Suzanne Lenglen

Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen (24 May 1899 – 4 July 1938) was a French tennis player.

Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen was born in the 16th arrondissement of Paris on 24 May 1899 to Charles and Anaïs Lenglen (née Dhainault).

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."

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.

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 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.

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.

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 (The Goddess), 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.

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.