February 16, 1926: Women's Tennis' "Match of the Century"

Suzanne Lenglen (left) and Helen Wills

February 16, 1926: The women's tennis final of the Carlton Club Tournament is held, at Cannes on the French Riviera. Tennis fans would call it "The Match of the Century."

This was at a time when France dominated tennis. Jean Borotra (1898-1994), Jacques Brugnon (1895-1978), Henri Cochet (1901-1987) and René Lacoste (1904-1996) were known as "The Four Musketeers." Between them, they won 8 French Opens, 5 Wimbledons, 4 U.S. Opens, and an Australian Open, won by Borotra.

Brugnon didn't win any of them. In fact, he never even made a singles' final at a major tournament. Cochet and Lacoste never even competed in the Australian Open: In those early days of commercial air travel, it was too dangerous, and going from Europe or America to Australia by ship took too long, so the Australian Open was the last of the modern majors to be recognized as such. These 4 men also helped France win the Davis Cup in 1927 and 1928. In 1933, Lacoste founded the sportswear company that bears his name, its logo his nickname: "The Crocodile."

The best female tennis player in the world was also French. Suzanne Lenglen was born on May 24, 1899 in Paris. In 1921, when individual tennis rankings were first issued, she was named the Number 1 women's player. They continued to rank her 1st through 1926, as she won Wimbledon 6 times and the French Open twice -- but never the U.S. or the Australian Open. Her career record in singles matches was 332 wins and 7 losses. That is not a misprint: Three hundred thirty-two and seven. The French press called her La Divine: "The Goddess."

Helen Newington Wills was born on October 6, 1905 in Fremont, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. She won the U.S. Open in 1923, 1924 and 1925. As Lenglen had won the Gold Medal in women's singles in tennis at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, Wills won it in 1924, in Paris, Lenglen's hometown.

The hype for a match between Lenglen and Wills began in late 1923, following Wills' 1st U.S. Open title. Their 1st encounter was expected to take place in 1924, when Wills made her first trip to Europe to compete in the Wightman Cup against Great Britain, before partaking in Wimbledon and the Olympics later that Summer. However, Lenglen contracted jaundice, and, not fully recovered, withdrew from Wimbledon after winning the Quarterfinal, preventing a meeting with Wills in the Final, which Wills lost to Kitty McKane. Despite the Paris location, Lenglen did not defend her Olympic title, and Wills won it. Wills did not return to Europe in 1925, instead focusing on her college studies as a sophomore at the University of California at Berkeley.

But in 1926, both women entered the Carlton Club tournament. Each one approved the various officials for the Final, and those officials, in the interest of neutrality between the Frenchwoman and the American, were British. Most were, themselves, former tennis players, and one was a winner of the British Amateur golf tournament.

The 1st set saw Wills take a 2-1 lead, but Lenglen broke her service 3 times, to win the set, 6-3. Wills led the 2nd set  3-1, 4-3 and 5-4, before Lenglen took a 6-5 lead, before Wills forced a tiebreaker. But Lenglen won it, 8-6. After 1 hour and 3 minutes, the match was over, and Lenglen had won.

There was never a rematch. But Wills did find a match on the trip: She met Frederick S. Moody Jr., a San Francisco stockbroker. They married in 1929, and divorced in 1937. She married Aidan Roark, an Irish polo player, in 1939. She never had any children.

Nor did Lenglen, who never married, although she dated California heir Baldwin Baldwin for a few years. She wrote 3 tennis instruction manuals, and a romance novel, The Love Game: Being the Life Story of Marcelle Penrose. But she never won another major tournament, and died of pernicious anemia on July 4, 1938, at the age of 39. Antibiotics were not yet available to save her.

Wills succeeded Lenglen as the most dominant female tennis player in the world. In those days, not many tennis players (male or female) made the long trip to Australia to play their Open. If she had, she might have won the Grand Slam, because she won the other 3 in 1928 and 1929. Between 1923 and 1938, she won Wimbledon 8 times (a record until Martina Navratilova surpassed it in 1990), the U.S. Open 7 times, and the French Open 4 times -- but never entered the Australian Open. On 7 occasions, a Grand Slam Final came down to "The Two Helens," with Helen Wills Moody (she used her married name from 1930 onward) beating Helen Hull Jacobs in 6 of them.

She wrote an instruction manual in 1928 (titled simply Tennis), a memoir in 1937 (also with an ordinary title, Fifteen-Thirty: The Story of a Tennis Player), a mystery novel in 1939 (with more imagination, titled Death Serves an Ace), and articles for The Saturday Evening Post, and painted up until her death, on January 1, 1998, at 92.

In 1950, the Associated Press named Suzanne Lenglen the greatest female tennis player of the 1st half of the 20th Century, along with Bill Tilden as the greatest male tennis player. In the 2nd half of the 20th Century, she would be surpassed by many, including Margaret Court, Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova. In the 21st Century, they were all surpassed by Serena Williams.

Both Jack Kramer and Don Budge -- contemporaries who lived long enough to see Margaret Court, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Monica Seles -- called Helen Wills the best female tennis player ever. She was elected to the International Tennis and Bay Area Sports Halls of Fame.

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February 16, 1926 was a Monday. English film director John Schlesinger was born.

Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 3 games in the NHL:

* The New York Americans lost to the Toronto St. Patricks, 3-2 at the brand-new building that would eventually be known as "the old Madison Square Garden." Bert McCaffrey scored the winning goal, with 1:25 left in regulation.

* The Ottawa Senators beat the Montreal Canadiens, 1-0 at the Mount Royal Arena in Montreal.

* And the Boston Bruins beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-2 at the Boston Arena (now the Matthews Arena). Lionel Hitchman scored the winning goal, 36 seconds into overtime.