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© Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum |
It was not until 1990, 52 years after she had set the mark,
that Helen Wills Moody's record of eight singles titles at
The Championships was finally overtaken by Martina Navratilova's
historic ninth Centre Court triumph.
It was appropriate that Navratilova, the greatest of the modern
generation, should be the one to set her name in the history
books alongside the woman who was the premier player of the
pre-war era. Wills Moody had only one real challenger for
that honour, Suzanne Lenglen, and the astonishing statistic
of two women who between them won 14 Wimbledon singles titles
is that they only met once.
It happened at Cannes in 1926. Lenglen, having won her six
Wimbledons between 1919 and 1925, was 27 and at the peak of
her game, while Wills (who would not marry Frederick Moody
until 1929) was just 20 and had only played Wimbledon once,
losing to Britain's Kitty McKane (later Godfree) in the 1924
final. That was to be the only defeat she sustained in nine
visits to the All England Club.
The Cannes contest went to Lenglen by a score of 6-3, 8-6
and further meetings were ruled out by the Frenchwoman's decision
to turn professional, preventing what would have been an epic
rivalry, Wills Moody's power and solidity matched against
Lenglen's verve and speed.
The quiet and reserved American, who was born in Berkeley,
California in 1905, was dubbed Miss Poker Face by the media,
with whom she had little rapport. In truth, it was her opponents
who should have been left with straight faces as Wills Moody
embarked on the most incredible run of success.
Between 1927 and 1932 she did not lose a set, never mind a
match, annexing five Wimbledons, four US and four French titles.
It was not until the 1933 Wimbledon final that Dorothy Round
managed to take a set off her.
Later that year, Wills Moody defaulted to her latest rival
and fellow-Californian, Helen Jacobs, in the final of the
US Champonships, complaining of back pain. Jacobs had never
beaten the seven-time US champion, but she seemed on the brink
of it at set-all and 3-0 in the decider when Wills Moody announced
she could not continue. It was the only time in their 11 meetings
that Jacobs would be able to claim "victory".
Angered by the furore which followed her failure to explain
the injury more fully, she never again played the US event
but, having had lengthy treatment from her father, a doctor,
she continued to garner honours at the All England Club, winning
on both of her subsequent appearances, in 1935 and then finally,
at the age of 32, in 1938.
On both occasions her opponent was again "the other Helen",
Jacobs. But they were very different finals. In 1935 Jacobs
led 5-2 in the third set of a gripping contest and actually
had a match point, only to fluff an easy volley and then watch
helplessly as Wills Moody swept five games in a row. Miss
Poker Face was so moved by this extraordinary comeback that
she kissed and embraced the startled umpire.
Three years later Jacobs managed to collect just four games
in a decidedly one-sided contest, the fourth time she had
lost to Wills Moody in a Wimbledon final. It was the Great
Helen's farewell to a tournament in which she had lost a total
of four sets in all the years of Wimbledon participation.
A reporter for the New York Herald attempted to explain Wills
Moody's lack of popularity among American audiences: "She
plays her tennis wrapped in a deadly, serious integrity...this
is the way to win, but not the way of a crowd pleaser."
It was an attitude which inevitably made her more popular,
and more at home, with the reserved English crowds.
With the Second World War only a year distant, the face of
women's tennis would be much changed by 1946, when Wimbledon
got under way once more - apart from ongoing American dominance.
The achievements of Helen Wills Moody, who had remarried to
Aidan Roark in 1939, seemed established for ever until the
emergence of Navratilova.
An accomplished writer and painter in her retirement, Helen
Wills Moody Roark died on New Year's Day 1998.
Written by Ronald Atkin
HELEN WILLS-MOODY
Singles Champion: 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1933, 1935,
1938
Doubles Champion: 1924, 1927, 1930
Mixed Doubles Champion: 1929
