Helen Wills Moody
Encyclopedia
Helen Newington Wills Roark (October 6, 1905 – January 1, 1998), also known as Helen Wills Moody, was an American tennis
player. She has been described as "the first American born woman to achieve international celebrity as an athlete."
and attended the University of California, Berkeley
.
She married Frederick Moody in December 1929. She won approximately one-half of her major championships as Helen Wills and one-half as Helen Wills Moody. Wills divorced Moody in 1937 and married Aidan Roark
in October 1939. She died on January 1, 1998, aged 92.
titles (singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles) during her career, including seven singles titles at the U.S. Championships
, eight singles titles at Wimbledon
, and four singles titles at the French Championships. Excluding her defaults at the French Championships and Wimbledon in 1926, she reached at least the final of each Grand Slam singles event she played during her career. She never played at the Australian Championships.
Wills also won two Olympic
gold medals in Paris in 1924 (singles and doubles), the last year that tennis was an Olympic sport until 1988. Wills was the U.S. girls' singles champion in 1921 and 1922. She won her first women's national title at the age of 17 in 1923, making her the youngest champion at that time. From 1919 through 1938, she amassed a 398–35 (0.919) match record, including a winning streak of at least 158 matches, during which she did not lose a set. She was a member of the U.S. Wightman Cup
team in 1923, 1924, 1925, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, and 1938.
Wills was reported to be an introverted and detached woman. On court, she rarely showed emotion, ignored her opponents, and took no notice of the crowd. Kitty McKane Godfree, who inflicted the only defeat Wills suffered at Wimbledon during her career, said, "Helen was a very private person, and she didn't really make friends very much." Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman
said, "Helen was really an unconfident and awkward girl — you have no idea how awkward.... I thought of Helen as an honestly shy person who was bewildered by how difficult it was to please most people." Because of her unchanging expression, Grantland Rice
, the American sportswriter, bestowed on Wills the nickname "Little Miss Poker Face". As her success and, ironically, unpopularity with the public increased, she was called "Queen Helen" and "the Imperial Helen". In her own defense, Wills said in her autobiography, "I had one thought and that was to put the ball across the net. I was simply myself, too deeply concentrated on the game for any extraneous thought."
She typically wore a white sailor suit having a pleated knee-length skirt, white shoes, and a white visor.
On February 16, 1926, the 20-year-old Wills met Suzanne Lenglen
, six-time Wimbledon champion, in the final of a tournament at the Carlton Club in Cannes
. It was the only time they played each other. Public anticipation of their match was immense, resulting in high scalper ticket prices. Roofs and windows of nearby buildings were crowded with spectators, including the King of Sweden. Both players were nervous, with Lenglen drinking brandy
and water at one point to calm her nerves. Lenglen won the match 6–3, 8–6 after being down 2–1 in the first set and 5–4 in the second set. Wills had a set point in the second set and believed she had won the point that would have won her the set, but a linesman disagreed. In one of the few times she showed emotion on court, she spoke angrily to the linesman over the call. After the match, Lenglen's father advised her that she would lose her next match to Wills if they met again soon, and Lenglen avoided Wills for the remainder of the spring. Wills did not get a second chance to meet Lenglen. Wills had an emergency appendectomy during the 1926 French Championship, which caused her to default her second round match and withdraw from Wimbledon, which also was considered a default. Lenglen turned professional after the 1926 season.
After she returned to the United States, Wills attempted a comeback from her appendectomy, lost two matches, and on the advice of her doctor, withdrew from that year's U.S. Championships. Apart from those two losses, beginning with the 1923 U.S. Championships, Wills lost only four matches in three years: once to Lenglen, twice to Kathleen McKane Godfree
, and once to Elizabeth Ryan
. Wills had winning overall records against the latter two. In 1927, a revived Wills began her streak of not losing a set until the 1933 Wimbledon Championships.
In an exhibition match in San Francisco on January 28, 1933, Wills defeated Phil Neer
, the eighth ranked American male player, 6–3, 6–4.
During the 17 year period from 1922 through 1938, Wills entered 24 Grand Slam singles events, winning 19, finishing second three times, and defaulting twice as a result of her appendectomy. Her streak of winning U.S. Championships seven times in seven attempts ended when she defaulted to Helen Hull Jacobs
during the 1933 final because of a back injury. At the time, Jacobs was leading in the third set. Because she felt the press and fans treated her harshly at the U.S. Championship, Wills decided never to play there again. After taking a year off to recuperate, Wills came back to win the 1935 and 1938 Wimbledon titles before retiring permanently, beating Jacobs both times.
When asked in 1941 about whether Wills or Lenglen was the better player, Elizabeth Ryan, who played against both of them in singles and partnered both in doubles, said, "Suzanne, of course. She owned every kind of shot, plus a genius for knowing how and when to use them." Godfree, who played both Wills and Lenglen several times and was a two time Wimbledon champion during Lenglen's absence, also stated that Lenglen was "by far" the better player.
Analogizing Wills's game to poker
, George Lott
, a 12 time winner of Grand Slam doubles titles and a contemporary of Wills, once said, "Helen’s expression rarely varied and she always tended strictly to business, but her opponents were never in doubt as to what she held: an excellent service, a powerful forehand, a strong backhand, a killer instinct, and no weaknesses. Five of a kind! Who would want to draw against that kind of hand?"
Charlie Chaplin
was once asked what he considered to be the most beautiful sight that he had ever seen. He responded that it was "the movement of Helen Wills playing tennis."
According to Wallis Myers of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail
, Wills was ranked in the world top ten from 1922 through 1925, 1927 through 1933, and in 1935 and 1938. She was World No. 1 in those rankings nine times, from 1927 through 1933 and in 1935 and 1938. Wills was included in the year-end top ten rankings issued by the United States Lawn Tennis Association
from 1922 through 1925, 1927 through 1929, and in 1931 and 1933. She was the top ranked U.S. player from 1923 through 1925 and 1927 through 1929.
Wills was named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year
in 1935 and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame
in 1959. In 1981, Wills was inducted into the (San Francisco) Bay Area Athletic Hall of Fame. In 1926 and 1929, Wills appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
NH = tournament not held.
A = did not participate in the tournament.
SR = the ratio of the number of Grand Slam singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.
1Through 1923, the French Championships were open only to French nationals (or members of French tennis clubs). The World Hard Court Championships (WHCC), actually played on clay in Paris or Brussels, began in 1912 and were open to all nationalities. The results from that tournament are shown here for 1922 and 1923. The Olympics replaced the WHCC in 1924, as the Olympics were held in Paris. Beginning in 1925, the French Championships were open to all nationalities, with the results shown here beginning with that year.
2 During the 1926 French Championships Helen Wills had an appendectomy that hadn't healed by the time Wimbledon started. Though one week prior the tournament was informed she wouldn't play, she was defaulted from her opening round match at Wimbledon.
for her high school
education.
Wills attended the University of California, Berkeley
on an academic scholarship, and graduated in 1925 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
In 1998, Wills bequeathed US $10 million to the University of California, Berkeley to fund the establishment of a Neuroscience
institute. The resulting institute, the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
, began in 1999 and is now home to more than 40 faculty researchers and 36 graduate students.
, near San Francisco. She had family and lived in Point of Timber, a small river landing along Indian Slough, San Joaquin River, near Byron, California
.
Wills wrote a coaching manual, Tennis (1928), her autobiography, Fifteen-Thirty: The Story of a Tennis Player (1937), and a mystery, Death Serves an Ace (1939, with Robert Murphy). She also wrote articles for the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines.
Senator James D. Phelan
befriended Wills and invited her as a frequent guest to his estate, Villa Montalvo
. Wills wrote poetry as a hobby, and presented two of her works, "The Awakening" and "The Narrow Street", to a literary competition hosted by Phelan in 1926. Wills settled laurel wreath
s over the heads of the winners. Phelan himself wrote a poem dedicated to Wills. In 1928, Phelan commissioned Haig Patigian
, sculptor and fellow member of the Bohemian Club
, to create a likeness of Wills. Patigian completed a marble bust of Wills in October 1928, and Phelan donated it to the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
. At his death in 1930, Phelan left Wills $20,000 ($ today) in his will, "in appreciation of her winning the tennis championship for California."
Wills met painter Diego Rivera
and his wife Frida Kahlo
at the San Francisco studio of her friend sculptor Ralph Stackpole
in 1930. Rivera sketched Wills and asked her to model as the main figure of "California" for the 30-foot-high mural Allegory of California he was painting for the City Club of the San Francisco Stock Exchange
. The committee of the Stock Exchange found out that Wills was being portrayed and insisted that no living person be represented in the mural. Subsequently, Rivera darkened the hair, broadened the eyes, changed the corners of the mouth and angled the jawline to remove any specific resemblance to Wills. A portrait of Stackpole's son Peter Stackpole
holding a model airplane remained unnoticed in the mural.
Wills painted all her life, giving exhibitions of her paintings and etchings in New York galleries. She personally drew all of the illustrations in her book Tennis. Wills remained an avid tennis player into her 80s.
She died in Carmel, California of natural causes, aged 92. She had no children.
In 1994 in an interview with William Simon, Inside Tennis reporter, in Carmel California, she gave this rendition of what ended her career:
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
player. She has been described as "the first American born woman to achieve international celebrity as an athlete."
Biography
She was born Helen Newington Wills in Centerville, CaliforniaFremont, California
Fremont is a city in Alameda County, California. It was incorporated on January 23, 1956, from the merger of five smaller communities: Centerville, Niles, Irvington, Mission San Jose, and Warm Springs...
and attended the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
.
She married Frederick Moody in December 1929. She won approximately one-half of her major championships as Helen Wills and one-half as Helen Wills Moody. Wills divorced Moody in 1937 and married Aidan Roark
Aidan Roark
Aidan Roark was an Irish 10-goal polo player and in Hollywood he acted as a personal assistant to Darryl Francis Zanuck.-Biography:...
in October 1939. She died on January 1, 1998, aged 92.
Sporting achievements
Wills won 31 Grand SlamGrand Slam (tennis)
The four Major tennis tournaments, also called the Slams, are the most important tennis events of the year in terms of world tour ranking points, tradition, prize-money awarded, strength and size of player field, and public attention. They are the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and...
titles (singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles) during her career, including seven singles titles at the U.S. Championships
U.S. Open (tennis)
The US Open, formally the United States Open Tennis Championships, is a hardcourt tennis tournament which is the modern iteration of one of the oldest tennis championships in the world, the U.S. National Championship, which for men's singles was first contested in 1881...
, eight singles titles at Wimbledon
The Championships, Wimbledon
The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors...
, and four singles titles at the French Championships. Excluding her defaults at the French Championships and Wimbledon in 1926, she reached at least the final of each Grand Slam singles event she played during her career. She never played at the Australian Championships.
Wills also won two Olympic
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
gold medals in Paris in 1924 (singles and doubles), the last year that tennis was an Olympic sport until 1988. Wills was the U.S. girls' singles champion in 1921 and 1922. She won her first women's national title at the age of 17 in 1923, making her the youngest champion at that time. From 1919 through 1938, she amassed a 398–35 (0.919) match record, including a winning streak of at least 158 matches, during which she did not lose a set. She was a member of the U.S. Wightman Cup
Wightman Cup
The Wightman Cup was a team tennis competition for women contested from 1923 through 1989 between teams from the United States and Great Britain. U.S. player Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman wanted to generate international interest in women's tennis the way Davis Cup did for men's...
team in 1923, 1924, 1925, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, and 1938.
Wills was reported to be an introverted and detached woman. On court, she rarely showed emotion, ignored her opponents, and took no notice of the crowd. Kitty McKane Godfree, who inflicted the only defeat Wills suffered at Wimbledon during her career, said, "Helen was a very private person, and she didn't really make friends very much." Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman
Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman
Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman was an American tennis player.-Personal life:Wightman was born in Healdsburg, California and married George Wightman of Boston in 1912. She died in Newton, Massachusetts...
said, "Helen was really an unconfident and awkward girl — you have no idea how awkward.... I thought of Helen as an honestly shy person who was bewildered by how difficult it was to please most people." Because of her unchanging expression, Grantland Rice
Grantland Rice
Grantland Rice was an early 20th century American sportswriter known for his elegant prose. His writing was published in newspapers around the country and broadcast on the radio.-Biography:...
, the American sportswriter, bestowed on Wills the nickname "Little Miss Poker Face". As her success and, ironically, unpopularity with the public increased, she was called "Queen Helen" and "the Imperial Helen". In her own defense, Wills said in her autobiography, "I had one thought and that was to put the ball across the net. I was simply myself, too deeply concentrated on the game for any extraneous thought."
She typically wore a white sailor suit having a pleated knee-length skirt, white shoes, and a white visor.
On February 16, 1926, the 20-year-old Wills met Suzanne Lenglen
Suzanne Lenglen
Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen was a French tennis player who won 31 Championship titles between 1914 and 1926...
, six-time Wimbledon champion, in the final of a tournament at the Carlton Club in Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
. It was the only time they played each other. Public anticipation of their match was immense, resulting in high scalper ticket prices. Roofs and windows of nearby buildings were crowded with spectators, including the King of Sweden. Both players were nervous, with Lenglen drinking brandy
Brandy
Brandy is a spirit produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35%–60% alcohol by volume and is typically taken as an after-dinner drink...
and water at one point to calm her nerves. Lenglen won the match 6–3, 8–6 after being down 2–1 in the first set and 5–4 in the second set. Wills had a set point in the second set and believed she had won the point that would have won her the set, but a linesman disagreed. In one of the few times she showed emotion on court, she spoke angrily to the linesman over the call. After the match, Lenglen's father advised her that she would lose her next match to Wills if they met again soon, and Lenglen avoided Wills for the remainder of the spring. Wills did not get a second chance to meet Lenglen. Wills had an emergency appendectomy during the 1926 French Championship, which caused her to default her second round match and withdraw from Wimbledon, which also was considered a default. Lenglen turned professional after the 1926 season.
After she returned to the United States, Wills attempted a comeback from her appendectomy, lost two matches, and on the advice of her doctor, withdrew from that year's U.S. Championships. Apart from those two losses, beginning with the 1923 U.S. Championships, Wills lost only four matches in three years: once to Lenglen, twice to Kathleen McKane Godfree
Kathleen McKane Godfree
Kathleen "Kitty" McKane Godfree was a British female tennis and badminton player....
, and once to Elizabeth Ryan
Elizabeth Ryan
Elizabeth Montague Ryan was an American tennis player who was born in Anaheim, California but lived most of her life in the United Kingdom. Ryan won 30 Grand Slam titles. Nineteen of those titles were in women's doubles and mixed doubles at Wimbledon, an all-time record for those two events...
. Wills had winning overall records against the latter two. In 1927, a revived Wills began her streak of not losing a set until the 1933 Wimbledon Championships.
In an exhibition match in San Francisco on January 28, 1933, Wills defeated Phil Neer
Phil Neer
Philip F. Neer was NCAA champion and a top-ranking amateur tennis player in the 1920s.-Early career:...
, the eighth ranked American male player, 6–3, 6–4.
During the 17 year period from 1922 through 1938, Wills entered 24 Grand Slam singles events, winning 19, finishing second three times, and defaulting twice as a result of her appendectomy. Her streak of winning U.S. Championships seven times in seven attempts ended when she defaulted to Helen Hull Jacobs
Helen Jacobs
Helen Hull Jacobs was a World No. 1 American female tennis player who won ten Grand Slam titles. She was born in Globe, Arizona, United States.- Tennis career :...
during the 1933 final because of a back injury. At the time, Jacobs was leading in the third set. Because she felt the press and fans treated her harshly at the U.S. Championship, Wills decided never to play there again. After taking a year off to recuperate, Wills came back to win the 1935 and 1938 Wimbledon titles before retiring permanently, beating Jacobs both times.
When asked in 1941 about whether Wills or Lenglen was the better player, Elizabeth Ryan, who played against both of them in singles and partnered both in doubles, said, "Suzanne, of course. She owned every kind of shot, plus a genius for knowing how and when to use them." Godfree, who played both Wills and Lenglen several times and was a two time Wimbledon champion during Lenglen's absence, also stated that Lenglen was "by far" the better player.
Analogizing Wills's game to poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
, George Lott
George Lott
George Martin Lott was an American tennis player and tennis coach who was born in Springfield, Illinois, United States. Lott is mostly remembered as being one of the greatest doubles players of all time. He won the U.S. title five times with three different partners: John Hennessey in 1928; John...
, a 12 time winner of Grand Slam doubles titles and a contemporary of Wills, once said, "Helen’s expression rarely varied and she always tended strictly to business, but her opponents were never in doubt as to what she held: an excellent service, a powerful forehand, a strong backhand, a killer instinct, and no weaknesses. Five of a kind! Who would want to draw against that kind of hand?"
Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
was once asked what he considered to be the most beautiful sight that he had ever seen. He responded that it was "the movement of Helen Wills playing tennis."
According to Wallis Myers of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
, Wills was ranked in the world top ten from 1922 through 1925, 1927 through 1933, and in 1935 and 1938. She was World No. 1 in those rankings nine times, from 1927 through 1933 and in 1935 and 1938. Wills was included in the year-end top ten rankings issued by the United States Lawn Tennis Association
United States Tennis Association
The United States Tennis Association is the national governing body for the sport of tennis in the United States. A not-for-profit organization with more than 700,000 members, it invests 100% of its proceeds to promote and develop the growth of tennis, from the grass-roots to the professional levels...
from 1922 through 1925, 1927 through 1929, and in 1931 and 1933. She was the top ranked U.S. player from 1923 through 1925 and 1927 through 1929.
Wills was named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year
Associated Press Athlete of the Year
The first Athlete of the Year award in the United States was initiated by the Associated Press in 1931. At a time when women in sports were never given the same recognition as men, the AP offered a male and a female athlete of the year award to either a professional or amateur athlete...
in 1935 and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame
International Tennis Hall of Fame
The International Tennis Hall of Fame is located in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. The hall of fame and honors players and contributors to the sport of tennis and includes a museum, grass tennis courts, an indoor tennis facility, and a court tennis facility.-History:The hall of fame and...
in 1959. In 1981, Wills was inducted into the (San Francisco) Bay Area Athletic Hall of Fame. In 1926 and 1929, Wills appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
Wins (19)
| Year | Championship | Opponent in Final | Score in Final |
| 1923 | U.S. Championships |  Molla Bjurstedt Mallory |
6–2, 6–1 |
| 1924 | U.S. Championships (2) | Molla Bjurstedt Mallory |
6–1, 6–3 |
| 1925 | U.S. Championships (3) |  Kathleen McKane GodfreeKathleen McKane Godfree Kathleen "Kitty" McKane Godfree was a British female tennis and badminton player.... |
3–6, 6–0, 6–2 |
| 1927 | Wimbledon The Championships, Wimbledon The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors... |
 Lili de AlvarezLili de Alvarez Lili de Alvarez was a Spanish multi-sport competitor, an international tennis champion, an author, and a journalist.... |
6–2, 6–4 |
| 1927 | U.S. Championships (4) | Betty Nuthall Shoemaker |
6–1, 6–4 |
| 1928 | French Championships | Eileen Bennett Whittingstall Eileen Bennett Whittingstall Eileen Bennett Whittingstall was a female tennis player from the United Kingdom who won six Grand Slam doubles titles from 1927 to 1931.-Career:... |
6–1, 6–2 |
| 1928 | Wimbledon (2) | Lili de Alvarez |
6–2, 6–3 |
| 1928 | U.S. Championships (5) | Helen Hull Jacobs |
6–2, 6–1 |
| 1929 | French Championships (2) |  Simone MathieuSimone Mathieu Simone Mathieu was a female tennis player from France, born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine.-Career:... |
6–3, 6–4 |
| 1929 | Wimbledon (3) | Helen Hull Jacobs |
6–1, 6–2 |
| 1929 | U.S. Championships (6) | Phoebe Holcroft Watson Phoebe Holcroft Watson Phoebe Holcroft Watson was a tennis player from the United Kingdom whose best result in singles was reaching the final of the US Championships in 1929, losing to Helen Wills Moody 6–4, 6–2... |
6–4, 6–2 |
| 1930 | French Championships (3) | Helen Hull Jacobs |
6–2, 6–1 |
| 1930 | Wimbledon (4) | Elizabeth Ryan Elizabeth Ryan Elizabeth Montague Ryan was an American tennis player who was born in Anaheim, California but lived most of her life in the United Kingdom. Ryan won 30 Grand Slam titles. Nineteen of those titles were in women's doubles and mixed doubles at Wimbledon, an all-time record for those two events... |
6–2, 6–2 |
| 1931 | U.S. Championships (7) | Eileen Bennett Whittingstall |
6–4, 6–1 |
| 1932 | French Championships (4) | Simone Mathieu |
7–5, 6–1 |
| 1932 | Wimbledon (5) | Helen Hull Jacobs |
6–3, 6–1 |
| 1933 | Wimbledon (6) | Dorothy Round Little Dorothy Round Little Dorothy Edith Round Little was a World No. 1 British female tennis player. She was born in Dudley, Worcestershire, England, where she attended the Dudley Girls High School.... |
6–4, 6–8, 6–3 |
| 1935 | Wimbledon (7) | Helen Hull Jacobs |
6–3, 3–6, 7–5 |
| 1938 | Wimbledon (8) | Helen Hull Jacobs |
6–4, 6–0 |
Runner-ups (3)
| Year | Championship | Opponent in Final | Score in Final |
| 1922 | U.S. Championships | Molla Bjurstedt Mallory |
6–3, 6–1 |
| 1924 | Wimbledon The Championships, Wimbledon The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors... |
Kathleen McKane Godfree Kathleen McKane Godfree Kathleen "Kitty" McKane Godfree was a British female tennis and badminton player.... |
4–6, 6–4, 6–4 |
| 1933 | U.S. Championships (2) | Helen Hull Jacobs |
8–6, 3–6, 3–0 retired |
Grand Slam singles tournament timeline
| Tournament | 1922 | 1923 | 1924 | 1925 | 1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1931 | 1932 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935 | 1936 | 1937 | 1938 | Career SR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Championships Australian Open The Australian Open is the only Grand Slam tennis tournament held in the southern hemisphere. The tournament was held for the first time in 1905 and was last contested on grass in 1987. Since 1972 the Australian Open has been held in Melbourne, Victoria. In 1988, the tournament became a hard court... |
A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | 0 / 0 |
| French Championships French Open (tennis) The French Open |Roland Garros]]) is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks between late May and early June in Paris, France, at the Stade Roland Garros. It is the premier clay court tennis tournament in the world and the second of the four annual Grand Slam tournaments – the other three are... 1 |
A | A | NH | A | 2R2 | A | W | W | W | A | W | A | A | A | A | A | A | 4 / 5 |
| Wimbledon The Championships, Wimbledon The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors... |
A | A | F | A | 1R2 | W | W | W | W | A | W | W | A | W | A | A | W | 8 / 10 |
| U.S. Championships U.S. Open (tennis) The US Open, formally the United States Open Tennis Championships, is a hardcourt tennis tournament which is the modern iteration of one of the oldest tennis championships in the world, the U.S. National Championship, which for men's singles was first contested in 1881... |
F | W | W | W | A | W | W | W | A | W | A | F | A | A | A | A | A | 7 / 9 |
| SR | 0 / 1 | 1 / 1 | 1 / 2 | 1 / 1 | 0 / 2 | 2 / 2 | 3 / 3 | 3 / 3 | 2 / 2 | 1 / 1 | 2 / 2 | 1 / 2 | 0 / 0 | 1 / 1 | 0 / 0 | 0 / 0 | 1 / 1 | 19 / 24 |
NH = tournament not held.
A = did not participate in the tournament.
SR = the ratio of the number of Grand Slam singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.
1Through 1923, the French Championships were open only to French nationals (or members of French tennis clubs). The World Hard Court Championships (WHCC), actually played on clay in Paris or Brussels, began in 1912 and were open to all nationalities. The results from that tournament are shown here for 1922 and 1923. The Olympics replaced the WHCC in 1924, as the Olympics were held in Paris. Beginning in 1925, the French Championships were open to all nationalities, with the results shown here beginning with that year.
2 During the 1926 French Championships Helen Wills had an appendectomy that hadn't healed by the time Wimbledon started. Though one week prior the tournament was informed she wouldn't play, she was defaulted from her opening round match at Wimbledon.
Education
Wills attended Head-Royce SchoolHead-Royce School
Head-Royce School is a co-educational college-preparatory K-12 school in Oakland, California. The forerunner of Head-Royce was the Anna Head School for Girls in Berkeley, founded in 1887...
for her high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
education.
Wills attended the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
on an academic scholarship, and graduated in 1925 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
In 1998, Wills bequeathed US $10 million to the University of California, Berkeley to fund the establishment of a Neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
institute. The resulting institute, the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
The Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley was founded in 1999 with assistance from a US$10 million bequeathal left by eight-time Wimbledon champion Helen Wills Moody, an alumna of the University of California - Berkeley.-History:After the death of Helen Wills...
, began in 1999 and is now home to more than 40 faculty researchers and 36 graduate students.
Personal life
Wills was born in Centerville now Fremont, CaliforniaFremont, California
Fremont is a city in Alameda County, California. It was incorporated on January 23, 1956, from the merger of five smaller communities: Centerville, Niles, Irvington, Mission San Jose, and Warm Springs...
, near San Francisco. She had family and lived in Point of Timber, a small river landing along Indian Slough, San Joaquin River, near Byron, California
Byron, California
Byron is a census-designated place in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The population was 1,277 at the 2010 census.-Geography:...
.
Wills wrote a coaching manual, Tennis (1928), her autobiography, Fifteen-Thirty: The Story of a Tennis Player (1937), and a mystery, Death Serves an Ace (1939, with Robert Murphy). She also wrote articles for the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines.
Senator James D. Phelan
James D. Phelan
James Duval Phelan was an American politician, civic leader and banker.-Early years:Phelan was born in San Francisco, the son of an Irish immigrant who became wealthy during the California Gold Rush as a trader, merchant and banker. He graduated from St...
befriended Wills and invited her as a frequent guest to his estate, Villa Montalvo
Villa Montalvo
Villa Montalvo is an Italian Mediterranean style mansion nestled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, in Saratoga, California, United States. It was constructed from 1912 to 1914 by California statesman and businessman James Duval Phelan. After Phelan's death, it was donated to the state...
. Wills wrote poetry as a hobby, and presented two of her works, "The Awakening" and "The Narrow Street", to a literary competition hosted by Phelan in 1926. Wills settled laurel wreath
Laurel wreath
A laurel wreath is a circular wreath made of interlocking branches and leaves of the bay laurel , an aromatic broadleaf evergreen. In Greek mythology, Apollo is represented wearing a laurel wreath on his head...
s over the heads of the winners. Phelan himself wrote a poem dedicated to Wills. In 1928, Phelan commissioned Haig Patigian
Haig Patigian
Haig Patigian was an Armenian-American sculptor born on January 22, 1876 in the city of Van, Armenia, in the Ottoman Empire and died on September 19, 1950 in San Francisco, California. His parents were teachers at the American Mission School in Armenia...
, sculptor and fellow member of the Bohemian Club
Bohemian Club
The Bohemian Club is a private men's club in San Francisco, California, United States.Its clubhouse is located at 624 Taylor Street in San Francisco...
, to create a likeness of Wills. Patigian completed a marble bust of Wills in October 1928, and Phelan donated it to the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
The M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, commonly called simply the de Young Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H...
. At his death in 1930, Phelan left Wills $20,000 ($ today) in his will, "in appreciation of her winning the tennis championship for California."
Wills met painter Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
and his wife Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
at the San Francisco studio of her friend sculptor Ralph Stackpole
Ralph Stackpole
Ralph Ward Stackpole was an American sculptor, painter, muralist, etcher and art educator, San Francisco's leading artist during the 1920s and 1930s. Stackpole was involved in the art and causes of social realism, especially during the Great Depression, when he was part of the Federal Art Project...
in 1930. Rivera sketched Wills and asked her to model as the main figure of "California" for the 30-foot-high mural Allegory of California he was painting for the City Club of the San Francisco Stock Exchange
Pacific Exchange
The Pacific Exchange was, until 2001, a regional stock exchange with a main exchange floor and building in San Francisco, California, USA and a branch in Los Angeles, California, USA. Its history began with the founding of the San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange in 1882 and the Los Angeles Oil...
. The committee of the Stock Exchange found out that Wills was being portrayed and insisted that no living person be represented in the mural. Subsequently, Rivera darkened the hair, broadened the eyes, changed the corners of the mouth and angled the jawline to remove any specific resemblance to Wills. A portrait of Stackpole's son Peter Stackpole
Peter Stackpole
Peter Stackpole was an American photographer. Along with Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, and Thomas McAvoy, he was one of Life Magazine's first staff photographers. He won a George Polk Award in 1954 and taught photography at the Academy of Art University. He also wrote a column in U.S....
holding a model airplane remained unnoticed in the mural.
Wills painted all her life, giving exhibitions of her paintings and etchings in New York galleries. She personally drew all of the illustrations in her book Tennis. Wills remained an avid tennis player into her 80s.
She died in Carmel, California of natural causes, aged 92. She had no children.
In 1994 in an interview with William Simon, Inside Tennis reporter, in Carmel California, she gave this rendition of what ended her career:
See also
- Performance timelines for all female tennis players who reached at least one Grand Slam finalTennis performance timeline comparison (women)This article presents in a tabular form the career tennis Grand Slam, World Hard Court Championships and Olympic singles results of every woman who has reached the singles final of at least one Grand Slam, World Hard Court Championships or Olympic tournament during her career...
- List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s - 26 July 1926
External links
- International Tennis Hall of Fame biography
- Official Wimbledon website profile
- New York Times Obituary
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
- July 26, 1926 Time Magazine cover
- July 1, 1929 Time Magazine cover
- 8/19/1923 article in NYT archive (pay)
- Marble bust of Helen Wills, with sculptor Haig Patigian. October 1928. Photograph in the Bancroft Library Portrait Collection. Bust donated to the M. H. de Young Memorial MuseumM. H. de Young Memorial MuseumThe M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, commonly called simply the de Young Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H...
by James D. PhelanJames D. PhelanJames Duval Phelan was an American politician, civic leader and banker.-Early years:Phelan was born in San Francisco, the son of an Irish immigrant who became wealthy during the California Gold Rush as a trader, merchant and banker. He graduated from St...
in 1928. - Helen Wills posing in her painting studio, Berkeley, 1929. Photograph in the Bancroft Library Portrait Collection.
- Helen Wills sitting in her living room. Photographer Peter StackpolePeter StackpolePeter Stackpole was an American photographer. Along with Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, and Thomas McAvoy, he was one of Life Magazine's first staff photographers. He won a George Polk Award in 1954 and taught photography at the Academy of Art University. He also wrote a column in U.S....
, for Life magazine, 1937.
