Kristy Pigeon

Last updated

Kristy Pigeon
Country (sports)Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
Born (1950-08-12) August 12, 1950 (age 74)
Retired1975
PlaysLeft-handed
Singles
Grand Slam singles results
French Open 3R (1970)
Wimbledon 4R (1968, 1969)
US Open 2R (1972)
Doubles
Grand Slam doubles results
French Open 3R (1969)
Wimbledon 2R (1968, 1971, 1972)
US Open QF (1968, 1971)

Kristy Pigeon (born August 12, 1950) is an American retired tennis player who was active at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s.

Contents

Career

Pigeon won the Junior Wimbledon title in July 1968, defeating Australian Lesley Hunt in two sets. [1] Directly following Wimbledon she gained the singles title at the Welsh Open Championships in Newport with a victory in the final over Fay Moore. In August 1968 she won the singles title at the Pennsylvania Lawn Tennis Championships in Haverford. [2] Later that month she won the United States girls lawn tennis championship in Philadelphia after a victory in the final against Linda Tuero. [3] Her best singles performance at a Grand Slam tournament was reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon in 1968 and 1969. In 1970 she joined the "Original Nine" in their breakaway from the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) to create a separate women's tour when she was 20 years old. [4] She later stated, "I think a lot of those original true feminists were missing the point by burning bras. In a way, they didn't make nearly as many waves as we tennis players did. We demonstrated that as sportspeople we were as interesting as the men. Our competition was stimulating to watch and we could pull the people in. For me, that's a more powerful way of establishing equality." [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billie Jean King</span> American tennis player (born 1943)

Billie Jean King, also known as BJK, is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. King won 39 Grand Slam titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. King was a member of the victorious United States team in seven Federation Cups and nine Wightman Cups. For three years, she was the U.S. captain in the Federation Cup.

The Grand Slam in tennis is the achievement of winning all four major championships in one discipline in a calendar year. In doubles, a Grand Slam may be achieved as a team or as an individual with different partners. Winning all four major championships consecutively but not within the same calendar year is referred to as a "non-calendar-year Grand Slam", while winning the four majors at any point during the course of a career is known as a "Career Grand Slam".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlotte Cooper (tennis)</span> English tennis player

Charlotte "Chattie" Cooper Sterry was an English female tennis player who won five singles titles at the Wimbledon Championships and in 1900 became Olympic champion. In winning in Paris on 11 July 1900, she became the first female Olympic tennis champion as well as the first individual female Olympic champion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Althea Gibson</span> American tennis player (1927–2003)

Althea Neale Gibson was an American tennis player and professional golfer, and one of the first Black athletes to cross the color line of international tennis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suzanne Lenglen</span> French tennis player (1899–1938)

Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen was a French tennis player. She was the inaugural world No. 1 from 1921 to 1926, winning eight Grand Slam titles in singles and twenty-one in total. She was also a four-time World Hard Court Champion in singles, and ten times 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. Lenglen was the first leading amateur to turn professional. She ranked as the greatest women's tennis player from the amateur era in the 100 Greatest of All Time series on the Tennis Channel in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Jones (tennis)</span> English tennis player

Ann Shirley Jones, is a British former table tennis and lawn tennis champion. She won eight Grand Slam tennis championships in her career: three in singles, three in women's doubles, and two in mixed doubles. As of 2023, she serves as a vice president of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Wills</span> American tennis player

Helen Newington Wills, also known by her married names Helen Wills Moody and Helen Wills Roark, was an American tennis player. She won 31 Grand Slam tournament titles during her career, including 19 singles titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothea Lambert Chambers</span> British tennis and badminton player

Dorothea Lambert Chambers was a British tennis player. She won seven Wimbledon women's singles titles and a gold medal at the 1908 Summer Olympics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1968 Wimbledon Championships</span> Tennis tournament

The 1968 Wimbledon Championships was a combined men's and women's tennis tournament that took place on the outdoor grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom. The tournament was held from Monday 24 June until Saturday 6 July 1968. It was the 82nd staging of the Wimbledon Championships, and the third Grand Slam tennis event of 1968.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cilly Aussem</span> German tennis player

Cilly Aussem was a German tennis player.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Ryan</span> American tennis player

Elizabeth Montague "Bunny" Ryan was an American tennis player who was born in Anaheim, California, but lived most of her adult life in the United Kingdom. Ryan won 26 Grand Slam titles, 19 in women's doubles and mixed doubles at Wimbledon, an all-time record for those two events. Twelve of her Wimbledon titles were in women's doubles and seven were in mixed doubles. Ryan also won four women's doubles titles at the French Championships, as well as one women's doubles title and two mixed-doubles titles at the U.S. Championships. During a 19-year run Ryan amassed a total of 659 titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnes Morton</span> English tennis player

Agnes Morton was a British female tennis player. She twice reached the Ladies Singles finals at the 1908 and 1909 Wimbledon Championships and claimed victory in 1914 in Ladies Doubles with partner Elizabeth Ryan. She placed fourth at the 1908 Summer Olympics in Ladies Lawn Tennis. In 1903, she was described by A. Wallis Myers as a 'careful, steady and improving player'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Buxton</span> British tennis player (1934–2020)

Angela Buxton was a British tennis player. She won the women's doubles title at both the French Championships and Wimbledon in 1956 with her playing partner, Althea Gibson.

Shirley Brasher is a former tennis player from England who won three Grand Slam titles during her career and who was the top-ranked singles player in her country in 1957.

Margaret Varner Bloss is a retired American athlete and professor of physical education from El Paso, Texas who excelled in three distinctly different racket sports: badminton, squash, and tennis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethel Thomson Larcombe</span> British badminton and tennis player

Ethel Larcombe was a British female tennis player and badminton player. She won the ladies' singles tennis title at the 1912 Wimbledon Championships as well as 11 badminton titles at the All England Badminton Championships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Slims Circuit</span> Tennis tournament

The Virginia Slims Circuit was a tennis tour consisting of a group of originally nine female professional players. Formed in 1970, the Virginia Slims Circuit eventually became the basis for the later WTA Tour. The players, dubbed the Original 9, rebelled against the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) because of the wide inequality between the amount of prize money paid to male tennis players and to female tennis players.

The Original 9 were a group of nine women's professional tennis players who broke away from the governing bodies of tennis in 1970 to launch their own professional tour, the Virginia Slims Circuit, which later evolved into the modern WTA Tour.

The 1970 Houston Women's Invitation was a women's only tennis tournament. The tournament was the first women only tournament and was created by Gladys Heldman and held at the Houston Racquet Club.

Edith Cross Jensen was an American tennis player who achieved a No. 3 national ranking in 1928, 1929 and 1930.

References

  1. King, Billie Jean; Starr, Cynthia (1988). "Birth of a Tour" . In Regina Ryan (ed.). We Have Come a Long Way. Regina Ryan Publishing. pp.  125. ISBN   0-07-034625-9.
  2. "A Roundup Of The Sports Information Of The Week". Sports Illustrated. August 5, 1968.
  3. "Miss Pigeon Gains U. S. Tennis Crown". The New York Times. August 18, 1968.
  4. "Rebels Who Changed a Sport Reunite". The New York Times. April 7, 2012.
  5. "In Her Own Words: Kristy Pigeon". wtatour.com. September 23, 2010. Archived from the original on October 3, 2012.