Suzanne Lenglen

Lenglen (left) with regular doubles partner Elizabeth Ryan in 1914. They first played together in 1913.

Lenglen entered her first non-handicap singles event in July 1912 at the Compiègne Championships near her hometown, her only standard event of the year. After her opponent defaulted in the opening round, Lenglen won her debut match in the quarterfinals before losing her semifinal to Jeanne Matthey. She also played in the singles and mixed doubles handicap events and won both of them. When Lenglen returned to Nice in 1913, she was more successful, winning two handicap singles titles in January. The next month, Lenglen entered a handicap doubles event in Monte Carlo with Elizabeth Ryan, an American who had moved to England a year earlier. Although they lost the final in three sets, Ryan became Lenglen's most frequent doubles partner and the pair never lost another match.[17]

Lenglen's success at handicap events led her to enter more standard events in the rest of 1913. She debuted at the South of France Championships at the Nice Club in March, winning only one match. Nonetheless, when Lenglen returned to Compiègne, she won her first two standard singles titles, both within a few weeks of her 14th birthday. After losing to Matthey again at both of her events in July, the latter of which by default, Lenglen rebounded to win titles in her last two singles events of the year.[18]

Lenglen at the 1914 World Hard Court Championships

Back on the Riviera in 1914, Lenglen focused on open events. Her victory in singles against high-ranking British player Ruth Winch was regarded as a huge surprise by the tennis community. However, Lenglen still struggled at larger tournaments early in the year, losing to Ryan in the quarterfinals at Monte Carlo and then to six-time Wimbledon champion Dorothea Lambert Chambers in the semifinals at the South of France Championships. In May, Lenglen was invited to enter the French Championships for the first time. Held at the Racing Club de France in Paris, the event was restricted to French players. The format gave the defending champion a bye until the final match, known as the challenge round. In that match, they faced the winner of the All Comers' competition, a standard tournament bracket for the remaining players. Lenglen won the All Comers' singles draw of six players to make it to the challenge round against Marguerite Broquedis. Despite winning the first set, she ultimately lost the match. This was the last time in Lenglen's career that she lost a completed singles match, and the only time she lost a singles final other than by default. Although she also lost the doubles challenge round at the tournament to Blanche and Suzanne Amblard, Lenglen won the mixed doubles title with Max Decugis as her partner.[19][20]

Lenglen's performance at the French Championships set the stage for her debut at the World Hard Court Championships, one of the major tournaments recognized by the International Lawn Tennis Federation at the time.[7] She won the singles final against Germaine Golding for her first major title. She was only been challenged in her opening match against Phyllis Satterthwaite, needing an 8–6 score to win the second set in the former and losing the second set in the latter. Her volleying ability was instrumental in defeating Amblard, while her ability to outlast Golding in long rallies gave her the advantage in the final. Lenglen also won the doubles title with Ryan over the Amblard sisters without dropping a game in the final. She finished runner-up in mixed doubles to Ryan and Decugis alongside Ludwig von Salm. Following the World Hard Court Championships, Lenglen could have made her debut at Wimbledon; however, her father decided against it. He did not like her chances of defeating Lambert Chambers on grass, a surface on which she had never played a tournament, given that she had already lost to the six-time Wimbledon champion earlier in the year on clay.[21][22]

World War I began in August 1914. During the war, the Lenglen family lived at their home in Nice, an area much less affected by the war than Compiègne in northern France. No tournaments were held during the war, interfering with Lenglen's father's plan to have Lenglen enter Wimbledon in 1915. Although Lenglen could not play any official tournaments, she had plenty of opportunity to train while in Nice. Soldiers from around the world came to the Riviera to temporarily avoid the war. Some of these soldiers were leading tennis players, including two-time United States national champions R. Norris Williams and Clarence Griffin. These players competed in charity exhibitions primarily in Cannes to raise money for the French Red Cross. Lenglen participated in these events, and in some instances had the opportunity to play singles matches against male players.[23][24]

Lenglen (near court) and Lambert Chambers contesting the 1919 Wimbledon final

Following the end of World War I in November 1918, many tennis tournaments resumed in 1919. Lenglen won nine singles titles in ten events, four doubles titles in four events, and eight mixed doubles titles in ten events. She won the South of France Championships in March without dropping a game in any of her four matches. Two months later, she won the Paris tournament, a stand-in for the French Championships and the World Hard Court Championships, neither of which returned until the following year.[25][26]

Lenglen made her debut at Wimbledon in July. She won the six-round All Comers' bracket, only losing six games in the first four rounds. Her biggest challenge in the All Comers' competition was her doubles partner Ryan, who saved match points and levelled their second set at five games, only losing after an hour-long rain delay. Although the 20-year-old Lenglen was considered a favourite against the 40-year-old Lambert Chambers in the challenge round, all three sets of the match were extremely close as Lambert Chambers was able to trouble Lenglen with well-placed drop shots. Lenglen won the first set 10–8 after both players saved two set points. After also saving two match points in the third set, Lenglen won the set 9–7 for her first Wimbledon title. The match set the record for most games in a Wimbledon women's singles final with 44, a mark only since surpassed by the 1970 final between Margaret Court and Billie Jean King. Over 8000 people attended the match, well above the seating capacity of 3500 on Centre Court. Lenglen defeated Lambert Chambers and Ethel Thomson Larcombe again in the doubles final with Ryan. She had already lost to Ryan and Randolph Lycett in the quarterfinals of the mixed doubles event, her only loss of the year in any discipline aside from defaults.[27][28]

Lenglen at Cannes in 1920

Lenglen began 1920 with five singles titles on the Riviera, three of which she won in lopsided finals against Ryan. However, Ryan was able to defeat Lenglen in mixed doubles at Cannes in windy conditions, Lenglen's only mixed doubles loss of the year. Although the World Hard Court Championships returned in May, Lenglen withdrew due to illness. She recovered in time for the French Championships two weeks later, where she won the triple crown. Lenglen easily made it to the challenge round in singles, where she defeated Broquedis in a rematch of the 1914 final. She won the doubles event with Élisabeth d'Ayen and defended her mixed doubles title with Decugis, only needing to play the challenge round.[29]

Lenglen's next event was Wimbledon. Lambert Chambers won the All Comers' final to set up a rematch of the previous year's final. Although the match was expected to be close again and began 2–2 in the first, Lenglen won ten of the last eleven games for her second consecutive Wimbledon singles title. She also won the triple crown at Wimbledon, taking the doubles with Ryan and the mixed doubles with Australian Gerald Patterson. The doubles final was also a rematch of the previous year's final against Lambert Chambers and Larcombe, while the mixed doubles victory came against the defending champions Ryan and Lycett. Lenglen's decision to partner with Patterson led to the Fédération Française de Lawn Tennis (FFLT) threatening to not pay her expenses for the Wimbledon trip unless she paired up with a compatriot. Lenglen and her father replied by paying for the trip themselves. After Wimbledon, Lenglen won both of her events in Belgium in the lead-up to the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp. At the Olympics, Lenglen won two gold medals and one bronze medal for France. She won the singles event over British player Dorothy Holman, losing only three games in the final and one other game in her previous four matches. She won the mixed doubles event with Decugis, overcoming an opening set loss in their quarterfinal against a Belgian team. Lenglen partnered with d'Ayen again in the doubles event, losing their semifinal to Kathleen McKane and Winifred McNair in a tight match that ended 8–6 in the decisive third set. This match was Lenglen's only loss in doubles all year. Lenglen and d'Ayen took the bronze medal after their opponents withdrew prior to the third-place match.[30][31]

Lenglen again dominated the tournaments on the Riviera, winning eight titles in singles, six in doubles, and seven in mixed doubles. Her only loss came in mixed doubles, a third set retirement to Satterthwaite and Jack Hillyard while competing with Charles Aeschlimann. She won all of her matches against Ryan, four in singles and five in mixed doubles. All of Lenglen's doubles titles on the Riviera were with Ryan.[32]

Lenglen defended her triple crown at the French Championships in May, not even needing to play a singles match after Germaine Golding withdrew in the challenge round. Later that month, Lenglen returned to the World Hard Court Championships, where five-time United States national singles champion Molla Mallory was making her debut. The United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) sent Mallory and Bill Tilden to the tournament with the hope of drawing Lenglen over to compete in the United States. Although Lenglen defeated Mallory in the final in straight sets, she trailed 2–3 in the second set before winning the last four games. Lenglen also won the triple crown at the tournament, partnering with Golding in doubles and Jacques Brugnon in mixed doubles. She then won her third consecutive Wimbledon titles in both singles and doubles, defeated her doubles partner Ryan in a lopsided singles final. She withdrew from the mixed doubles event in the second round after her partner André Gobert suffered an ankle injury.[33][34]

Lenglen walking off the court after retiring against Mallory

Lenglen planned to compete at the U.S. National Championships in August to prove that she deserved to be called a world champion. Due to illness delaying her trip, however, she did not make it to New York until three days before her opening match and was still sick when she arrived.[35][36] After Lenglen's opening round opponent defaulted, tournament officials rescheduled her second round match against Mallory for that night to appease the large crowd that showed up to see Lenglen play. With over 8000 people in attendance, Mallory took a 2–0 lead in the first set before Lenglen began coughing in the third game. After losing the first set, Lenglen retired from the match two points into the second set for her only singles loss after World War I.[37][38] Following the match, Lenglen withdrew from the doubles event. Despite her condition during the match and withdrawals from subsequent events, American sportswriters believed she retired because she did not believe she could win, not because she was ill. She only played two more matches, both small exhibitions, before leaving the United States in late September.[39][40]

During the 1922 season, Lenglen did not lose a match in any discipline other than by default. She did not return to competitive tennis until March, six months after her loss to Mallory. Lenglen's first tournament back was the South of France Championships, where she won the doubles and mixed doubles titles. She did not play the singles event and did not play singles again until a month later at the Beausoleil Championships in Monte Carlo, where she won the title without dropping a game. This tournament began a 179-match win streak that Lenglen continued through the end of her amateur career.[41][42]

In the middle of the year, Lenglen won triple crowns at the World Hard Court Championships, the French Championships, and Wimbledon. After only needing to play three challenge round matches at the French, Lenglen agreed to forgo the challenge round system at Wimbledon and be included in the main draw at the request of the tournament organisers. In the singles final, she faced Mallory in rematch of their U.S. National Championship meeting. Like in the United States, Mallory won the first two games of the final. However, Lenglen rebounded and won the next twelve games for the title.[43][44] The match only lasted 26 minutes, making it the shortest final in Wimbledon history.[45]

Lenglen entered more events and won more titles in 1923 than in any other year. She won all 16 of the singles events she entered, as well as 13 of 14 doubles events, and 16 of 18 mixed doubles events. Unlike previous years, she did not default a match in any discipline. At the beginning of the season, Mallory travelled to France to make her debut on the French Riviera circuit. Lenglen and Mallory had what turned out to be their last encounter at the South of France Championships, which Mallory entered after not performing well at her other two events on the Riviera. Lenglen defeated her without losing a game. At the same tournament, Lenglen's twelve-month win streak across all disciplines came to an end with a mixed doubles loss to Ryan and Lycett.[46][47]

At the World Hard Court Championships, Lenglen faced McKane in the final in each event, all three of which were held in the same afternoon. She defeated McKane in singles and mixed doubles, the latter of which was with Henri Cochet as her partner for the second consecutive year. With Ryan absent, however, Lenglen partnered with Golding and lost to the British team of McKane and Geraldine Beamish. This was the last time the World Hard Court Championships were held. At the French Championships, Lenglen defended her triple crown without losing a set in spite of the challenge round format being abandoned. She partnered with Brugnon in mixed doubles for the third straight year, while paring up with Julie Vlasto for the first time in doubles. She faced the most adversity in the singles final when the crowd uncharacteristically booed her for trailing 0–4 to Golding in the second set. At Wimbledon, Lenglen won the singles and doubles titles with ease, never dropping more than three games in a set. While partnering with Jean Washer, however, she was defeated by Ryan and Lycett for the second time in the year. In September, Lenglen travelled outside of France and won several titles in Belgium, Spain, and Portugal.[48][49]

Although Lenglen did not lose a match in any discipline in 1924 except by default, she also did not win a major tournament for the first time since 1913 aside from her hiatus due to World War I. Minor illnesses limited her to three singles events on the Riviera, all of which she won. Lenglen played doubles more regularly, winning eight titles in both doubles and mixed doubles. In April, Lenglen travelled to Spain to compete at the Barcelona International. Although she won all three events, she contracted jaundice soon after the trip, preventing her from playing the French Championships. By Wimbledon, she still had not fully recovered. Nonetheless, she entered the tournament and won her first three singles matches without dropping a game. However, in the next round, Ryan proved to be a more difficult opponent. After losing the first set, Ryan took the second set from Lenglen by a score of 8–6, only the third set of singles Lenglen had lost since World War I. Although Lenglen narrowly won the third set, she withdrew from all three events in the tournament following the advice of her doctor. She did not play another event the rest of the year, and in particular missed the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, where Americans took gold in all five tennis competitions and Helen Wills won the women's singles event.[50][51]

Lenglen won five mixed doubles titles at the French Championships with Jacques Brugnon, including the first two open to international players.

Lenglen returned to tennis at the Beau Site New Year Meeting in Cannes the first week of the year, winning in doubles with Ryan in her only event. She only played singles at two tournaments on the Riviera, winning both, including the South of France Championships. Her only loss during this part of the season was to Ryan and Umberto de Morpurgo at the Côte d'Azur Championships in Cannes with Aeschlimann as her mixed doubles partner. In May, Lenglen entered the French Championships, the inaugural edition open to international players. The tournament was played at St. Cloud at the site of the defunct World Hard Court Championships. Lenglen won the triple crown and was not challenged in singles or mixed doubles. She won the singles final over Kathleen McKane, losing only three games. She won the mixed doubles final with Brugnon against her doubles partner Julie Vlasto and Cochet. Although Lenglen and Vlasto lost the second set of the doubles final 9–11 to McKane and Evelyn Colyer, they won the other two sets with ease for the title.[52][53]

Lenglen followed up her performance at the French Championships with another triple crown at Wimbledon. She played five singles matches and did not lose a game in the second set of any of them. The five games she dropped in total remain a record for fewest games lost in a singles title run in Wimbledon history. Her opponents included Ryan in her opening match, the defending champion McKane in the semifinals, and Joan Fry in the final. Partnering with Jean Borotra in mixed doubles, Lenglen lost one set in the semifinals to Lycett and his wife Joan. They defeated Ryan and de Morpurgo in the final. In doubles, Lenglen and Ryan won the title without dropping a set in what turned out to be their last tournament together.[54][55]

Lenglen (left) and Helen Wills (right) mistakenly shake hands near the end of the Match of the Century while an official's hand (far right) indicates the match is not over.

The 1926 season turned out to be Lenglen's last as an amateur even though she had not planned on retiring before the year began. At the beginning of the season, three-time reigning U.S. national champion Helen Wills travelled to France with the hope of playing a match against Lenglen. With Wills's level of stardom approaching that of Lenglen's, there was an immense amount of hype for a match between them to take place. Their first meeting came in mixed doubles at Nice, where Lenglen partnered with de Morpugo to defeat Wills and Aeschlimann. The following week, both of them entered the same singles draw for the first time at the Carlton Club tournament in Cannes. When Lenglen and Wills both made the final with little opposition, the club doubled the number of seats around their main court and all 3000 seats were sold out at 300 francs each.[lower-alpha 4] Standing room also sold out at 100 francs per person. Spectators unable to get into the venue attempted to watch the match from outside the court by climbing trees and ladders or by purchasing unofficial tickets for the windows and roofs of villas across the street. In what was called the Match of the Century, Lenglen defeated Wills in straight sets. Lenglen's first match point at 6–5 in particular became chaotic when an attempted winner from Wills was called out by a spectator, leading both the players and the spectators to believe the match was over. Photographers captured the unique situation of Lenglen and Wills shaking hands at the net as if the match had ended, a moment that was followed by the crowd flooding the court to congratulate Lenglen. After the linesman's clarification that the shot was good and a delay of at least several minutes to clear the court, Wills broke Lenglen to level the set. However, Lenglen recovered and won the next two games to take the match. Despite Lenglen winning, Wills's performance damaged Lenglen's reputation in that the public no longer perceived her to be unbeatable.[57][58]

Although Wills remained in France, Lenglen did not want a rematch until the major tournaments. Ultimately though, Wills's season was cut short when she needed to have her appendix removed following her second round victory at the French Championships. As a result, Wills withdrew from both Grand Slam tournaments, and another match between her and Lenglen never took place. In Wills's absence, Lenglen defended all three of her titles at the French Championships with ease, defeating Mary Browne in the singles final. She again won the doubles with Vlasto and the mixed doubles with Brugnon.[59][60]

Although Lenglen was a heavy favourite at Wimbledon with Wills not participating, she began the tournament facing two issues. She was concerned with her family's finances as her father's health was worsening,[61] and she was also not content with the FFLT wanting her to enter the doubles event with a French partner instead of her usual partner Elizabeth Ryan. Although Lenglen agreed to play with Julie Vlasto as the FFLT had wanted, she became unsettled by being drawn against Ryan in her opening doubles match.[62][63]

Lenglen's situation did not improve once the tournament began. She opened the singles event with an uncharacteristic win against Browne in which she lost five games, the same number she had lost in the entire 1925 singles event. Her next singles match was then moved up to 2:00 PM before her doubles match to accommodate the royal family, who planned to be in attendance. Unhappy with the change, Lenglen asked for the match to be rescheduled. Although the request was never received, Lenglen did not arrive at the grounds until 3:30 PM. After Wimbledon officials confronted her in anger over keeping Queen Mary waiting, she refused to play either match.[64][65] The club adhered to Lenglen's wishes and rescheduled both matches the following day, with the doubles first. Nonetheless, Lenglen and Vlasto were defeated by Ryan and her partner Mary Browne in three sets while the crowd who typically supported Lenglen turned against her. Although Lenglen defeated Evelyn Dewhurst in the rescheduled singles match, she then withdrew from both singles and mixed doubles the next day due to a shoulder injury, ending what turned out to be Lenglen's last amateur tournament.[66][67]

Lenglen (right) shaking hands with Mary Browne during the United States professional tour

A month after her withdrawal from Wimbledon, Lenglen signed a $50,000 contract with American sports promotor C. C. Pyle to headline a four-month professional tour in the United States beginning in October 1926. She had begun discussing a professional contract with Pyle's associate William Pickens when he visited her on the Riviera in April. Lenglen had previously turned down an offer of 200,000 francs to turn professional in the United States following her last victory over Molla Mallory in 1923, declining in large part to keep her amateur status.[68] In the initial discussions with Pickens, Lenglen maintained that she was only interested in a professional tour if she could keep her amateur status. However, she became less concerned with remaining an amateur following the crowd turning against her at Wimbledon. She was more interested in keeping her social status, and was convinced by Pyle that turning professional would not hurt her stardom or damage her reputation. With Lenglen on the tour, Pyle attempted to recruit other top players, including Wills, Kathleen McKane, and top American men's players Bill Tilden and Bill Johnston. Although they all declined, Pyle was able to sign Mary Browne as well as men's players Vincent Richards, Paul Féret, Howard Kinsey, and Harvey Snodgrass. Richards was regarded as the biggest star among the male players, having won gold medals in singles and doubles at the 1924 Olympics. Once the tour began, Lenglen and all of the other players lost their amateur status.[69][70]

Although professional tennis tournaments already existed, the tour was the first significant travelling professional exhibition series in tennis history. It featured 40 stops, starting on 9 October 1926 and ending on 14 February 1927, and included several stops in Canada as well as one in Cuba. Most nights had four matches: singles between Richards and one of the other male players, singles between Lenglen and Browne, men's doubles, and mixed doubles in that order. The singles matches were almost all best-of-three sets, while the mixed doubles was usually one set. Lenglen dominated Browne on the tour, winning all 33 of the best-of-three set matches played to completion. After the ninth stop, Pyle tried to make the matches more competitive by offering Browne a $100 bonus any time she could win four games. She regularly earned this bonus afterwards, despite having only won four games against Lenglen in two of the nine matches before it was instituted. Overall, Browne won two sets against Lenglen, the first in the second set at the 33rd stop. She also won the only set they played at the 36th stop, where Lenglen had decided to play just a one set match in spite of being ill to avoid disappointing the fans. She remained sick and did not play on any of the last four nights of the tour. Browne also nearly won a set at the 23rd stop, losing 9–11, at which point Lenglen decided not to continue.[lower-alpha 5][71][72]

The tour was a financial success. Lenglen earned the most money, receiving half of the revenue from ticket sales. In total, she earned $100,000, more than the $70,000 that Babe Ruth earned in 1927 as the highest-paid player in Major League Baseball.[73][74] The average attendance was just over 4000 at the 34 venues where it was recorded. The most well-attended venues were opening night at Madison Square Garden in New York City with an attendance of 13,000, the Public Auditorium in Cleveland with an attendance of 10,000, and the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles with an attendance of 9000. Opening night in particular brought in $34,000 from tickets sold at between $1.50 and $5.50.[71][75]

A few months after the end of the United States tour, Lenglen signed with British sports promoter Charles Cochran to headline a shorter professional tour in the United Kingdom. Afterwards, Cochran recruited Dora Köring and Evelyn Dewhurst to play against Lenglen. Köring was the 1912 Olympic silver medalist in singles, while Dewhurst was Lenglen's last amateur opponent. Karel Koželuh and Kinsey were the male players on the tour. The players competed in three matches on each night: men's singles, women's singles, and mixed doubles. There were seven tour stops, all in July 1927. Lenglen won all seven of her singles matches, never losing more than five games in any of them. The last three stops were played on the grounds of association football clubs, namely Queen's Park FC in Glasgow, Blackpool FC, and Manchester United FC. These were the best attended events on the tour. The final match at Old Trafford in particular had an attendance of over 15,000, the highest between either professional tour.[76][77]

Lenglen was widely criticised for her decision to turn professional. Once the tour began, the FFLT expelled her and Féret while the All England Lawn Tennis Club revoked her membership. Lenglen in turn criticised amateur tennis for her nearing poverty. In the program for the United States professional tour, she stated, "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.... 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?"[78][79] She also criticised the barriers that typically prevented ordinary people from becoming tennis players, stating, "Under these absurd and antiquated amateur rulings, only a wealthy person can compete, and the fact of the matter is that only wealthy people do compete. Is that fair? Does it advance the sport? Does it make tennis more popular – or does it tend to suppress and hinder an enormous amount of tennis talent lying dormant in the bodies of young men and women whose names are not in the social register?"[78][80]

Lenglen did not participate in any other professional tours after 1927. She never formally applied to be reinstated as an amateur with the FFLT either. She had asked about the possibility of reinstatement in 1932 after Féret was reinstated despite his participation on Lenglen's professional tour in the United States, but she was told to wait another three years and ultimately decided against it.[81]

Molla Mallory (left) with Lenglen

Molla Mallory was the only player to defeat Lenglen in singles after World War I. Fifteen years older than Lenglen and originally from Norway, Mallory won a bronze medal at the 1912 Olympic Games before emigrating to the United States in 1914. While World War I halted the world of tennis in Europe, Mallory established herself as the top-ranked American player, winning the first four U.S. National Championships she entered from 1915 through 1918. Whereas Lenglen regularly came to the net and had an all-court game built around control rather than power, the much older Mallory played almost exclusively from the baseline. The strengths of Mallory's game were that she took the ball early and had one of the most powerful forehands in women's tennis at the time. Mallory had a similar personality to Lenglen off the court. While they each hated losing, both of them smoked regularly and loved to dance.[82] Lenglen faced Mallory just four times in singles, compiling a 3–1 record. She also won both of their doubles and mixed doubles encounters.[4]

Their first two meetings were highlighted by Lenglen's health issues. In the final of the 1921 World Hard Court Championships, Lenglen nearly retired while struggling with blisters on her foot and trailing in the second set. After her father shouted at her from the stands to continue playing, however, Lenglen proceeded to win the match by following her pre-match plan to play defensively and wait for Mallory to make unforced errors on attempted winners.[34] In their second meeting at the 1921 U.S. National Championships, Mallory was able to take advantage of Lenglen's poor health, executing her usual strategy of going for winners to win the match. Although they had entered the doubles event as partners, Lenglen's health prevented them from playing any matches together at the tournament.[83] Lenglen was able to easily win their last two meetings, in the 1922 Wimbledon final and in 1923 on the Riviera, by playing more aggressively and employing Mallory's strategy of hitting well-placed winners from the baseline.[47][84][85]

The press built up the rivalry between Lenglen and Mallory. After Lenglen's retirement against Mallory at the U.S. National Championships, the vast majority of American newspapers criticized Lenglen for not finishing the match and accused her of retiring because she did not think she could win. They coined a phrase "cough and quit" that became popular at the time for describing someone who needed an excuse to avoid losing.[86] After Lenglen's victory over Mallory at Wimbledon, the American press returned to supporting Lenglen. Both Lenglen and Mallory believed the newspapers exaggerated the personal nature of their rivalry. Mallory in particular said, "The newspapers are the dirtiest, filthiest things that ever happened. I don't want my name in the newspapers. I have a better chance on the courts than in the newspapers of my own country."[44]

Lenglen's regular doubles partner Elizabeth Ryan was also her most frequent opponent in singles. Born in the United States, Ryan travelled to England in 1912 to visit her sister before deciding to stay there permanently. Although she lost all four of her appearances in major finals, Ryan won 26 major titles between doubles and mixed doubles. The biggest strength of her game was volleying. Tennis writer Ted Tinling said, "There were a few volleying pioneers, notably Hazel Wightman and Ethel Larcombe, but volleying as a fundamental, aggressive technique was first injected into the women's game by Ryan."[87] Lenglen and Ryan first partnered together at a handicap event in Monte Carlo in 1913 when they were 13 and 20 years old respectively. After losing the final at that tournament, the two of them never lost a standard doubles match, only once dropping a set in 1923 to Dorothea Lambert Chambers and Kathleen McKane, again at Monte Carlo. Ryan was Lenglen's doubles partner for 40 of her 74 doubles titles, including all six at Wimbledon and two of three at the World Hard Court Championships.[4][88]

Ryan defeated Lenglen in their first singles meeting in straight sets at Monte Carlo in 1914 and also won a set against her in their second meeting two months later. Following their first encounter, Lenglen won all 17 of their remaining matches, including five meetings at Wimbledon and two major finals. The only time Ryan won a set against Lenglen after World War I was in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 1924, where Lenglen withdrew due to illness in the following round. When the FFLT asked Lenglen to take a French partner in doubles at Wimbledon in 1926, Ryan partnered with Mary Browne to defeat Lenglen and her new partner Julie Vlasto, coming from three match points down in the second set. This match contributed to Lenglen's withdrawal from singles and mixed doubles within the next few days. Ryan also won their only other doubles meeting in 1914. In mixed doubles, Lenglen compiled a 23–9 record against Ryan. Half of her career mixed doubles losses were to Ryan. After losing their first six encounters, she recovered to win the next thirteen. Lenglen won her first mixed doubles match against Ryan with Major Ritchie when Ryan partnered with Gordon Lowe at the 1920 Beaulieu tournament. That win streak came to an end with a loss to Ryan and Randolph Lycett at the 1923 South of France Championships while she partnered with Mikhail Sumarokov-Elston.[4]

Helen Wills was the closest to becoming Lenglen's counterpart in the mid-1920s. Wills finished her career with 19 Grand Slam singles titles, a record that was not broken until Margaret Court won her 20th such title in 1970. She succeeded Lenglen as world No. 1 in 1927, and kept that ranking through the end of 1933 and nine of the next twelve years in total.[89] Late in Lenglen's amateur career, Wills had built up a similar level of stardom to Lenglen by winning the 1924 Olympic gold medal in singles in Lenglen's absence while still only 18 years old. Although their careers overlapped when Wills visited Europe in 1924 and 1926, Lenglen only faced Wills once in her career. Lenglen withdrew from Wimbledon and the Olympics due to jaundice in 1924, while Wills withdrew from the French Championships and Wimbledon in 1926 due to appendicitis, preventing additional encounters or a longstanding rivalry between tennis's two biggest female stars of the 1920s from emerging.[90][91] Lenglen defeated Wills in their only meeting, which was held at the Carlton Club on the French Riviera and known as the Match of the Century.[58]

Jeanne Matthey was the only player to defeat Lenglen in singles twice. Matthey was a four-time French champion in both singles and doubles from 1909 to 1912. Both of her wins against Lenglen were in straight sets, the first in the semifinals of the Compiègne Championships in 1912 and the second in the final of the Chantilly tournament in 1913. Additionally, Lenglen defaulted in what would have been their third meeting in the final of the 1913 Compiègne Championships later that month. She never faced Matthey in 1914.[4] Matthey did not return to competitive tennis following World War I due to right arm injuries she suffered while serving as a nurse during the war.[92]

Lenglen was ranked as the 24th greatest player of all-time in the 100 Greatest of All Time series that aired on the Tennis Channel. She was the ninth-highest ranked woman overall, as well as the highest-ranked woman to play exclusively in the amateur era.[107] After formal annual women's tennis rankings began to be published by tennis journalist and player A. Wallis Myers in 1921, Lenglen was No. 1 in the world in each of the first six editions of the rankings through her retirement from amateur tennis in 1926.[108] She won a total of 250 titles consisting of 83 in singles, 74 in doubles, and 93 in mixed doubles.[109] She compiled a win percentage of 97.9% win percentage in singles and had a win percentage of 96.9% across all disciplines. After World War I, she won 287 of 288 singles matches, starting with a 108-match win streak and ending with a 179-match win streak,[4] the latter of which was longer than the best-documented comparable win streak of 161 matches by Helen Wills following Lenglen's retirement.[110] As her only loss in this span came on grass, Lenglen ended her career on a 255-match win streak on clay.[4] She won nine singles tournaments without losing a game, including the 1919 South of France Championships.[111]

Lenglen's eight Grand Slam women's singles titles are tied for the tenth-most all-time, and place her tied for fourth in the amateur era behind only Maureen Connolly who had nine, Margaret Court who had thirteen, and Helen Wills who had nineteen.[112] After her first Grand Slam singles title at the 1919 Wimbledon Championships, Lenglen did not lose more than three games in a set in any of her other Grand Slam singles finals. She did not lose more than three games in a set in any of her four World Hard Court Championship singles finals either.[4] Lenglen's six Wimbledon titles are tied for the sixth-most in history.[112] Her former record of five consecutive Wimbledon titles has only since been matched by Martina Navratilova, who won her sixth consecutive such title in 1987.[113] Lenglen's title at the 1914 World Hard Court Championships made her the youngest major champion in tennis history at 15 years and 16 days old, nearly a year younger than Lottie Dod or Martina Hingis who each won Grand Slam tournaments a few days above 15 years and 280 days old.[lower-alpha 6][80][114]

Lenglen won a total of 17 titles at the Wimbledon Championships, 19 titles at the French Championships, and 10 titles at the World Hard Court Championships across all disciplines. Lenglen completed three Wimbledon triple crowns – winning the singles, doubles, and mixed doubles events at a tournament in the same year – in 1920, 1922, and 1925. She also won two triple crowns at the World Hard Court Championships in 1921 and 1922, and six triple crowns at the French Championships, the first four of which came consecutively from 1920 through 1923 when the tournament was invitation-only to French nationals and the last two of which came in 1925 and 1926 when the tournament was open to internationals.[111]

Lenglen was presented as a mythical figure in the press, a view that was accepted by the public both in Europe and in America. Following World War I, she became a symbol of national pride in France in a country looking to recover from the war.[14] The French press referred to Lenglen as notre Suzanne (our Suzanne) to characterize her status as a national heroine; and more eminently as La Divine (The Goddess) to assert her unassailability. She was also known as "The Queen" and "The Maid Marvel", and was described as hors classe, a term adapted from cycling meaning "beyond classification". The press wrote about Lenglen as if she was infallible at tennis, often attributing any performance that was relatively poor by her standards to various excuses such as the fault of her doubles partner or to having concern over the health of her father. Journalists who criticized Lenglen were condemned and refuted by the rest of the press.[115] At the Olympics in 1920, she introduced herself to journalists as "The Great Lenglen", a title that was well received.[116] Before matches, Lenglen would predict to the press that she was going to win, a practice that Americans treated as improper. On this practice, she said, "When I am asked a question I endeavour to give a frank answer. If I know I am going to win, what harm is there in saying so?"[117]

Lenglen was the first female athlete to be acknowledged as a celebrity outside her particular sport.[2][118] She was acquainted with members of royal families such as King Gustav V of Sweden, and actresses such as Mary Pickford. She was also well known by the general public, and her matches were well-attended by people who were not otherwise interested in tennis.[2][118] Many of her biggest matches were sold out, including the 1919 Wimbledon final against Dorothea Lambert Chambers, where the attendance more than doubled the seating capacity of Centre Court, and her first match against Molla Mallory, where tickets were sold at a cost of up to 500 francs and an estimated 5000 people could not gain entry to see the match after it had sold out.[119] The record popularity of Lenglen's matches at Wimbledon was a large factor in the club moving the tournament from Worple Road to Church Road where it remains today. A new Centre Court opened in 1922 with a seating capacity of nearly 10,000, well above the seating capacity of 3500 at the old venue.[45][120] At the Match of the Century against Wills, seated tickets that were sold out at 300 francs by the venue were re-sold by scalpers at up to 1200 francs, equivalent to about $44 in the United States.[121] This cost far exceeded that for the men's singles final at the U.S. National Championships at the time, which were sold at as low as $2 per seat.[122]

Lenglen's mythical reputation began at a very young age. She was known for a story about how her father trained her as a child in which he tried to improve her shot precision by placing a handkerchief at different locations on the court and instructing her to hit it as a target. She was said to be able to hit the handkerchief with ease regardless of the type of incoming shot. Each time she did, he would fold it in half before ultimately replacing it with a coin. It was said that Lenglen could hit the coin up to five times in a row.[123]

Lenglen was the first leading tennis player to leave amateur tennis to play professionally, thereby launching playing tennis as a professional career.[124][125] The exhibition tour she headlined in the United States from 1926 to 1927 in which a few players travelled together to compete against each other across a series of venues was the first of its kind. It established a format that was repeated over a dozen times for the next four decades up until the start of the Open Era. With Pyle having only been interested in tennis because of Lenglen, Vincent Richards, the leading male player on Lenglen's United States tour, organised the next such tour featuring himself competing against Karel Koželuh in 1928. He also began organising the first major professional tournaments to feature players who had been top amateurs, beginning with the U.S. Pro Tennis Championships that was first held later in 1927.[126][127]

As the top women's players nearly all kept their amateur status, women were largely left out of both the travelling exhibition tours and the growing professional tournaments after Lenglen's playing career ended.[125] The next significant exhibition tour to feature women's tennis players did not occur until 1941 when Alice Marble became one of the headliners on a tour that also featured leading male players Don Budge and Bill Tilden, where she competed against Mary Hardwick.[128] Fellow top-ranked players Pauline Betz and Althea Gibson followed Marble by turning professional in 1947 and 1958 respectively. Betz played on two tours, one in 1947 against Sarah Palfrey Cooke and another from 1950 to 1951 against Gussie Moran.[129] Gibson played Karol Fageros in a series of warmup matches for the Harlem Globetrotters, an exhibition basketball team in the United States.[125][130]

Lenglen wearing her signature bandeau and distinctive large coat

Lenglen redefined traditional women's tennis attire early in her career. By the 1919 Wimbledon final, she avoided donning a corset in favour of wearing a short-sleeved and calf-length pleated blouse to go along with a distinctive circular-brimmed bonnet, a stark contrast with her much older opponent Dorothea Lambert Chambers who wore long sleeves and a plain skirt below the calf.[26][131][132]

The following year, Lenglen ended the norm of women competing in clothes not suited for playing tennis. She had Jean Patou design her outfits that were not only intended to be stylish, but also allowed her to perform her signature leaping ballet motion in points and did not restrict her movement on the court. This type of attire was among the earliest women's sportswear. Unusual for the time, her skirt was both sleeveless and only extended to her knees. Lenglen also replaced the bonnet with a bandeau, which became known as the "Lenglen bandeau" and was her signature piece of attire throughout the rest of her career. On the court, she also routinely wore makeup and popularized having tanned skin instead of a pale complexion that other players had preferred before her time. Later in her career, she moved away from just wearing white in favour of brighter-coloured outfits. She regularly changed her outfits for each match and often matched her bandeau with the rest of her outfit. Overall, she pioneered the idea of players using the tennis court to showcase fashion instead of just competing. Off the court, Lenglen frequently wore an oversized and expensive fur coat.[131][133][134]

Lenglen is honoured in a variety of ways at the French Open. At Stade Roland Garros, the second show court that was built in 1994 with a capacity of about 10000 was named Court Suzanne Lenglen in 1997.[135][136] Outside the court, there is a bronze relief statue of Lenglen that was erected in 1994. The FFLT had originally planned to erect a statue of Lenglen immediately after her death, but this plan never materialized due to the start of World War II later that year. Additionally, one of the main entrances to the ground is Porte Suzanne Lenglen, which leads to Allée Suzanne Lenglen. Moreover, the women's singles championship trophy was named the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen in 1987. In spite of her success at the French Championships, Lenglen never competed at Stade Roland Garros as it did not become the site for the tournament until 1928 after her retirement from amateur tennis.[136]

Lenglen was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1978.[93] Following her death, she was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honour. Another road, the Avenue Suzanne Lenglen, is named in her honour outside of the Nice Lawn Tennis Club.[136] She has been honoured in a Google Doodle twice, once on her 117th birthday on 24 May 2016, and again on International Women's Day on 8 March 2017.[137][138]

Source: Little 2007, pp. 135–196

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