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© Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum |
"The Goddess of Tennis" is the heading of a chapter
on Suzanne Lenglen in the sport's leading reference work,
The Ultimate Book of Tennis. Although some way short of
being beautiful, Lenglen fulfilled every other requirement
of a sporting goddess - ethereal, all-conquering and a leader
in setting trends and fashions. However, she was not just
tennis' first prima ballerina, she was it first prima donna
too.
Lenglen won six Wimbledons and was never beaten in competition
at the All England Club. She also won six championships
of her native France and was such a magical attraction in
her revealing dresses and flowing tulle headbands that she
revitalised and reformed the game in the seven years of
her dominance until turning professional, disappearing from
the then strictly amateur scene before dying of leukaemia,
aged only 39, in 1938.
Suzanne was relentlessly coached by her father Charles,
a Paris bus company owner and thanks to hours of such rigorous
practice as learning to hit a handkerchief laid on court
time after time, had already become a champion when hardly
into her teens.
Lenglen was only 20 when she made her initial visit to
Wimbledon for the 1919 Championships, the first to be held
after the Great War. Despite making her acquaintance with
grass court tennis, she swept to the final, or the Challenge
Round as it was then known, without dropping a set. Her
opponent, Dorothea Lambert Chambers, the defending champion
and a seven-time Wimbledon winner, was, at 40, exactly twice
her age.
It was a stark contrast, not only in terms of years but
also in playing style and clothing. While Mrs Chambers went
on court in the sort of constricting dress regarded as the
norm in those days, Suzanne wore lightweight, diaphanous
clothing which allowed her the sort of athletic movement
she had learned early at ballet classes.
Aided by another first in women's tennis, sips from a brandy
flask provided by her father between sets, Lenglen outlasted
Chambers 10-8, 4-6, 9-7. The measure of Lenglen's subsequent
advance to the stage of invincibility was shown at Wimbledon
a year later, when against the same opponent she won 6-3,
6-0.
In 1925, she won Wimbledon for the loss of a mere five
games, this coming after she had been forced to miss the
1924 Championships because of illness, early signs of the
stress which was undermining her health. Someone who could
not bear to be beaten, she had consequently lost the ability
to enjoy winning. It had instead become a draining necessity.
Lenglen's only tournament defeat occurred in her one bid
for the US title in 1921. She travelled to New York, intending
not to play tennis but to raise funds for the regions of
France devastated by the war.
After a crossing in which she suffered severely from sea
sickness and chronic asthma, Lenglen arrived in New York
to find she had not only been entered for the tournament
without her knowledge but was drawn against the champion,
the Norwegian-American Mona Mallory in the second round
because of an absence of seeding.
Having lost the first set 6-2 Lenglen collapsed with a
coughing fit and defaulted, jeered off court. She was later
diagnosed as having whooping cough.
Lenglen's last Wimbledon in 1926 ended in similar turmoil,
but just prior to that she played perhaps her most famous
match, in the Cannes tournament against Helen Wills, who
would become her rival for the crown of greatest player
between the wars. Lenglen won that one 6-3, 8-6. It was
the only time they met.
At Wimbledon Lenglen progressed serenely into the third
round, when Queen Mary turned up to watch. Due to a mix-up,
Lenglen was not informed of her starting time and kept the
Queen waiting for an hour.
The All England Club wanted to default her, but other players
managed to persuade them to allow her to remain in the draw.
However, when she was booed for a perceived insult to the
monarchy, Lenglen decided to withdraw.
It was her farewell, and a wretched one, from a tournament
she had dominated so effortlessly.
Written by Ronald Atkin
SUZANNE LENGLEN
Singles Champion: 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1925
Doubles Champion: 1919, 1920. 1921, 1922, 1923, 1925
Mixed Doubles Champion: 1920, 1922, 1925
