Nancy Pearce Jeffett (July 16, 1928 – July 6, 2017) was an American tennis promoter, credited with advancing women's tennis as a major professional sport.
Jeffett was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 16, 1928. [1] A tennis player during the 1940s, she became one of the country's first woman tennis promoters in 1969 when she created and held the first Maureen Connolly Brinker Memorial Tournament, named in honor of Maureen Connolly. [1] In 1972, she successfully arranged the network television broadcast (on an unknown television network) of the Connolly Brinker Memorial Tournament, marking the first time women's tennis was shown on national television. [1] [2] The tournament was also the first to award prize money. [1] [2] [3]
Jeffett was recognized for her longtime contributions to women's tennis. She was inducted into the Texas Tennis Hall of Fame in 1983, the St. Louis Tennis Hall of Fame in 1999, and the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2015. [3] She remains the only American woman who was not a Wimbledon champion to be named an honorary member of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. [2]
Margaret Court, also known as Margaret Smith Court, is an Australian former world number 1 tennis player and a Christian minister. Considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, her 24 women's singles major titles and total of 64 major titles are the most in tennis history.
Maureen Catherine Connolly-Brinker, known as "Little Mo", was an American tennis player, the winner of nine major singles titles in the early 1950s. In 1953, she became the first woman to win a Grand Slam. She is also the only player in history to win a title without losing a set at all four major championships. The following year, in July 1954, a horseback riding accident seriously injured her right leg and ended her competitive tennis career at age 19. She died of ovarian cancer at the age of 34.
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.
The International Tennis Hall of Fame is located in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. It honors both players and other contributors to the sport of tennis. The complex, the former Newport Casino, includes a museum, 13 grass tennis courts, an indoor tennis facility with three courts, three outdoor hard courts, one green clay court, a court tennis facility, and a theatre. The International Tennis Hall of Fame is a non-profit organization with the goal of preserving, celebrating, and inspiring the sport of tennis around the world.

John Albert Kramer was an American tennis player of the 1940s and 1950s, and a pioneer promoter who helped drive the sport towards professionalism at the elite level. Kramer also ushered in the serve-and-volley era in tennis, a playing style with which he won three Grand Slam tournaments. He also led the U.S. Davis Cup tennis team to victory in the 1946 and 1947 Davis Cup finals.
Nancy Ilizabeth Lieberman, nicknamed "Lady Magic", is an American former professional basketball player and coach in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) who is currently a broadcaster for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association (NBA) as well as the head coach of Power, a team in the BIG3 which she led to its 2018 Championship. Lieberman is regarded as one of the greatest figures in American women's basketball.
The United States Tennis Association (USTA) is the national governing body for tennis in the United States. A not-for-profit organization with more than 700,000 members, it invests 100% of its proceeds to promote and develop the growth of tennis, from the grass-roots to the professional levels. The association was created to standardize rules and regulations and to promote and develop the growth of tennis in the United States.
Kerry Melville Reid is a former professional tennis player from Australia. During her 17-year career, Reid won one Grand Slam singles title and 26 other singles titles and was the runner-up in 40 singles tournaments. Reid was included in the year-end world top-ten rankings for 12 consecutive years (1968–1979). She won at least one tournament annually from 1966 through 1979, except for 1975. Her career-high ranking was world No. 5 in 1971, behind Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Evonne Goolagong, and Rosie Casals.
Pauline Betz Addie was an American professional tennis player. She won five Grand Slam singles titles and was the runner-up on three other occasions. Jack Kramer called her the second best female tennis player he ever saw, behind Helen Wills Moody.
Shirley June Fry Irvin was an American tennis player. During her career, which lasted from the early 1940s until the mid-1950s, she won the singles title at all four Grand Slam events, as well as 13 doubles titles, and was ranked No. 1 in the world in 1956.
Beverly Joyce Fleitz was an American tennis player from the United States who was active in the late 1940s and during the 1950s. According to John Olliff and Lance Tingay of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, Fleitz was ranked in the world top 10 in 1951, 1954, 1955, 1958, and 1959, reaching a career high of World No. 3 in those rankings in 1954, 1955, and 1958. Fleitz was included in the year-end top 10 rankings issued by the United States Lawn Tennis Association from 1948 through 1951 and in 1954, 1955, 1958, and 1959. She was the top-ranked U.S. player in 1959. She was ambidextrous and played with two forehands.
Dorothy "Dodo" May Sutton Bundy Cheney was an American tennis player from her youth into her 90s. In 1938, Bundy was the first American to win the women's singles title at the Australian National Championships, defeating Dorothy Stevenson in the final.
Betty Rosenquest Pratt was an American amateur tennis player who competed in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
Nancy Goodman Brinker is the founder of The Promise Fund and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Brinker was also United States Ambassador to Hungary from 2001 to 2003 and Chief of Protocol of the United States from 2007 to the end of the George W. Bush administration. In 2011, she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for Cancer Control by the World Health Organization.

Anne Smith is an educational psychologist and a former professional tennis player from the United States.
Eleanor "Nell" Mary Hall Hopman, CBE was one of the female tennis players that dominated Australian tennis from 1930 through the early 1960s. She was the first wife of Harry Hopman, the coach and captain of 22 Australian Davis Cup teams.
Norman Eugene Brinker was an American restaurateur who was responsible for the creation of new business concepts within the restaurant field. He served as president of Jack in the Box, founded Steak and Ale, helped establish Bennigan's and Chili's, and founded Brinker International.
Little Mo is a 1978 American made-for-television biographical film telling the life story of Maureen Connolly, the 1950s American tennis player who was the first woman to win all four Grand Slam tournaments during the same calendar year, before an accident ended her tennis career at age 19. It stars Glynnis O'Connor, Michael Learned, Anne Baxter, Mark Harmon and Leslie Nielsen.
The 1972 Maureen Connolly Brinker International was a women's tennis tournament played on indoor carpet courts at the T-BAR-M Racquet Club in Dallas, Texas that was part of the 1972 WT Pro Tour. It was the inaugural edition of the tournament, held from March 7 through March 12, 1972. Unseeded Nancy Gunter won the singles title and earned $11,000 first-prize money.
The 1975 Little Mo Classic was a women's singles tennis tournament played on indoor carpet courts at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States. The event was part of the 1975 Women's International Grand Prixs. It was the inaugural edition of the tournament and was held from September 15 through September 21, 1975. First-seeded Chris Evert won the singles title and earned $15,000 first-prize money. The tournament was named after Maureen Connolly and held to benefit the tennis foundation in her name.