Bill Tilden
Encyclopedia
William Tatem Tilden II (February 10, 1893 – June 5, 1953), nicknamed "Big Bill," is often considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time. An American tennis
player who was the World No. 1 player for seven years, he won 14 Majors including ten Grand Slams
and four Pro Slams. Bill Tilden dominated the world of international tennis in the first half of the 1920s. During his 18 year amateur period of 1912-30, he won 138 of 192 tournaments, and had a match record of 907-62, a winning percentage of 93.6 percent.
, because of his early family losses Tilden spent all of his adult life attempting to create a father-son relationship with a long succession of ball boy
s and youthful tennis protégés, of whom Vinnie Richards was the most noted. In spite of his worldwide travels, Tilden lived at his aunt's house until 1941 when he was 48 years old.
Although Tilden almost never drank, he smoked heavily and disdained what today would be considered a healthy life style for an athlete; for most of his life his diet consisted of three enormous meals a day of steak and potatoes, with, perhaps, the occasional lamb chop.
nor even good enough to play on his college team. The shy, self-absorbed, sometimes arrogant young man dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania
and began to practice his game against a backboard and he also became a dedicated student of the game. In just three years, he worked his way up the ranks. Prior to 1920 he had won a number of Canadian doubles titles, but had lost to Lindley Murray and "Little Bill" Johnston in straight sets. He won the 1920–1925 U. S. singles championships and is so far the leader holding 6 consecutive U.S. titles and 7 total U.S wins. In the winter of 1919-20 he moved to Rhode Island where, on an indoor court, he devoted himself to remodeling his relatively ineffective backhand
into a much more effective one. With this change, he became the world's number one tennis player and the first American to win the Wimbledon singles championship.
In the United States' sports-mad decade of the Roaring Twenties
Tilden was one of the six dominant figures of the "Golden Age of Sport", along with Babe Ruth
, Howie Morenz
, Red Grange
, Bobby Jones
, and Jack Dempsey
.
. Tilden had long been at odds with the draconically rigid amateur directors of the United States Lawn Tennis Association
about his income derived from newspaper articles about tennis. He won his last major championship at Wimbledon in 1930 at the age of 37 but was no longer able to win titles at will.
In 1931, in need of money, he turned professional and joined the fledgling pro tour, which had begun only in 1927. For the next 15 years, he and a handful of other professionals such as Hans Nüsslein
and Karel Koželuh
barnstormed across the United States and Europe in a series of one-night stands, with Tilden still the player that people primarily paid to see. Even with greats such as Ellsworth Vines
, Fred Perry
, and Don Budge
as his opponents, all of them current or recent World No. 1 players, it was often Tilden who ensured the box-office receipts—and who could still hold his own against the much younger players for a first set or even an occasional match.
Tilden thought he reached the apogee of his whole career in 1934 at 41 years old, nevertheless that year he was dominated in the pro ranks by Ellsworth Vines
. Both players faced each other at least 60 times in 1934, Tilden winning about 19 matches and Vines 41. American Lawn Tennis reported that on May 17, at tour’s end, Vines led Tilden by 19 matches for the year (Slightly over about fifty matches would have been played.) so a possible win-loss record on May 17 was 16-35 then both players met at least 6 times during the rest of the year (Ray Bowers has listed 5 tournament matches and 1 one-night program) all lost by Tilden. Then both players met at least six times (five times in tournaments and once in one-night indoor program) with Tilden losing all his matches. In 1945 the 52-year old Tilden and his long-time doubles partner Vinnie Richards won the professional doubles championship—they had won the United States amateur title 27 years earlier in 1918.
. In the inter-zone finals the U.S. team won after the deciding singles clash between Gottfried von Cramm
and Don Budge
, a match which has been called "The Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played".
, the main tennis writer for The New York Times
from 1923 through 1968, and the editor of The Fireside Book of Tennis, called Tilden the greatest tennis player he had ever seen. "He could run like a deer," Danzig once told CBS Sports
. An extended Danzig encomium
to Tilden's tennis appears in the July 11, 1946 issue of The Times, in which he reports on a 1920s-evoking performance in the first two sets of a five set loss by the 53 year old Tilden to Wayne Sabin, at the 1946 Professional Championship at Forest Hills.
In his 1979 autobiography, Jack Kramer, the long-time tennis promoter and great player himself, included Tilden in his list of the 6 greatest players of all time. Kramer began playing tennis with Tilden at age 15 at the Los Angeles Tennis Club (LATC).
Tilden, who was one of the most famous athletes in the world for many years, today is not widely remembered despite his former renown. During his lifetime, however, he was a flamboyant character who was never out of the public eye, acting in both movies and plays as well as playing tennis. He also had two arrests for sexual misbehavior with teenage boys in the late 1940s; these led to incarceration
s in the Los Angeles
area. He was shunned in public, his name was removed from the alumni files of Penn, and his photos removed from the walls of his home club, the Germantown Cricket Club. In 1950, in spite of his legal record and public disgrace, an Associated Press
poll
named Bill Tilden the greatest tennis player of the half-century by a wider margin than that given to any athlete in any other sport.
("contributing to the delinquency of a minor") for soliciting an underage male, a 14-year-old boy with whom he was having sex in a moving vehicle. Because of his vanity he did not carry his glasses with him and signed a confession without reading it. He was sentenced to a year in prison, but served 7½ months. His five-year parole conditions were so strict they virtually erased all his income that he earned from private lessons. He was arrested again in January 1949, after picking up a 16-year-old hitchhiker who remained anonymous until years later, when he filed a lawsuit claiming he had suffered severe mental, physical and emotional damage from the encounter. The judge sentenced a year on probation
violation and let the punishment for the charge run concurrently. Tilden served ten months. In both cases, apparently, he sincerely believed that his celebrity and his longtime friendship with Hollywood names such as Charlie Chaplin were enough to keep him from jail. He therefore defended himself in court in both cases in a far less than vigorous fashion. After his incarceration he was increasingly shunned by the tennis and Hollywood world. He was unable to give lessons at most clubs and even on public courts he had fewer clients. At one point he was invited to play at a prestigious professional tournament being held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel; at the last moment he was told that he could not participate. Chaplin allowed Tilden to use his private court for lessons to help him after the run of legal and financial problems.
According to contemporary George Lott
, a player and later tennis coach at DePaul University, and authoritative biographer Frank Deford, Tilden never made advances to players, whether other adults or his pupils. Art Anderson
of Burbank, who took lessons from Tilden from the age of eleven and remained a lifelong loyal friend, reported nothing of Tilden's sexual advances “Bill had all the rumors floating around about his sexuality,” Jack Kramer said. Question remain if Tilden's prosecution was based on the rumors, many published, and heterosexual biases of the time. California did not repeal its sodomy law until 1976
. Because he lived in an era when homosexual sex was illegal and was not tolerated socially, some suspect that Tilden was a victim of the homophobic society of the era. More shocking than Tilden's being caught was the revelation that "sports and homosexuality were not mutually exclusive".
. Much of his income went towards financing Broadway shows that he wrote, produced, and starred in. The last part of his life was spent quietly and away from his family, occasionally participating in celebrity tennis matches. He died in Los Angeles
, California
. He was preparing to leave for the United States Professional Championship tournament in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1953 when he fell dead of a stroke.
Tilden was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame
in Newport, Rhode Island
, in 1959.
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
player who was the World No. 1 player for seven years, he won 14 Majors including ten Grand Slams
Grand Slam (tennis)
The four Major tennis tournaments, also called the Slams, are the most important tennis events of the year in terms of world tour ranking points, tradition, prize-money awarded, strength and size of player field, and public attention. They are the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and...
and four Pro Slams. Bill Tilden dominated the world of international tennis in the first half of the 1920s. During his 18 year amateur period of 1912-30, he won 138 of 192 tournaments, and had a match record of 907-62, a winning percentage of 93.6 percent.
Personal life
Tilden was born into a wealthy Philadelphia family bereaved by the death of three older siblings. He lost his semi-invalid mother when he was 18 and, even though his father was still alive and maintained a large house staffed with servants, was sent a few houses away to live with a maiden aunt. The loss at 22 of his father and older brother marked him deeply. After several months of deep depression, and with encouragement from his aunt, tennis, which he had taken up starting at age five, became his primary means of recovery. According to his biographer, Frank DefordFrank Deford
Benjamin "Frank" Deford, III is a senior contributing writer for Sports Illustrated, author, and commentator for National Public Radio and correspondent for Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO....
, because of his early family losses Tilden spent all of his adult life attempting to create a father-son relationship with a long succession of ball boy
Ball Boy
Ball Boy is a comic strip in the UK comic The Beano and also the name of the main character. It first appeared in issue 1735, dated 18 October 1975. It features a five-a-side football team that includes:* Ball Boy - the captain of the team, Ball Boy bears resemblances to The Dandy's Owen Goal...
s and youthful tennis protégés, of whom Vinnie Richards was the most noted. In spite of his worldwide travels, Tilden lived at his aunt's house until 1941 when he was 48 years old.
Although Tilden almost never drank, he smoked heavily and disdained what today would be considered a healthy life style for an athlete; for most of his life his diet consisted of three enormous meals a day of steak and potatoes, with, perhaps, the occasional lamb chop.
Early tennis career
Tilden was not number one at his prep school Germantown AcademyGermantown Academy
Germantown Academy is America's oldest nonsectarian day school, founded on December 6, 1759 . Germantown Academy is now a K-12 school in the Philadelphia suburb of Fort Washington, having moved from its original Germantown campus in 1965...
nor even good enough to play on his college team. The shy, self-absorbed, sometimes arrogant young man dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
and began to practice his game against a backboard and he also became a dedicated student of the game. In just three years, he worked his way up the ranks. Prior to 1920 he had won a number of Canadian doubles titles, but had lost to Lindley Murray and "Little Bill" Johnston in straight sets. He won the 1920–1925 U. S. singles championships and is so far the leader holding 6 consecutive U.S. titles and 7 total U.S wins. In the winter of 1919-20 he moved to Rhode Island where, on an indoor court, he devoted himself to remodeling his relatively ineffective backhand
Backhand
The backhand is a tennis shot in which one swings the racquet around one's body in the direction where one wants the ball to go, usually performed from the baseline or as an approach shot. The term is also used in other racquet sports, and other areas where a similar motion is employed...
into a much more effective one. With this change, he became the world's number one tennis player and the first American to win the Wimbledon singles championship.
Influence on tennis
Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties is a phrase used to describe the 1920s, principally in North America, but also in London, Berlin and Paris for a period of sustained economic prosperity. The phrase was meant to emphasize the period's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism...
Tilden was one of the six dominant figures of the "Golden Age of Sport", along with Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...
, Howie Morenz
Howie Morenz
Howard William Morenz was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. He played centre for three National Hockey League teams: the Montreal Canadiens , the Chicago Black Hawks, and the New York Rangers...
, Red Grange
Red Grange
Harold Edward "Red" Grange, nicknamed "The Galloping Ghost", was a college and professional American football halfback for the University of Illinois, the Chicago Bears, and for the short-lived New York Yankees. His signing with the Bears helped legitimize the National Football League...
, Bobby Jones
Bobby Jones (golfer)
Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones Jr. was an American amateur golfer, and a lawyer by profession. Jones was the most successful amateur golfer ever to compete on a national and international level...
, and Jack Dempsey
Jack Dempsey
William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey was an American boxer who held the world heavyweight title from 1919 to 1926. Dempsey's aggressive style and exceptional punching power made him one of the most popular boxers in history. Many of his fights set financial and attendance records, including the first...
.
Professional tennis career
In the late 1920s the great French players known as the "Four Musketeers" finally wrested the Davis Cup away from Tilden and the United States, as well as his domination of the singles titles at Wimbledon and Forest HillsWest Side Tennis Club
The West Side Tennis Club is a private tennis club located in Forest Hills, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is currently an oasis within the City with 38 courts in all four surfaces , a junior Olympic swimming pool and many other amenities.It is most notable for hosting...
. Tilden had long been at odds with the draconically rigid amateur directors of the United States Lawn Tennis Association
United States Tennis Association
The United States Tennis Association is the national governing body for the sport of tennis in the United States. A not-for-profit organization with more than 700,000 members, it invests 100% of its proceeds to promote and develop the growth of tennis, from the grass-roots to the professional levels...
about his income derived from newspaper articles about tennis. He won his last major championship at Wimbledon in 1930 at the age of 37 but was no longer able to win titles at will.
In 1931, in need of money, he turned professional and joined the fledgling pro tour, which had begun only in 1927. For the next 15 years, he and a handful of other professionals such as Hans Nüsslein
Hans Nüsslein
Hans Nüsslein was a German tennis player of the 1930s.Born in Nuremberg, he had almost no background in amateur tennis. In late 1931, as a professional, he played Bill Tilden twice in Europe, taking him to 5 sets each time. Later in the 1930s, as Tilden aged, Nüsslein would beat the far more...
and Karel Koželuh
Karel Koželuh
Karel Koželuh was a top Czech tennis, soccer, and ice hockey player of the 1920s and 1930s. Koželuh never played in the major tournaments of amateur tennis but was an all-around athlete at the very highest level....
barnstormed across the United States and Europe in a series of one-night stands, with Tilden still the player that people primarily paid to see. Even with greats such as Ellsworth Vines
Ellsworth Vines
Henry Ellsworth Vines, Jr. was an American tennis champion of the 1930s, the World No. 1 player or the co-No. 1 for four years in 1932, 1935, 1936 and 1937.-Biography:...
, Fred Perry
Fred Perry
Frederick John Perry was a championship-winning English tennis and table tennis player who won 10 Majors including eight Grand Slams and two Pro Slams. Perry won three consecutive Wimbledon Championships between 1934 and 1936 and was World No. 1 four years in a row...
, and Don Budge
Don Budge
John Donald Budge was an American tennis champion who was a World No. 1 player for five years, first as an amateur and then as a professional...
as his opponents, all of them current or recent World No. 1 players, it was often Tilden who ensured the box-office receipts—and who could still hold his own against the much younger players for a first set or even an occasional match.
Tilden thought he reached the apogee of his whole career in 1934 at 41 years old, nevertheless that year he was dominated in the pro ranks by Ellsworth Vines
Ellsworth Vines
Henry Ellsworth Vines, Jr. was an American tennis champion of the 1930s, the World No. 1 player or the co-No. 1 for four years in 1932, 1935, 1936 and 1937.-Biography:...
. Both players faced each other at least 60 times in 1934, Tilden winning about 19 matches and Vines 41. American Lawn Tennis reported that on May 17, at tour’s end, Vines led Tilden by 19 matches for the year (Slightly over about fifty matches would have been played.) so a possible win-loss record on May 17 was 16-35 then both players met at least 6 times during the rest of the year (Ray Bowers has listed 5 tournament matches and 1 one-night program) all lost by Tilden. Then both players met at least six times (five times in tournaments and once in one-night indoor program) with Tilden losing all his matches. In 1945 the 52-year old Tilden and his long-time doubles partner Vinnie Richards won the professional doubles championship—they had won the United States amateur title 27 years earlier in 1918.
Davis Cup coach
Tilden coached Germany's tennis team in the 1937 Davis CupDavis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation and is contested between teams of players from competing countries in a knock-out format. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Britain and the United States. By...
. In the inter-zone finals the U.S. team won after the deciding singles clash between Gottfried von Cramm
Gottfried von Cramm
Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm was a German amateur tennis champion and twice French Open champion.-Birth:...
and Don Budge
Don Budge
John Donald Budge was an American tennis champion who was a World No. 1 player for five years, first as an amateur and then as a professional...
, a match which has been called "The Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played".
Place in sports history
Allison DanzigAllison Danzig
Allison "Al" Danzig was an American sportswriter who specialized in writing about tennis, but also covered college football, squash, many Olympic Games, and rowing. Danzig was the only American sportwriter to extensively cover real tennis, the precursor to modern lawn tennis.Danzig covered every...
, the main tennis writer for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
from 1923 through 1968, and the editor of The Fireside Book of Tennis, called Tilden the greatest tennis player he had ever seen. "He could run like a deer," Danzig once told CBS Sports
CBS Sports
CBS Sports is a division of CBS Broadcasting which airs sporting events on the American television network. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on West 52nd Street in midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street.CBS...
. An extended Danzig encomium
Encomium
Encomium is a Latin word deriving from the Classical Greek ἐγκώμιον meaning the praise of a person or thing. "Encomium" also refers to several distinct aspects of rhetoric:* A general category of oratory* A method within rhetorical pedagogy...
to Tilden's tennis appears in the July 11, 1946 issue of The Times, in which he reports on a 1920s-evoking performance in the first two sets of a five set loss by the 53 year old Tilden to Wayne Sabin, at the 1946 Professional Championship at Forest Hills.
In his 1979 autobiography, Jack Kramer, the long-time tennis promoter and great player himself, included Tilden in his list of the 6 greatest players of all time. Kramer began playing tennis with Tilden at age 15 at the Los Angeles Tennis Club (LATC).
Tilden, who was one of the most famous athletes in the world for many years, today is not widely remembered despite his former renown. During his lifetime, however, he was a flamboyant character who was never out of the public eye, acting in both movies and plays as well as playing tennis. He also had two arrests for sexual misbehavior with teenage boys in the late 1940s; these led to incarceration
Incarceration
Incarceration is the detention of a person in prison, typically as punishment for a crime .People are most commonly incarcerated upon suspicion or conviction of committing a crime, and different jurisdictions have differing laws governing the function of incarceration within a larger system of...
s in the Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
area. He was shunned in public, his name was removed from the alumni files of Penn, and his photos removed from the walls of his home club, the Germantown Cricket Club. In 1950, in spite of his legal record and public disgrace, an Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
poll
Opinion poll
An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...
named Bill Tilden the greatest tennis player of the half-century by a wider margin than that given to any athlete in any other sport.
Sexuality and morals charges
Tilden was arrested in November 1946 on Sunset Boulevard by the Beverly Hills police and charged with a misdemeanorMisdemeanor
A misdemeanor is a "lesser" criminal act in many common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished much less severely than felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences...
("contributing to the delinquency of a minor") for soliciting an underage male, a 14-year-old boy with whom he was having sex in a moving vehicle. Because of his vanity he did not carry his glasses with him and signed a confession without reading it. He was sentenced to a year in prison, but served 7½ months. His five-year parole conditions were so strict they virtually erased all his income that he earned from private lessons. He was arrested again in January 1949, after picking up a 16-year-old hitchhiker who remained anonymous until years later, when he filed a lawsuit claiming he had suffered severe mental, physical and emotional damage from the encounter. The judge sentenced a year on probation
Probation
Probation literally means testing of behaviour or abilities. In a legal sense, an offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer...
violation and let the punishment for the charge run concurrently. Tilden served ten months. In both cases, apparently, he sincerely believed that his celebrity and his longtime friendship with Hollywood names such as Charlie Chaplin were enough to keep him from jail. He therefore defended himself in court in both cases in a far less than vigorous fashion. After his incarceration he was increasingly shunned by the tennis and Hollywood world. He was unable to give lessons at most clubs and even on public courts he had fewer clients. At one point he was invited to play at a prestigious professional tournament being held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel; at the last moment he was told that he could not participate. Chaplin allowed Tilden to use his private court for lessons to help him after the run of legal and financial problems.
According to contemporary George Lott
George Lott
George Martin Lott was an American tennis player and tennis coach who was born in Springfield, Illinois, United States. Lott is mostly remembered as being one of the greatest doubles players of all time. He won the U.S. title five times with three different partners: John Hennessey in 1928; John...
, a player and later tennis coach at DePaul University, and authoritative biographer Frank Deford, Tilden never made advances to players, whether other adults or his pupils. Art Anderson
Art Anderson
Arthur Anthony Anderson is a former professional American football offensive tackle in the National Football League.-External links:*...
of Burbank, who took lessons from Tilden from the age of eleven and remained a lifelong loyal friend, reported nothing of Tilden's sexual advances “Bill had all the rumors floating around about his sexuality,” Jack Kramer said. Question remain if Tilden's prosecution was based on the rumors, many published, and heterosexual biases of the time. California did not repeal its sodomy law until 1976
Sodomy laws in the United States
Sodomy laws in the United States, which outlawed a variety of sexual acts, were historically universal. While they often targeted sexual acts between persons of the same sex, many statutes employed definitions broad enough to outlaw certain sexual acts between persons of different sexes as well,...
. Because he lived in an era when homosexual sex was illegal and was not tolerated socially, some suspect that Tilden was a victim of the homophobic society of the era. More shocking than Tilden's being caught was the revelation that "sports and homosexuality were not mutually exclusive".
Death
Although Tilden had been born to wealth, and earned large sums of money during his long career, particularly in his early years on the pro tour, he spent it lavishly, keeping a suite at the Algonquin HotelAlgonquin Hotel
The Algonquin Hotel is a historic hotel located at 59 West 44th Street in Manhattan . The hotel has been designated as a New York City Historic Landmark....
. Much of his income went towards financing Broadway shows that he wrote, produced, and starred in. The last part of his life was spent quietly and away from his family, occasionally participating in celebrity tennis matches. He died in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. He was preparing to leave for the United States Professional Championship tournament in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1953 when he fell dead of a stroke.
Tilden was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame
International Tennis Hall of Fame
The International Tennis Hall of Fame is located in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. The hall of fame and honors players and contributors to the sport of tennis and includes a museum, grass tennis courts, an indoor tennis facility, and a court tennis facility.-History:The hall of fame and...
in Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
, in 1959.
Career statistics
According to Bud Collins, as an amateur (1912–1930) Tilden won 138 of 192 tournaments, lost 28 finals and had a 907–62 match record, a 93.60% winning percentage. Bill Tilden joined professional tennis in 1931, making him then ineligible to compete in the Grand Slams tournaments.| Titles / Played | Career Win-Loss | Career win % | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Slam tournaments Grand Slam (tennis) The four Major tennis tournaments, also called the Slams, are the most important tennis events of the year in terms of world tour ranking points, tradition, prize-money awarded, strength and size of player field, and public attention. They are the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and... |
Amateur career | 10 / 23 | 114-13 | 89.76 | |||||||||||||||
| 1915 | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 | 1920 | 1921 | 1922 | 1923 | 1924 | 1925 | 1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | ||||
| Australian | A | Not Held | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | 0 / 0 | 0-0 | N/A | ||
| French | Not Held | Only for French players | A | A | F 1927 French Championships - Men's Singles René Lacoste defeated Bill Tilden 6-4 4-6 5-7 6-3 11-9 in the final to win the Men's Singles title at the 1927 French Championships.See also:-Seeds:... |
A | SF 1929 French Championships - Men's Singles René Lacoste defeated Jean Borotra 6-3 2-6 6-0 2-6 8-6 in the final to win the Men's Singles title at the 1929 French Championships.See also:-Seeds:... |
F 1930 French Championships - Men's Singles Henri Cochet defeated Bill Tilden 3-6 8-6 6-3 6-1 in the final to win the Men's Singles title at the 1930 French Championships.See also:-Seeds:... |
0 / 3 | 14-3 | 82.35 | ||||||||
| Wimbledon | Not Held | A | W | W | A | A | A | A | A | SF 1927 Wimbledon Championships - Men's Singles Henri Cochet defeated Jean Borotra 4–6 4–6 6–3 6–4 7–5 in the final to win the Gentlemen's Singles title at the 1927 Wimbledon Championships. Couchet's record of coming back from 2 sets down to win the Championship stands to this day.... |
SF 1928 Wimbledon Championships - Men's Singles René Lacoste defeated Henri Cochet 6–1 4–6 6–4 6–2 in the final to win the Gentlemen's Singles title at the 1928 Wimbledon Championships.See also:-Seeds:... |
SF 1929 Wimbledon Championships - Men's Singles Henri Cochet defeated Jean Borotra 6–4 6–3 6–4 in the final to win the Gentlemen's Singles title at the 1929 Wimbledon Championships.See also:-Seeds:... |
W 1930 Wimbledon Championships - Men's Singles William T. Tilden defeated Wilmer Allison 6-3 9-7 6-4 in the final to win the Gentlemen's Singles title at the 1930 Wimbledon Championships.-Seeds:... |
3 / 6 | 31-3 | 91.18 | |||
| U.S. | A | 1R | 3R | F | F | W | W | W | W | W | W | QF | F | A | W | SF | 7 / 14 | 69-7 | 90.79 |
| Pro Slam Tournaments | Professional career | 4 / 19 | 36-17 | 67.92 | |||||||||||||||
| 1931 | 1932 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935 | 1936 | 1937 | 1938 | 1939 | 1940 | 1941 | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | ||||
| French Pro French Pro Championship In 1930 the "Association Française des Professeurs de Tennis " held its first pro tournament, titled "Championnat International de France Professionnel" June 18–22, 1930, and is considered as a part of the professional grand slam from 1927 to 1967 till the advent of Open Era.From 1930 the French... |
A | A | W | W | SF | A | SF | F | SF | Not Held | 2 / 6 | 10-4 | 71.43 | ||||||
| Wembley Pro Wembley Championship The Wembley Championship was a tennis event held from 1934–1990 with some periods of inactivity in between and is considered as a part of the professional grand slam from 1927 - 1967 until the advent of the open era... |
Not Held | 3rd | F | A | F | A | 3rd | Not Held | 0 / 4 | 8-6 | 57.14 | ||||||||
| U.S. Pro | W | SF | A | A | W | A | A | A | SF | SF | QF | A | QF | N.H. | SF | 1R | 2 / 9 | 18-7 | 72.00 |
| Total: | 14 / 42 | 150-30 | 83.33 | ||||||||||||||||
See also
- List of male tennis players
- Tennis male players statisticsTennis male players statistics-Professional tennis before the start of the open era:Before the start of the open era in 1968, the professional circuit was much less popular than the traditional amateur circuit. For example, Wimbledon in 1957 was a success despite its being an amateur-only tournament and exclusion of Pancho...
- List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people
Sources
- Deford, FrankFrank DefordBenjamin "Frank" Deford, III is a senior contributing writer for Sports Illustrated, author, and commentator for National Public Radio and correspondent for Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO....
(1976). Big Bill Tilden: The Triumphs and the Tragedy. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-22254-6 - Joyce Milton, Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplinhttp://books.google.com/books?id=FX2fkglUqZcC - Da Capo Press, 1998.
- Keith Stern, Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians and Bisexualshttp://books.google.com/books?id=XZL5EeGpW0MC - Canzoneri, 2009.
- Marshall Jon Fisher, A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Playedhttp://books.google.com/books?id=hs_EScJYr3YC - Random House, Inc., 2010.
- Robert Hofler, The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willsonhttp://books.google.com/books?id=yMMlpx4d_qcC - Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2006.
- Sam Kashner, Jennifer Macnair, The Bad and the Beautiful: Hollywood in the Fiftieshttp://books.google.com/books?id=GC0X-2FGdx8C - W. W. Norton & Company, 2003
- Los Angeles Tennis Club
- Jack Kramer, The Game, My 40 Years in Tennis, (1979)
- Caroline Seebohm, Little Pancho, (2009)
- Pancho Gonzales, Man with a Racket, (1959)
- Bobby Riggs, Tennis is my Racket, (1949)
- Gardnar Mulloy, As It Was, (2009)
Further reading
- Fisher, Marshall Jon (2009). A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played. ISBN 978-0-307-39394-4
External links
- International Tennis Hall of Fame profile
- ESPN article about Tilden
- Bill Tilden - article at CitizendiumCitizendiumCitizendium is an English-language wiki-based free encyclopedia project launched by Larry Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001....
includes photographs