TennisWorthy: Suzanne Lenglen, A Roaring 20s Legend
During Women’s History Month, the Tennis Hall of Fame salutes Suzanne Lenglen, one of tennis’ most legendary stars on and off the court. Lenglen won the French Championships and Wimbledon six times each, and she did so with a flapper attitude that defined the Roaring 20s.
In the early 1900s, the women’s suffrage effort was in full swing around the globe. In France, that swing came overhead, quite literally, in the form of Suzanne Lenglen and her tennis racket.
In 1914, Lenglen reached the final of the French Championships as a 14-year-old. She lost to defending champion Marguerite Broquedis, but she won the World Hard Court Championships shortly thereafter. Although World War I would stall postpone most competitive tennis for five years, France got a taste of its future tennis hero: A frail, asthmatic girl who played with a ferocity most fans had never seen from a woman.
By the time competitive play resumed in 1919, Lenglen was a young woman with charisma and confidence. She wore “unladylike” clothing such as short silk skirts, sleeveless cardigans, stockings held up by garters, and bandanas. She had a bob haircut and many times, she could be found on tennis grounds in a fur coat. She smoked like a chimney and while the U.S. instituted prohibition, Lenglen drank brandy or cognac regularly during matches in Europe.
"Her opponents were afraid of her because she was like a lion on the court. It was not usual for a woman to hit the ball so hard," sports historian Patrick Clastres said in 2013.
"She was very different from the other ladies. She was very free."
And Lenglen won. A lot. Almost all of the time. According to Alan Little, who wrote a biography on her, Lenglen went 341-7 in her amateur career, good for a 97.99 winning percentage.
Lenglen’s effect on tennis was felt far beyond the box score. In 1919, she became the first woman from outside of Great Britain or the U.S. to win Wimbledon, taking down seven-time champion Dorothea Lambert Chambers in the final. Chambers served underhand. Lenglen served overhand, something the Wimbledon crowd had never seen from a woman.
Lenglen won Wimbledon six of seven times from 1919-1925, only withdrawing before the semifinals in 1924 due to health problems related to jaundice. She also won the French Championships from 1920-1923 and then again from 1925-1926 when the tournament became an official grand slam event open to those outside of French Clubs. At the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, Lenglen won gold in singles and mixed doubles, taking bronze in women’s doubles.
"Suzanne was the glory of the times in which she lived," Larry Engelmann, author of “The Goddess & the American Girl: The Story of Suzanne Lenglen and Helen Wills,” told CNN in 2013.
"She came to represent a sort of resilient, resurgent, glorious France. She was, in the eyes of the French press, a reborn Joan of Arc. They called her 'the Goddess.'
"After all of the suffering that the French people had gone through in the First World War, suddenly there was the emergence of this girl, this young woman who is a very dominating figure in a very popular sport."
Lenglen refused to be “proper” on the court. She threw her racquet, argued calls and tried to get into her opponents’ head. This also made her one of the hottest tickets in tennis.
Lenglen’s popularity hit a climax in February 1926 at the Carlton Club in Cannes. Lenglen, the best player in Europe, met American Helen Wills, then-the three-time winner of the U.S. National Championships and the de facto best player in North America. With high-priced tickets and fans watching from windows of neighboring buildings, Lenglen won her only match against Wills, 6-3, 8-6.
Lenglen then broke ground for women in a new way. American sports entrepreneur Charles Pyle paid Lenglen $50,000 to tour with three-time U.S. National Champion Mary K. Browne, as the duo was among the first women’s players to turn professional. Lenglen and Browne headlined a card that also featured men’s players. Lenglen went 38-0 on the tour.
Lenglen’s choice to turn pro was not embraced by all. The All-England Club rescinded membership for its six-time champion.
“In the twelve years I have been champion I have earned literally millions of francs for tennis and have paid thousands of francs in entrance fees to be allowed to do so,” Lenglen said of her decision to turn pro. “I have worked as hard at my career as any man or woman has worked at any career. And in my whole lifetime I have not earned $5,000 – not one cent of that by my specialty, my life study – tennis...I am twenty-seven and not wealthy – should I embark on any other career and leave the one for which I have what people call genius? Or should I smile at the prospect of actual poverty and continue to earn a fortune – for whom?”
Lenglen retired from tennis shortly after her U.S. tour. Of course, it would be almost a century after Lenglen’s retirement that professional women would receive equal pay at the professional level at Wimbledon. Lenglen faced many hardships for her era, and although she made progress, decades of work was left to be done. Naturally, Billie Jean King was among those who picked up Lenglen’s plight.
“Suzanne Lenglen was huge to me because she was the first superstar of the sport,” King said in 2015. “The reason we play at Wimbledon is because of her — they built Centre Court because they were selling too many tickets at the old place and they had to move. They moved in 1922.”
Lenglen’s persona developed natural rivalries with traditionalists in what was then an exclusive sport in Europe. She also had her rivalries on the court, although many respected what Lenglen was doing for women in the game.
“Sure, she was a poser, a ham in the theatrical sense,” said American Elizabeth Ryan, who won six Wimbledon doubles titles with Lenglen, but also lost to Lenglen in the 1921 Wimbledon singles final. “She had been spoiled by tremendous adulation from the time she was a kid…But she was the greatest woman player of them all. Never doubt that.”
Lenglen passed away of pernicious anemia in 1938, shortly after being diagnosed with leukemia, but her legacy lives on in the tennis world, notably in Paris. At Roland Garros, Court Suzanne Lenglen is the tournament’s No. 2 venue, and the women’s singles champion receives the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen.
Lenglen was an icon of Roaring 20s culture. She was beloved by some and condemned by others. The haters could criticize her clothes and attitude, but they couldn’t dispute the results. She was one of tennis’ greatest champions and one of its earliest female icons.
Jeff Eisenband is a journalist based in New York City who previously served as senior editor of ThePostGame and has contributed to the NBA 2K League, NBA Twitch, DraftKings, Cheddar, Golfweek and the Big Ten Network. He can be found on Twitter at @JeffEisenband.
