Tennis: Last link with the days of chiffon and cognac

Helen Wills Moody, who died last week at the age of 92, was the final link with one of the most remarkable eras in the history of women's tennis, the years between the two World Wars, when the attractive Californian followed the charismatic Suzanne Lenglen on to Wimbledon's Centre Court.

On Saturday, 2 July, 1938, Helen Wills Moody, aged 32, won an eighth Wimbledon singles title in her last match at the at the All England Club, defeating Helen Jacobs, an American compatriot, 6-4, 6-0. Two days later, it was announced that Suzanne Lenglen, the Frenchwoman whose flamboyant style played a large part in glamorising the sport, had died of leukemia in Paris, aged 39.

By all accounts, these great players had little in common, with the exception of the supreme quality of their tennis. The way they presented themselves on the court exemplified contrasts in personality. Wills Moody, "Miss Poker face", partly concealed her beauty beneath an eye-shade and favoured a cerise cardigan and the modest starched cotton tennis outfits of the period. The theatrical Lenglen flaunted silk chiffon bandeaux, usually making her entrance wearing a long white coat with white fur collar and fur cuffs, which would be removed to reveal a silk, knee- length dress. The accessories included a silver flask of cognac to help revive her, particularly on those rare occasions when one of her matches raised moments of crisis.

Lenglen and Wills Moody could not be said to be rivals in the practical sense. During the two years in which their careers coincided, from 1924 to 1926, they were in opposition only three times - once in singles, once in doubles and once in mixed doubles, with Lenglen victorious each time.

The one singles contest between Lenglen and Wills, as she was then, was hailed at the time as the start of a long series of exciting duels which would decide whether the power in the women's game remained in France, or would be transferred to the United States. Fate was to decree that Lenglen would have no further say in the matter.

Wills, accompanied by her mother, arrived in France in January, 1926, planning to play nine weeks of singles and doubles on the Riviera. The American was 20, and she had already established an impressive reputation by winning the United States singles championship three times.

Lenglen, three months from her 27th birthday, was idolised. Since 1919, when she saved two match points in the Challenge Round at Wimbledon to defeat Dorothea Lambert Chambers (nee Douglass), the seven-times pre-World War I champion from Middlesex, La Grande Suzanne had remained unbeaten except for retirements through illness. Guided, or driven, by her father, the entrepreneurial "Papa Charles", Lenglen had won Wimbledon six times, losing only two sets (one in 1919, to Lambert Chambers, the other, in 1924, to the American Elizabeth Ryan).

The Carlton Club, in Cannes, was the scene of the match between Lenglen and Wills on 16 February, 1926, and it seemed that the rest of the world, or at least its newspaper representatives, were in attendance. Papa Lenglen was a notable absentee, unable to take his customary seat close to the court because of illness.

Lenglen won the opening set, 6-3, in 25 minutes, taking sips of cognac during each change of ends. The sips became swigs between every game as the second set became arduous for the Frenchwoman, whose distress was also signified by much coughing and heart-clutching.

Wills was unable to capitalise on a 3-1 lead, though some dubious calls did not help her as she strove in vain to take the match into a third set. One call denied Wills a point for 5-3, another, with Lenglen serving at 6-5, 40-15, appeared to have ended the contest. The players shook hands at the net as the umpire announced game, set and match.

There was a bizarre twist when the line judge informed the umpire that Wills' shot had been called out by someone in the crowd, and that he had seen the ball in. It was decided that play would resume, at 6-5, 40-30. Lenglen lost the game. She reached match point again, at 7-6, 40-15, at which point a double-fault was called against her, an occurrence so unusual that even the most meticulous statisticians were hard pressed to recall the last occasion that Lenglen was penalised on serve. The game went to deuce before the Frenchwoman produced successive winners for victory, 6-3, 8-6, and collapsed, sobbing.

Wills lost the match but found a husband. As she stood alone, almost hidden by the frenzied spectators and the stacks of flowers surrounding her emotional opponent, a young man she had noticed on her first day in Cannes arrived at her side and said: "You played awfully well." He was Frederick Moody, a stockbroker from San Francisco. They were married in California in 1929. Divorce followed and, in 1939, Wills married Aidan Roark, a screen writer, in Las Vegas.

Lenglen remained unmarried in spite of numerous romances. She went on to win the French Championship for a sixth time in 1926, for the loss of four games in five rounds, before her association with Wimbledon ended acrimoniously. There was a misunderstanding with the referee, Frank Burrow, concerning the time Lenglen should play. This, in turn, led the spectators to believe that Lenglen had snubbed Queen Mary, who had come to watch. The Frenchwoman forfeited her third-round match, swept out of Wimbledon and turned her back on the amateur game.

An immediate beneficiary was Kitty Godfrey, the British player, who defeated Lili de Alvarez, of Spain, to win the 1926 final. It was the Londoner's second Wimbledon singles title, the first having been accomplished in 1924, under her maiden name, Kitty McKane.

After losing to Lenglen three times, in the quarter-finals in 1919, in the second round in in 1922 and in the final in 1923, McKane had a walk- over when illness ("the aftermath of jaundice") caused the Frenchwoman to scratch from the 1924 semi-final. So McKane advanced to meet Wills in the final.

The American was 18 and making her first visit to the All England Club. She recovered from 1-3 to win the opening set and then three times failed to convert the opportunity to go 5-1 ahead in the second set. McKane saved the game and won the next four to level. The Briton then dominated the net to take the title, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.

It was the only match Wills ever lost at Wimbledon. Her record eight singles championships stood for 52 years until broken by Martina Navratilova in 1990.