The amateur years
United States · born Dayton, Ohio, 1919 · died 2011 · Wimbledon champion 1946
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1946
Wimbledon champion without losing a set
6
US singles finals in a row, 1941 to 1946
4
US singles titles, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1946
39
Straight wins when she was suspended in 1947
3-0
Wightman Cup record at Wimbledon, 1946
Born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1919 and raised in Los Angeles, Betz was introduced to tennis by her mother, a physical education teacher. In 1939 she became the first woman to receive a tennis scholarship from Rollins College and graduated in 1943. She reached six US Championships finals in a row from 1941 to 1946 and won four. In 1946 she added Wimbledon, reached the French final and was ranked world No. 1. In April 1947 the USLTA suspended her for negotiating to turn professional, though she had signed nothing. She toured as a professional against Sarah Palfrey Cooke and Gussie Moran, won the Cleveland women's professional title three times and taught tennis around Washington, D.C. for many years. She entered the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1965 and died in 2011.
| Major singles titles | 5: Wimbledon (1946); US (1942, 1943, 1944, 1946) |
|---|---|
| Major singles finals lost | 2: US 1941, US 1945 |
| Other grass singles titles | 4: Seabright 2 (1944, 1945); Eastern Grass Court Championships (1941); Pennsylvania Championships (1944) |
| Wimbledon singles | 1946, her only appearance: champion without losing a set, beat Louise Brough 6-2, 6-4 in the final |
| Wimbledon doubles | Finalist 1946 with Doris Hart, lost to Louise Brough and Margaret Osborne 3-6, 6-2, 3-6 |
| US doubles and mixed | Doubles finals 1941 with Dorothy Bundy and 1942 to 1945 with Doris Hart, all lost. Mixed finals 1941 with Bobby Riggs and 1943 with Pancho Segura |
| Finals to remember | US 1942: saved a match point against Margaret Osborne in the semi-final, then trailed 3-5 in the final set before beating Louise Brough 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 |
| Wightman Cup on grass | 1946 at the All England Club: won all three of her matches as the United States beat Great Britain without losing a rubber |
| Wimbledon | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1946 | Women's singles | |
| US Championships | ||
| 1942 | Women's singles | |
| 1943 | Women's singles | |
| 1944 | Women's singles | |
| 1946 | Women's singles | |
| Longwood Bowl | ||
| 1944 | Women's singles†| |
| 1945 | Women's singles†| |
| Seabright Invitational | ||
| 1944 | Women's singles†| |
| 1945 | Women's singles†| |
| Eastern Grass Court Championships (South Orange) | ||
| 1941 | Women's singles†| |
| Southampton (Meadow Club) | ||
| 1943 | Women's singles†Southampton Invitational | |
| Pennsylvania Grass Court Championships (Merion) | ||
| 1944 | Women's singles†| |
| Queen's Club | ||
| 1946 | Women's singles†| |
Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. †single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions
"If I were a second-rater, I'd quit."
The person behind the player.
Wimbledon 1946
After a tumble on the grass during her only Wimbledon, she reached for a joke about post-war Britain: "And they say it takes three weeks to get laundry done in England." She won the title without losing a set, and that September she was on the cover of Time.
Source: Tennis AbstractRollins College 1939
In 1939 she became the first woman to receive a tennis scholarship from Rollins College in Florida. She played at No. 4 on the men's team, where the No. 1 was Jack Kramer. She graduated in 1943, by then US champion, and became a charter member of the college's Hall of Fame in 1977.
Source: International Tennis Hall of FameFlorida 1939
Raised on the cement courts of California, she played her first clay event in Florida at 19. By her own account she fell eleven times in one match, then won the tournament, and another two weeks later. Helen Dillon, a college team-mate, said she would dive for any ball and always got it.
Source: Tennis AbstractUSLTA, April 1947
The USLTA suspended her for negotiating to turn professional, though she had signed nothing and earned nothing. She was on a run of 39 straight wins and lost her Wimbledon defence. She called it "a low blow", and wrote that she doubted any future grandchildren would care whether grandma had won the US title four or five times.
Source: Tennis AbstractPro tour · Gussie Moran
Bobby Riggs booked her against Gussie Moran, famous for her lace underwear at Wimbledon in 1949. Betz wore silver lamé shorts and won the first nine matches. When Riggs and Kramer asked her to ease off, she cried, then kept winning: "I wasn't about to let them cancel the tour. I studied economics in college."
Source: Tennis AbstractLater years
Jack Kramer called her "easily the best athlete of any woman I saw play the game". Into her seventies she coached and played doubles with college players. Asked whether Steffi Graf was the fastest player ever, she answered: "I was faster!" Donald Dell called her one of the sport's forgotten jewels.
Source: Tennis AbstractFree membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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