WIMBLEDON '97: Teenage queen of a sleeping kingdom

The life and career of Maureen Connolly, the first woman to win the Grand Slam, uncannily foreshadowed the achievements of Martina Hingis, who last year became the youngest winner of a Wimbledon title. Laurie Pignon has fond memories of `Little Mo'

Laurie Pignon
Friday 20 June 1997 18:02 EDT
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When the hour is late, the music soft and the mind wanders into a wonderland of impossible dreams, I imagine a match that will never be played: Maureen Connolly versus Martina Hingis.

One I wrote about; she was my friend. The other I read about, but there is no doubt in my mind that these two are the most talented teenagers ever to be seen on a lawn tennis court any place any time.

The parallels between the players are remarkable: an insatiable hunger for success, major international titles as 16 year olds, a love of horses. Both were the children of broken homes. Hingis, like Connolly, sees life as any other healthy youngster: an exhilarating adventure to be explored and enjoyed. Maureen was 5ft 5in and Martina is an inch taller.

Although there are similarities about their style of play there is one dramatic difference. Maureen, who practised four and sometimes five hours a day, mostly against men, was driven on, and on and on by an almost pathological fear of defeat. From what I have seen of Martina she just loves winning. She began the countdown on her journey to the stars by collecting international junior titles as a 12 year old. It has been all systems go ever since.

Last summer she became the youngest Wimbledon champion (15) in history when, with Helena Sukova, she won the women's doubles title. By reaching the fourth round of the singles she gave the world a preview of greater things to come. The world did not have to wait long, for in January, at the age of 16 years, three months and 26 days, she won the Australian Open without conceding a set and became the youngest champion of a Grand Slam singles this century.

Martina Hingis, today the most feared and envied professional on the circuit, has yet to reach her potential. Maureen Connolly never did. She was 19 when we were fox-trotting at the Champions' Ball after winning her third Wimbledon when she told me: "When I come back next year I will be a much better player." She didn't come back for many years; when she did we were colleagues in the Press Room. And that was the only time I saw her cry - a sub-editor had changed her copy.

Connolly's Grand Slam record needs no superlatives, for it stands as majestic as an unassailed mountain whose foothills are littered with broken hearts. In singles alone it is: Wimbledon 1952, 1953, 1954; United States nationals 1951, 1952, 1953; French championships 1953, 1954; Australian championships 1953.

In her 18 consecutive Wimbledon matches she conceded only two sets: in her first year to Susan Partridge (Britain) and to Thelma Long (Australia). She became the first woman - in 1953 - to win the Grand Slam. She was only defeated four times during her short playing life, and never in a major event.

The overall standard of women's tennis was not as high as it is today, but at the top level it was every bit as tough, and Maureen's rivals included such champions as Louise Brough, Margaret Du Pont, Doris Hart, Shirley Fry and in 1953 Althea Gibson. They called her "Little Mo" because she was as invincible as the US battleship Missouri (Big Mo) which was docked in her home town of San Diego.

My memories of Little Mo are so fresh that the paint is still wet on the pictures in my mind. The day at Wimbledon she insisted on riding in my battered pre-war car with bricks under the front seat to prevent it falling over and a broken back spring. The day I took her to lunch at The Dog & Fox on Wimbledon Hill and she "surprised" a dining-room full of dark-suited businessman by coming in brief practice shorts and boyish shirt. The day she invited me and another reporter to join her and Neil Hopman for a knockabout mixed doubles during the Manchester tournament

Drawn against Mo, I insisted she played left-handed. I did not know then that she had been a natural left-hander, until a coach told her that no left-handed woman had ever won Wimbledon. She just switched hands. We laughed a lot that day and many other days. Off court she was a typical teenager of her time; a bobbysoxer, brash and bouncy. Her lipstick was orange, her eyebrows plucked and her clip-on ear-rings were a statement to the world that she was grown up. She loved movies, music, dancing, ginger ale, and God. On court she was a natural-born killer, and she later wrote: "I have seen films of my matches and I looked with a cold shudder at the mask I wore; that tightly drawn face, that fixed expression, those mechanical responses of tennis etiquette. If eyes are the window of the soul I am thankful no one looked into mine. I walked alone. I told no one about my consuming ambitions."

Her power of concentration was frightening - the only other player who could match her in this was the Swedish iceman Bjorn Borg - but her tactics were simply one ball at a time, and every one she played called for a different type of answer. She always picked the one that her opponents wanted least.

Her hands were so small that she had her racket handle shaved down to four inches, but the head was heavy and the depth and consistency of her driving could, like an ever-flowing river, eat away mountains. Her forehand was played a little close to her body, putting a thin slice on the ball which was particularly effective on grass courts, and in those days all but the French Championships were played on grass. Her anticipation was so sharp she all but invited big hitters to attack her service: for her passing shots, of any description, were like maple syrup on blueberry pancakes for breakfast. When she forced opponents a yard behind the baseline she could produce drop shots which fell like grouse on the 12th of August... dead.

Although we did not know it at the time there was a dark force driving Little Mo on... and on... and never one to equivocate with the truth she later admitted: "I hated my opponents. This was no passing dislike, but a blazing, virulent, powerful and consuming hate. I believed I could not win without hatred, and win I must because I was afraid to lose."

To understand why a little girl so full of love and laughter could feel like this, one must know a little about her growing-up. She came from a home that was broken twice, and she disliked her stepfather. Her schooldays were punctuated by quarrels and reconciliations. She always planned to escape tomorrow and because there was no money for horse riding, which she loved, she took up tennis with a $5 racket when she was 11 years old. In the back of her childish heart was the thought: "I must win to be liked. Only winners have friends."

This fighting spirit was always with her. We saw it for the first time on the first day of her first Wimbledon. A few days earlier at The Queen's Club Tournament she slightly injured her shoulder, and her famous dragon of a coach, Eleanor "Teach" Tennant, who produced such stars as Alice Marble and Bobby Riggs, wanted Maureen to scratch from The Championships. Maureen did not agree, nor at the time did she know how wrong her coach was.

She merely sacked "Teach" and called a press conference.

That had never been done at Wimbledon before and she was only 17.

Maureen was always in a hurry, and a sixth sense seemed to be driving her faster and faster. Perhaps Mozart was the same. Her dreams, and our joy of watching them unfold, ended in screams of agony on 20 July 1954 when she was riding her beloved horse, Colonel Merryboy, on a usually quiet byway outside San Diego.

On that lovely summer's day a cement truck thundered around a blind bend, and her frightened horse shied and crashed down on her twisted leg. She was 19 years and 10 months old. She had just won her third Wimbledon and was looking forward to winning her fourth US title. Although she slowly recovered enough to coach and help young players she never competed again. She was awarded $95,000 damages.

Her greatest happiness was her first and only love, her marriage to Norman Brinker. He was an international horseman, and together they built up a string of a dozen horses. They had two delightful daughters Cindy and Brenda, and set up a millionaire's home in Dallas. After saying goodbye to them all with a smile she died of cancer on 21 June 1969, the eve of Wimbledon, and at 35 was a year younger than Mozart.

When she was 14 Brenda wrote and asked me if I would take her to Wimbledon so that she could see the stage where her mother was the star. It was a typical English spring day; morning rain had washed the air, and the lawns were as yet unencumbered by nets or marked with lines. With long fair hair and eyes so like her mother's she took in the scenes that she had only seen in pictures. We walked to the Centre Court which her mother once called "a sleeping kingdom that comes to life for two weeks every year". For the two of us it came to life that day; for me the air seemed full of yesterday's echoes, and for Brenda the atmosphere added substance to the gossamer of her dreams.

Speaking in a whisper that children use when sharing secrets Brenda said: "I wonder what my mother felt when she was playing here." I didn't know so I didn't answer. So we went inside so that Brenda could hold the champion's trophy that her mother had won. Then the thought struck me: Little Mo was only three years older than her daughter when she lifted it in triumph for the first time.

I am convinced that if my dream match were ever played, Little Mo, with her consistent driving to a length, would be the winner. Afterwards, they would probably saddle up and go for a ride.

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