The Match of the Century was a tennis match on February 16, 1926 known for being the only career meeting between Suzanne Lenglen and Helen Wills, the two preeminent female tennis players of the 1920s. The meeting took place in the final of the February edition of the Carlton Club tournament in Cannes on the French Riviera. Lenglen won the match in straight sets by a score of 6–3, 8–6.
Background The Match of the Century between Suzanne Lenglen and Helen Wills was contested in the women's singles final of the February edition of the Carlton Club tournament, a middle-tier tournament on the French Riviera circuit. Lenglen and Wills were widely considered to be the two best women's tennis players in the world at the time. They had never faced each other in singles or doubles before this meeting, and had not played against each other in mixed doubles either until a week earlier. Although the Carlton Club tournament itself was not particularly significant, a huge amount of anticipation for a match between Lenglen and Wills had been building up for a few years. While there was particular interest in a match at the French Championships or Wimbledon that June, the press considered it inevitable that they would play at least once if not several times before then on the Riviera circuit once Wills decided to travel to France with the intent of competing on the Riviera, where Lenglen resided and typically began her season. As there were no tournaments that players were required to enter, it was not initially clear where any of the matches would take place. Lenglen, Wills, and some of the leading hotel owners and tennis manufacturers with controlling interests on the Riviera ultimately agreed to set up the first potential meeting at the Carlton Club tournament.
Competitors
Suzanne Lenglen Suzanne Lenglen was a 26-year-old French tennis player who was widely acknowledged as the best women's player in the world at the time. She had been ranked No. 1 in the world by A. Wallis Myers in 1925, a position she had held for five consecutive years since the rankings began in 1921. She entered the Carlton Club event on a 163-match win streak, having not lost a singles match in over four years. Lenglen was a six-time Wimbledon champion, then second-most at the time behind Dorothea Lambert Chambers. She had lost just one match in singles and three sets in total since the end of World War I, a period of seven years. Lenglen was rarely challenged in singles, as further evidenced by the lopsided scores with which she won the overwhelming majority of her matches.
The press presented Lenglen with a mythical persona, calling her La Divine (the Goddess) and writing about her as if she were infallible at tennis. The way she was described and regularly highlighted in the press made her immensely popular among tennis fans and drew people to watch her matches who were not otherwise interested in tennis. Her biggest matches often sold out, and potentially upwards of a few thousand fans were unable to purchase seated tickets or gain entry at all. Due to her popularity and high-profile acquaintances, she is recognized as the first female athlete to become an international celebrity outside of her sport.
Helen Wills Helen Wills was a 20-year-old American tennis player who was regarded as an up-and-coming star and one of the only players who could potentially defeat Lenglen, if not the only one. She had been ranked No. 2 in the world by A. Wallis Myers after the 1925 season by virtue of having won the U.S. National Championships the previous three years. Her first two such titles came against compatriot Molla Mallory, the only player to defeat Lenglen in singles after World War I. The third title was a victory over British player Kitty McKane, who had previously defeated Wills in the 1924 Wimbledon final.
Lead-up to the match
Missed encounters in previous years The hype for a match between Lenglen and Wills began in late 1923 following Wills's first major title at the U.S. National Championships. Their first encounter was expected to take place in 1924 when Wills made her first trip to Europe to compete in the Wightman Cup against Great Britain before partaking in Wimbledon and the Olympics later that summer. However, such a meeting never materialized. In April, Lenglen contracted jaundice in Spain after winning the Barcelona International. This illness prevented her from playing another competitive match until Wimbledon and notably kept her out of the French Championships, where she was the four-time defending champion. Although both Lenglen and Wills entered Wimbledon in late June, Lenglen had not fully recovered. She entered her quarterfinal against her doubles partner Elizabeth Ryan as an overwhelming favorite, having not lost a game in any of her first three matches. Although she defeated Ryan, she dropped the middle set, the first set of tennis she had lost in singles since 1921. Following the match, Lenglen withdrew from the tournament, asserting she had not yet recovered from her illness. She did not play another match that year. In the other half of the draw, Wills reached the final without losing more than two games in any set. Though, she could not capitalize on Lenglen's withdrawal and ultimately finished runner-up to Kitty McKane despite taking the first set. A week later, Wills did take advantage of Lenglen's absence at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, winning the gold medals in both singles and doubles. This Olympic success bolstered her popularity in the United States and helped her rise to a level of stardom comparable to that of Lenglen, adding more interest for a match between tennis's two leading female stars.
Wills did not return to Europe in 1925, instead focusing on her college studies as a sophomore at the University of California at Berkeley in the early part of the year and competing in tournaments on the east coast of the United States during the summer. During that year, Lenglen reestablished that she was unbeatable, going undefeated in both singles and doubles, and winning titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles at both the first open French Championships as well as Wimbledon. In the United States, Wills was unable to match Lenglen's level of success. Although she won the U.S. National Championships for the third year in a row, needed three sets to defeat Kitty McKane in the final and lost a singles match in straight sets to Elizabeth Ryan at a lead-up tournament. She also lost the decisive doubles match in the Wightman Cup to the visiting British pair of McKane and Evelyn Colyer. With these lapses, Wills had yet to attain the reputation of unassailability that Lenglen had. As a result, Lenglen was still regarded as the best player of the world and a clear favourite in a potential match against Wills.
Early Riviera season
Wills announced in late December 1925 that she was planning to travel to France the next month with one of her goals being to face Lenglen in a tournament on the French Riviera, where Lenglen typically played the majority of her season outside of the Grand Slam tournaments. A keen artist, Wills was adamant that having the opportunity to paint and continue her art studies were part of her underlying motivation for the trip as well. Wills left the United States from New York City with her mother on 6 January and arrived in Le Havre on 15 January, taking a boat train to Paris and then reaching the Riviera on Le Train Bleu the following morning. They were greeted in Paris by over a thousand people, including reporters, officials from the French Tennis Federation (FFT), and a leading French male tennis player Jean Borotra. Pierre Gillou, who was the president of the FFT, and Borotra escorted them to Cannes.
The French Riviera season lasted from late December through April and attracted many of the best players in the world in the lead-up to the French Championships in early June and the Wimbledon Championships in late June, Europe's two Grand Slam tournaments. Despite the Riviera being in France, the players and spectators at these events were predominantly British. Lenglen had already played three tournaments before Wills's arrival. She did not enter the singles events at any of these tournaments, consistent with her usual schedule of only playing doubles and mixed doubles early in the season as she had done in previous years. Wills entered tournaments in all three weeks after she arrived before the Carlton Club tournament. She played at the Metropole Hotel and the Gallia Lawn Tennis Club in Cannes before commuting to Nice to play at the Nice Lawn Tennis Club. Lenglen and Wills avoided meeting at either of the first two tournaments, as Wills only entered singles at the Metropole Hotel while Lenglen only played the doubles and mixed doubles at that tournament and then did not enter the Gallia Club tournament. They could not meet in singles in Nice either as only Lenglen had entered singles; however, they set up their first potential meetings by both entering the doubles and mixed doubles events.
The press expected a singles match between Lenglen and Wills to take place at the Nice Lawn Tennis Club as this was Lenglen's home club. As such, Lenglen had already only entered doubles at the Metropole Hotel and stood by that decision when Wills decided to enter the singles event. She then missed the Gallia Club tournament altogether due to her father's illness. Wills demonstrated that she was in good form at both tournaments, winning both singles events. During this time, she also gained favor in the press and among fans. Her opening match had a record level of attendance for the Riviera. At the Metropole Hotel though, she lost eight games twice in straight set wins against high-ranked players Hélène Contostavlos and Julie Vlasto, opponents Lenglen had routinely defeated in the past while conceding far fewer games. That gap in performance led the press to assert she would not have a chance against Lenglen; however, she partially nullified that assessment by only losing five games to Contostavlos in the Gallia Club final. Meanwhile, Wills lost in the semifinals of the mixed doubles event at the Gallia Club, largely due to the fault of her aged partner George Hillyard.
Contrary to expectation, Lenglen continued to avoid a singles match with Wills in Nice in accordance with leading business interests on the Riviera. When Wills entered the singles event, Lenglen withdrew, which was highly uncharacteristic given that the tournament was at her club. Wills ultimately withdrew from the singles event for an unclear reason, however, prompting Lenglen to reenter. She may have withdrawn because she only needed to commute from Cannes to play the doubles events, which better suited her mother's preference not to relocate to Nice for just one week. She may have also not wanted to face Lenglen at her own club, or to play a singles match against her with the slower type of ball known as a "groover" in use at the tournament. Although they could have met in both doubles and mixed doubles, Lenglen defaulted from the doubles event after the first round because her partner Phyllis Satterthwaite was injured in a car accident. Lenglen and Wills both reached the mixed doubles final, setting up their first encounter. Playing alongside Uberto De Morpurgo, Lenglen defeated Wills and Charles Aeschlimann while only dropping three games and easily nullifying the strategy of Wills and Aeschlimann to keep Lenglen and De Morpurgo at the baseline with repeated lobs. The result was not considered surprising because Wills had not been expected to reach the final with the lower-ranked Aeschlimann as her partner and did not influence expectations for a potential singles encounter.