnibus company from his father. Several years after Suzanne was born, her father sold the omnibus business, after which he relocated the family to Marest-sur-Matz near Compiègne in northern France in 1904. They spent their winters in Nice on the French Riviera in a villa across the street from the Nice Lawn Tennis Club. By the time Lenglen was eight, she excelled at a variety of sports, including swimming and cycling. In particular, she enjoyed diabolo, a game involving balancing a spinning top on a string with two attached sticks. During the winter, Lenglen performed diabolo routines in front of large crowds on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. Her father credited her confidence to play tennis in large stadiums to her experience as a diabolo performer.Lenglen's father attended tennis tournaments on the Riviera circuit, where the world's best players competed in the first half of the year. Having played the sport recreationally, he bought Lenglen a racket from a toy shop in June 1910 shortly after she had turned 11 years old, and set up a makeshift court on the lawn of their house. She quickly showed enough skill to convince her father to get her a proper racket from a tennis manufacturer within a month. He then developed training exercises and played against his daughter. Three months later, Lenglen travelled to Paris to play on a proper clay court owned by her father's friend, Dr. Cizelly. At Cizelly's recommendation, she entered a local high-level tournament in Chantilly. In the singles handicap event, Lenglen won four rounds and finished in second place.
Lenglen's success at the Chantilly tournament prompted her father to train her more seriously. He studied the leading male and female players and decided to teach Lenglen the tactics from the men's game, which were more aggressive than the women's style of slowly constructing points from the baseline. When the family returned to Nice towards the end of autumn, her father arranged for her to play twice a week at the Nice Lawn Tennis Club even though children had never been allowed on the courts, and had her practise with leading male players at the club. Lenglen began training with Joseph Negro, the club's teaching professional. Negro had a wide variety of shots in his repertoire and trained Lenglen to play the same way. As Lenglen's primary coach, her father employed harsh and rigorous methods, saying, "I was a hard taskmaster, and although my advice was always well intentioned, my criticisms were at times severe, and occasionally intemperate." Lenglen's parents watched her matches and discussed her minute errors between themselves throughout, showing restraint in their criticisms only when she was sick. As a result, Lenglen became comfortable with appearing ill, which made it difficult for others to tell if she was sick.
Amateur career
1912–13: Maiden titles
Lenglen entered her first non-handicap singles event in July 1912 at the Compiègne Championships near her hometown, her only regular event of the year. She won her debut match in the quarterfinals before losing her semifinal to Jeanne Matthey. She also played in the singles and mixed doubles handicap events, winning both of them. When Lenglen returned to Nice in 1913, she entered a handicap doubles event in Monte Carlo with Elizabeth Ryan, an American who had moved to England a year earlier. Although they lost the final in three sets, Ryan became Lenglen's most frequent doubles partner and the pair never lost another match. Lenglen's success at handicap events led her to enter more regular events in the rest of 1913. She debuted at the South of France Championships at the Nice Club in March, winning only one match. Nonetheless, when Lenglen returned to Compiègne, she won her first two regular singles titles, both within a few weeks of her 14th birthday. After losing to Matthey again at both of her events in July, the latter of which by default, Lenglen rebounded to win titles in her last two singles events of the year.1914: World Hard Court champion
Back on the Riviera in 1914, Lenglen focused on regular events. Her victory in singles against the high-ranking British player Ruth Winch was regarded as a huge surprise by the tennis community. However, Lenglen still struggled at larger tournaments early in the year, losing to Ryan in the quarterfinals at Monte Carlo and six-time Wimbledon champion Dorothea Lambert Chambers in the semifinals at the South of France Championships. In May, Lenglen was invited to enter the French Championships, which was restricted to French players. The format gave the defending champion a bye until the final match, known as the challenge round. In that match, they faced the winner of the All Comers' competition, a standard tournament bracket for the remaining players. Lenglen won the All Comers' singles draw of six players to make it to the challenge round against Marguerite Broquedis. Despite winning the first set, she lost the match. This was the last time in Lenglen's career she lost a completed singles match, and the only time she lost a singles final other than by default. Although she also lost the doubles challenge round at the tournament to Blanche and Suzanne Amblard, Lenglen won the mixed doubles title with Max Decugis as her partner.Lenglen's performance at the French Championships set the stage for her debut at the World Hard Court Championships, one of the major tournaments recognised by the International Lawn Tennis Federation at the time. She won the singles final against Germaine Golding for her first major title. The only set she lost during the event was to Suzanne Amblard in the semifinals. Her volleying ability was instrumental in defeating Amblard, and her ability to outlast Golding in long rallies gave her the advantage in the final. Lenglen also won the doubles title with Ryan over the Amblard sisters without dropping a game in the final. She finished runner-up in mixed doubles to Ryan and Decugis. Following the World Hard Court Championships, Lenglen could have debuted at Wimbledon, but her father decided against it. He did not like her chances of defeating Lambert Chambers on grass, a surface on which she had never competed, given that she had already lost to her earlier in the year on clay.