Athletes - Helen Wills Moody

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	Athletes - Helen Wills Moody

Helen Wills (October 6, 1905 – January 1, 1999) was one of the greatest women's tennis players of all time, dominating the 1920s and 1930s. She was born Helen Newington Wills, but married Frederick Moody in December 1929, afterwhich, she became well-known as Helen Wills Moody. She divorced Moody in 1937 and married Aidan Roark in October 1939.

Sporting achievements

She won 31 major titles (singles, doubles, and mixed doubles) over her career, including seven U.S. singles championships (1923-25, 1927-29, and 1931), eight Wimbledon singles titles (1927-30, 1932-33, 1935, and 1938), and four French singles titles (1928-30 and 1932). She also won two Olympic gold medals in Paris in 1924 (singles and doubles), the last year tennis was an Olympic sport until 1988. She was the U.S. girls' singles champion 1921-22. She won her first women's national title at the age of 17 (1923), making her the youngest champion at that time. Between 1919 and 1938 she amassed a 398-35 match record, including a 158-match winning streak (1927-32), during which she did not lose a single set. She was a member of the U.S. Wightman Cup team 1923-25, 1927-32, and 1938. Her unchanging expression earned her the nickname "Little Miss Poker Face". She helped free women tennis players from ankle-length skirts and petticoats, typically wearing a white sailor suit having a pleated knee-length skirt, white shoes, and a white visor.

During the 16 year period from 1923 to 1938, Wills entered 22 Grand Slam singles events, winning 19 and finishing second 3 times. Starting with the 1924 US Open, she won 16 Grand Slams in a row, the first fifteen without losing a set. Her streak finally ended when she defaulted in the final of the 1933 US Open to Helen Jacobs because of an back injury. After taking a year off to recuperate, Wills came back to win the 1935 and 1938 Wimbledon titles before retiring, beating Jacobs both times. Wills' record of sustained excellence unmatched either before or since.

She was named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year in 1935, and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1959.

Education

Wills attended the University of California, Berkeley on an academic scholarship and graduated with a degree in Fine Arts in 1927. At Berkeley she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

In 1998 Helen 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.

Personal Life

Wills was born is Centerville, now Fremont, California, near San Francisco. She grew up and learned to place tennis in Berkeley, 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 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.

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Athletes - Helen Wills Moody

Sporting achievements

Education

Personal Life

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