Thread by @marinamaral2

Colorized by me: 🇫🇷 French tennis player Suzanne Lenglen playing against Mme Golding at the 1922 French Championships at the Croix-Catalan in Paris.

Lenglen owns an impressive record of losing only seven matches in the entirety of her tennis career.

She was ranked as the inaugural world No. 1 from 1921 to 1926, winning 8 Grand Slam titles in singles and 21 in total. She also had 4 separate World Championship titles in singles and 10 in total.

Lenglen won six Wimbledon singles titles, including five in a row from 1919 to 1923, and was the champion in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles at the first two open French Championships in 1925 and 1926.

In doubles, she was undefeated with her usual partner Elizabeth Ryan, highlighted by another six titles at Wimbledon.

Referred to by the French press as La Divine (The Goddess), Lenglen revolutionized the sport by integrating the aggressive style of men's tennis into the women's game and breaking the convention of women competing in clothing unsuitable for tennis.

Her professional tours laid the foundation for the series of men's professional tours that continued until the Open Era, and led to the first major men's professional tournament the following year.

"There was one day I’ll never forget… I’d just turned 12, and my father came back from Compiègne and said: ‘Here, I’ve bought you a tennis racket and some balls. Let’s see what you can do in front of a net."

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Lenglen retired from tennis in 1928 to a relatively quiet and unassuming existence. She worked at a sporting goods store, ran a tennis clinic and wrote a book on the sport.

In June 1938, Lenglen reportedly was diagnosed with leukaemia and soon went blind. Three weeks later, she was dead at age 39 of what was officially listed as pernicious anaemia.

wtatennis.com/news/1840596/o…