A too-brief flash on the tennis scene was that of Maureen Catherine Connolly, but it was of brilliant incandescence; she may have been the finest of all female players.
Nicknamed "Little Mo" for her big-gunning, unerring groundstrokes (it was an allusion to "Big Mo," the U.S. battleship Missouri), she was devastating from the baseline, and seldom needed to go to the net. A small and compact right-hander (5-foot-4, 120 pounds), she won her major singles championships as a teenager: three successive Wimbledons, 1952-54, and U.S. Championships at Forest Hills, 1951-53. At 16 years, 11 months, she was the youngest U.S. champ ever until Tracy Austin won in 1979 at 16 years, 9 months. In addition, Connolly won three other American titles and held the No. 1 U.S. rankings, 1951-53. She was undisputed world leader, 1952-1954. Connolly was born September 17, 1934, in San Diego, CA, and grew up there. She was a pupil of Eleanor "Teach" Tennant, an instructor who had guided a previous world champ, Alice Marble. Connolly first came East in 1949 to win the U.S. junior title and repeated in 1950. She entered Forest Hills both years, losing in the second round. But she would soon have the world under her right thumb while still technically a junior, not yet 19, an obstreperous intruder overthrowing the established order of older women. Her third time around at the U.S. biggie, seeded fourth, she ran six games from 1-4 down in the first set while beating top-seeded 26-year-old Hart, 6-4, 6-4, in a semi halted by rain after the first game of the second, and resumed the following day. A day after that completion, Maureen was given a harder time by second-seeded 24-year-old Shirley Fry, but her long-range shelling was decisive, 6-3, 1-6, 6-4.
A cheerful and sporting competitor, she crushed the opposition, never losing an important match, only occasionally losing a set. She helped the U.S. beat Britain in the Wightman Cup matches of 1951-54, winning all seven of her singles.
Fifteen years after Don Budge scored the first Grand Slam, Connolly traveled the same route in 1953, winning all the major singles championships (Australian, French, Wimbledon, U.S.) within a calendar year to achieve the first female Slam. She lost only one set in doing so.
Following the Aussie triumph over doubles partner and fellow Californian, Julie Sampson, 6-3, 6-2, Maureen had to get past Hart: 6-2, 6-4, at the French, 8-6, 7-5, at Wimbledon, 6-2, 6-4, in the home stretch. That season she won 10 of 12 tournaments on a 61-2 match record. By winning the three French titles in 1954 she became the fourth of five players to score a triple in Paris.
Nobody has measured up to her perfect record in the majors after early U.S. defeats in 1949-50. She sailed through nine successive majors (three U.S., three Wimbledons, two French, one Australian), unbeaten in 50 matches. The closest to that were four other greats who won six straight: Budge, 1937-38; Margaret Court, 1969-70; Martina Navratilova, 1983-84; Steffi Graf, 1995-96. Helen Wills Moody, who played irregularly, won 15 straight majors between 1924 and 1933.
In 1954 her playing career ended with heartbreaking suddenness, aborted by an unusual traffic accident, not long after she won her last titles, the U.S. Clay singles and doubles. While riding horseback, she was struck by a truck, severely injuring a leg. "I knew immediately I'd never play again," she said. By then she was Mrs, Norman Brinker. She recovered sufficiently to give tennis instruction, and helped a number of players with their games, but she died at 34 in 1969 of cancer.
She was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1968 and is memorialized by the Maureen Connolly Brinker Cup, an international team competition between the U.S. and Britain for girls under 21.
"Whenever a great player comes along you have to ask,'could she have beaten Maureen?" That was the standard of Lance Tingay, the Hall of Fame tennis correspondent of the Daily Telegraph of London. "In every case the answer is, I think not."
