The Blog of Awesome Women / Suzanne Lenglen: She Ruled the Court

Most females know how difficult it can be to make a name for yourself in sports. We still live in a world where female athletes still make a small fraction of what male athletes do, even if they play better. It’s a sad fact of the industry. But the women who do make names for themselves, women like Wilma Rudolph, Mia Hamm, and Ronda Rousey, become role models for all young girls. It is important to celebrate and remember these women for the pioneers that they are–because they help change the attitude male athletes and announcers develop towards women’s sports.

So today we remember Suzanne Lenglen. Before Serena Williams, before Billie Jean King, there was Lenglen, a flamboyant, brandy-loving Parisian trendsetter named “La Divine” by the French press, who in her brief life transformed women’s tennis. Below are some awesome facts about the life and career of Suzanne Lenglen, pulled from “The Book of Awesome Women.”

1. Suzanne was born in Paris in 1899; as a child, she was frail and suffered from many health problems including chronic asthma.
2. She won the World Hard Court Championships at Saint-Cloud on her 15th birthday, making her the youngest person in tennis history to this day to win a major championship.
3. After WWI, Wimbledon resumed in 1919. Lenglen made her debut there, taking on seven-time champion Dorothea Douglass Chambers in the final. Lenglen won the match; however, it was not only her playing that drew notice. The media squawked about her dress, which revealed her forearms and ended above the calf; at the time, others competed in body-covering ensembles. The staid British were also shocked by a French woman daring to casually sip brandy between sets.
4. Lenglen dominated women’s tennis singles at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Belgium. On her way to winning a gold medal, she lost only four games, three of them in the final against Dorothy Holman of England.
5. From 1919 to 1925, Lenglen won the Wimbledon singles championship in every year except 1924, when health problems due to jaundice forced her to withdraw after winning the quarterfinal.
6. From 1920 to 1926, Lenglen won the French Championships singles title six times and the doubles title five times, as well as three World Hard Court Championships in 1921-1923.
7. Astoundingly, she only lost seven matches in her entire career.
8. At the Wimbledon singles final in 1922, she defeated Molla Bjurstedt Mallory in only 26 minutes, winning 6–2, 6–0, in what was said to be the shortest ladies’ major tournament match on record.
9. In a 1926 tournament at the Carlton Club in Cannes, Lenglen played her only game against Helen Wills. Public attention for their match in the tournament final was immense, with scalper ticket prices hitting stratospheric levels. Roofs and windows of nearby buildings were crowded with onlookers.
10. Suzanne Lenglen was the first major female tennis star ever to go pro.
11. Sports promoter C.C. Pyle paid her $50,000 to tour the U.S. playing a series of matches against Mary K. Brown. This was the first time ever that a women’s match was the headliner event of the tour, even though male players were part of the tour as well.
12. In 1927 Lenglen decided to retire from competition and set up a tennis school with help and funding from her lover, Jean Tillier.
13. In 1938, Lenglen was suddenly diagnosed with leukemia and died only a few weeks later at age 39 near Paris.

Despite her early death, Lenglen’s talent, style, and verve changed women’s tennis forever. Before her brilliant career, very tennis fans even considered women’s matches. And now, the Women’s Singles competition in the French Open is the “Coupe Suzanne-Lenglen.” Her words are something all female athletes can use to encourage them: “I just throw dignity against the wall and think only of the game.”