Before Naomi Osaka, before Serena Williams, before Billie Jean King, there was French tennis star Suzanne Lenglen. When he died in 1938when she was 39, Reuters declared her “the greatest female tennis player of all time.”
He was born on May 24, 1899, in Paris, although his family soon moved to the town of Compaigne. He came from a well-to-do family—his father inherited a horse-drawn omnibus company—and loved tennis. His father bought him his first racket at a toy store when he was 11 years old, and he played on a makeshift court on the back lawn. The children of domestic workers were called to compete with Suzanne when no one else was available. He was so clearly talented that his father bought him a new professional racket within a month.
People used to say that his father, Charles, deliberately tried to raise a reasonable child at court, a role that might remind the Williams sisters today. People say that Charles Lenglen developed extensive training programs, marking the court into certain squares and requiring Suzanne to send the ball to a section he named; he was deprived of the dessert if he did not hit the squares. This was the issue he was against. Charles admitted that he gave him advice on his playing and would watch opponents practice and report on their playing style. But he also said that “women, not a sportsman,” was his interest as a father.
She met her competitive match early in Suzanne’s life. Newspapers noted that, although the whole family enjoyed tennis, “Charles Lenglen is a very bad player.” [Suzanne’s] hands.” At the time of this merciless defeat, Suzanne had three months of experience.
Suzanne continued to defeat others just as easily as she did her father. When he was only 15 years old in 1914, he became the youngest ever champion, winning the World Hard Court (forerunner of the French Open tournament) in Paris. During the war years, he became an inspiration to the French people, playing on the Riviera in games to benefit the French Red Cross.
After the war, in 1919, she won the first of six women’s titles at Wimbledon, defeating Englishwoman Dorothea Lambert Chambers. A British newspaper said that the people “were, for a moment, full of grief at the fall of their champion, but this was followed by a full recognition and generosity of the bravery and grace of victory of this foreign girl . . .”
Part of this victory may have been her willingness to escape the dress restrictions that female players had to deal with. For example, in 1919, it was a conversation that she chose not to wear a corset or a long skirt. Doing so allowed him to jump well to reach the ball in a way that blocked players the wrong way. Designer Teddy Tinling, who dressed Suzanne, remembers, “before her ball gown consisted of starched cotton, cinches, and twisted corsets.
Another feature was his bandau headwear. To see her in court was to see a vision of what a new, more relaxed, physical woman might look like.
His star continued to rise. In 1920, he won gold medals in singles and doubles at the Antwerp Olympics. During the game, he was seen “taking a shot of vodka from a flask.” Her success here and in other competitions has inspired many young women. It seems remarkable that he makes playing tennis look, well, well, or at least as something fun, a free-spirited person can do. I The Daily Telegraph he noted that, “Suzanne Lenglen’s success and the popularity she has enjoyed has led to the remarkable development of women’s tennis in Europe.” Other players of this era, such as Kitty McKane, may try to follow Lenglen’s example.
While i The Telegraph in 1928 he said that England loved him more than anyone (since “England is a nation completely devoted to sports”), in the French Press, he was called “La Divine—The Goddess.”
In 1921, when he was only 22 years old, he came to America. I New York Herald he declared that she was “the comet of France—a female comet and therefore the most beautiful of all.” To the surprise of the reporter, and probably anyone who has watched any tennis movie where the players play late into the night, he said that he did not practice regularly. He said he played for 30 minutes every other day. He spent 10 minutes a day on calisthenics, usually jumping rope. He also revealed that he stretched for five minutes before he went to court.
This is questionable. The reporter who asked earlier believed that “competitions for national supremacy can only be won after serving a long sentence in hard labor,” which seems to be a modern sentiment. Venus Williams, for example, spends about three hours a day on the court followed by two in the gym. Lenglen may have lied so much that his opponents tended to look down on him.
Whether it was a lie or if he just had a relaxed way of driving, this strategy worked. He was the number one player in the world from 1921 to 1926. He won six Wimbledon titles, five in a row from 1919 to 1923. She was so ill at the US national tournament in Forest Hills, New York, that she lost the first set against Molla Mallory. When he was struck with a cough, he began to cry, and then retired. People would say he did this because he didn’t think he could win the game; the phrase “cough and quit Lenglen” was often insulted. It would be the only time he lost a singles match after WWI. He faced Mallory again in 1922 at Wimbledon and defeated him (6-2, 6-0) in the shortest final in history—just 26 minutes. After the game, he said, “I could have said something to him; instead, I decided to cough a little.”
Although that was a good joke, illness would prove to be a problem throughout Lenglen’s career. Often, sadly, they were diseases that would not have bothered him so much had he lived a hundred years later. He was stricken with jaundice in 1924. As a result he withdrew from Wimbledon and could not go to the Olympic Games.
1926 would be his last year playing junior tennis, and by then it was clear that his star was fading. He played in the “match of the century” against Helen Wills. He won, but only slightly. Then, at Wimbledon, he tried to reschedule the match, which meant that the Queen of England, who was happy to see him play, had to wait an hour and a half. When the game managers confronted Lenglen about this, he, in shock, said that he would not play at all.
Later that year, he signed a $50,000 contract to play for four months in the United States. Until then, he said he had never earned more than $5,000 in his life. People complained that he had left the world of novices, but he rightly pointed out that even being the best novice sportsman in the world can make a person destitute unless he comes from a rich family.
In 1936, he founded a tennis school where he coached. As always, he seemed to be loud, saying, “I don’t mean to make champions. I’m trying above all to see that thousands of children are funny, and at the same time love sports and learn self-control.” He would be appointed as the first director of the French National Tennis School in Paris in 1938.
But his health, which had always been difficult, was deteriorating. In mid-June of 1938, Lenglen became very weak. He died less than a month later, in what is said to be anemia caused by measles that was neglected. Today, it is widely understood that he had leukemia. Until the day he died, he was following the news of the Wimbledon match. When she died, the president of the French Lawn Tennis Association said, “Mademoiselle Lenglen was the greatest female player who ever lived.”
He won eight Grand Slam singles titles and 21 overall, including doubles. He was posthumously inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. The second court at the French Open Roland-Garros stadium is named after him. That he was the greatest player of all time may not be true. But between the brandy, half an hour of practice and the clothes, he was definitely one of the best.
