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. In 1956, she became the first African American to win a Grand Slam title. The following year she won both Wimbledon and the US Nationals, then won both again in 1958 and was voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in both years. In all, she won 11 Grand Slam tournaments: five singles titles, five doubles titles, and one mixed doubles title. Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. "She is one of the greatest players who ever lived", said Bob Ryland, a tennis contemporary and former coach of Venus and Serena Williams. "Martina [Navratilova] couldn't touch her. I think she'd beat the Williams sisters." In the early 1960s she also became the first Black player to compete on the Women's Professional Golf Tour.
Helen Newington Wills, also known by her married names Helen Wills Moody and Helen Wills Roark, was an American tennis player. She became famous for holding the top position in women's tennis for a total of nine years: 1927–33, 1935 and 1938. She won 31 Grand Slam tournament titles during her career, including 19 singles titles.
Françoise Dürr is a retired French professional tennis player. She won 26 singles titles and over 60 doubles titles.
Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, CBE was an American tennis player and founder of the Wightman Cup, an annual team competition for British and American women. She dominated American women's tennis before World War I, and won 45 U.S. titles during her life.
Lisa Raymond is an American retired professional tennis player who has achieved notable success in doubles tennis. Raymond has 11 Grand Slam titles to her name: 6 in women's doubles and 5 in mixed doubles. On June 12, 2000, she reached the World No. 1 Ranking in doubles for the first time. Her career high singles ranking was No. 15 in October 1997. Over the course of her career, Raymond won four singles titles and 79 doubles titles, and held the World No. 1 doubles ranking for a total of 137 weeks. She currently holds the record of most doubles match wins (860) and most doubles matches played (1206) in WTA history.
Laura Granville is a former American professional tennis player. During the two years she spent at Stanford University, she set the record for most consecutive singles victories with 58 and finished with an overall record of 93-3. Granville won the NCAA Championship in singles as well as the ITA Player of the Year in both 2000 and 2001.
Beverly Baker Fleitz was a women's 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.
Stephanie DeFina Johnson is an American former amateur tennis player who was active in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Marjorie Katherine "Midge" Gladman Van Ryn was an American amateur tennis player in the early part of the 20th century.
Michael Craig Russell is a retired American professional tennis player, who is now the tennis coach of Tennys Sandgren. He reached a career-high singles ranking of World No. 60 in August 2007. His 23 United States Tennis Association (USTA) Pro Circuit singles titles were the all-time record, as of November 2013. That month he became the third-highest-ranked American in the world.
Sharon Fichman is a Canadian-Israeli tennis player.
Audra Marie Cohen is an American former professional tennis player and current college tennis coach. She was the # 1 collegiate female tennis player in the United States in 2007. At the University of Miami in 2005-2006 she was named the ITA National Player of the Year and was the National Indoor Champion, and in 2006-07 she won the ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championship, the NCAA Singles Championship, and the ITA National Player of the Year award. She is currently the head women's tennis coach at the University of Oklahoma.
Scott Lipsky is an American former professional tennis player and coach. As a player, Lipsky was primarily a doubles specialist.
Madison Brengle is an American tennis player.
Meredith McGrath is a former professional tennis player.
Helen Houston Homans McLean was an American tennis champion.
Astrid Suurbeek is a former Dutch tennis player who was mainly active in the late 1960s.
Jamie Loeb is an American tennis player.
Amanda Tobin, now known as Amanda Chaplin, is a former professional tennis player from Australia. She also competed as Amanda Tobin-Evans and Amanda Tobin-Dingwall.
Stacy Margolin is a former American professional tennis player in the WTA tour and the ITF world tour from 1979 to 1987 whose career-high world singles ranking is No. 18. In her eight professional seasons, Margolin competed in a total of twenty-five grand slam championships, which includes several appearances at Wimbledon, the US Open, and the French Open.
South Africa
