Helen Wills - History Presentation

Helen Wills

Abril Terán Frías

Helen Wills was born on October 6th, of 1905 in Centerville, USA. She is well known for being a champion tennis player of the 1920s who won 31 Grand Slams titles during her career. She died on January 1th, of 1998 in California. She spent her childhood in northern California where his father, Clarence Wills, taught her how to play tennis and her mother tutored her until she was 8. At the age of 14, she joined the Berkeley Tennis Club where she assisted with determination, without missing any class. Since she started playing, Wills took the sport very seriously. She succeed in junior competitions until she began to play the best tournaments. She assisted to University of California and graduated in 1925, two years after winning her first big competition, the US Open Championship.

Short biography and early life

Personal Life

Helen Wills married Frederick Moody in December of 1929, and divorced in 1937. Two years later she married with Aidan Roark. She spent some of her free time writing. Tennis ,her autobiography, Fifteen-Thirty: The Story of a Tennis Player, and a mystery and Death Serves an Ace are the published books she wrote. She also redacted several articles for the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines. This hobby also let Wills participate in a poetry competition in 1926, showing two of her works, "The Awakening" and "The Narrow Street". In 1998, Wills donated $10 million dollars to the University of California, to fund a Neuroscience institute. The resulting institute, the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, began in 1999 and actually recieves more than 40 faculty researchers and graduated students.

Books she wrote

Why was she famous?

She was, and still is, well known of being the first american woman athlete to become a global celebrity, making friends with stars and members of royalty. She was the first woman holding the first position of ATP ranking 9 times . It is today that she still has the record of 158 consecutive victories in matches. She won 31 Grand Slams tournaments, 19 in singles, 9 in doubles and 3 in mixed doubles and won two gold medals in the Olympics Games of 1924, in both, singles and doubles. She dominated women’s tennis of the era, from 1926 until 1932 she did not lose any set in singles. Her style was very particular, as she practiced with men, her power and accuracy were key for her to be able to beat her opponents easily. In 1933 she beat in an exhibition the 8th ranked male player. She won 8 Wimbledon championships, which was the record until 1990.

Why was she important in USA, in the 1920s?

She had a big impact on the USA in the 1920s imposing a new tennis fashion, wearing knee-length skirts instead of longer ones. This shows women’s new behaviours, they could choose what to wear and start living not so restricted life as it was supposed before. Moreover she was part of people entertainment, tenis had a big impact inside sports. Workers spent their free time and spent their money in entertainment, and Helen Wills, with her uncommon but amazing style of playing, let people enjoy watching this sport. She became a US icon representing the new women behaviour.

Other tenists of the era (Long skirts).

Helen Wills (knee-length skirt)

In 1935 she was named by the Associated Press the female athlete of the year. Wills was inserted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1959, in 1981 she was inducted into the Bay Area Athletic Hall of Fame, in San Francisco and in 1996 Wills she was included into the Women's Hall of Fame of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.In 1926 and 1929 Helen Wills appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

Honours

The End

Abril Terán Frías