Maureen Connolly

Early years

Connolly was born in San Diego, California on September 17, 1934, the first child of Martin and Jessamine Connolly. Her parents divorced when she was age 3, and she was raised by her mother and an aunt. She loved horseback riding as a child, but her mother was unable to pay the cost of riding lessons. So, she took up the game of tennis. Connolly's tennis career began at the age of 10 on the municipal courts of San Diego. Her first coach, Wilbur Folsom, encouraged her to switch from a left-handed grip to a right-handed one, and she soon became a baseline specialist with tremendous power and accuracy. When she was age 11, Connolly was dubbed "Little Mo" by San Diego sportswriter Nelson Fisher, who compared the power of her forehand and backhand to the firepower of the USS Missouri, known colloquially as "Big Mo". In 1948, Folsom was replaced as her coach by Eleanor Tennant, who previously coached Alice Marble and Bobby Riggs. At age 14, she won 56 consecutive matches, and the following year, she became the youngest girl to win the U.S. national championship for girls 18 and under.

Playing career

At the 1951 U.S. Championships, Connolly at age 16 defeated Shirley Fry to become, at that time, the youngest ever to win America's most prestigious tennis tournament. Her coach at the time was Eleanor Tennant.

Connolly won her first Wimbledon title in 1952, defeating Louise Brough in the final. She had arrived at the tournament with a shoulder injury but refused to withdraw when Tennant instructed her to do so. The ensuing argument resulted in the end of their partnership. Connolly was seeded first at the 1952 U.S. Championships, and she successfully defended her title with a victory in the final against Doris Hart.{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=4ss8AAAAIBAJ&pg=4425%2C2332720

Connolly won the last nine Grand Slam singles tournaments she played, including 50 consecutive singles matches. During her Wightman Cup career from 1951 through 1954, she won all seven of her singles matches. Connolly's achievements made her the darling of the media and one of the more popular personalities in the U.S.; she was named Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press for three straight years, from 1951 through 1953. In 1954, Connolly did not defend her title at the Australian Championships, but successfully defended her French and Wimbledon championships.

Later life

Horseriding accident

Two weeks after she won her third-straight Wimbledon title, she was horseback riding in San Diego on July 20, 1954. A passing concrete mixer truck frightened her horse Colonel Merryboy, which pinned Connolly between the horse and truck. She was thrown and suffered a compound fracture to her right fibula, which ultimately ended her tennis career at age 19. She had intended to turn professional after the 1954 U.S. National Championships. She officially retired from tennis in February 1955 when she announced her impending marriage to Norman Brinker. Connolly retained Melvin Belli as counsel and sued the concrete mixer company. On December 17, 1957, the Supreme Court of California unanimously affirmed a $95,000 jury verdict in her favor; the opinion was signed by Chief Justice Phil S. Gibson.

Marriage

In June 1955, Connolly married Norman Brinker, a member of the 1952 Olympic equestrian team for the United States, who shared her love of horses. They had two daughters, Cindy and Brenda, and she remained partially involved in tennis, acting as a correspondent for some U.S. and British newspapers at major U.S. tennis tournaments. Connolly was a coach for the British Wightman Cup team during its visits to the U.S. In Texas, where the couple lived, she established the Maureen Connolly Brinker Foundation to promote junior tennis.

In 1957, she published an autobiography titled Forehand Drive. Connolly recognized the downside of her tennis career, writing "I have always believed greatness on a tennis court was my destiny, a dark destiny, at times, where the court became my secret jungle and I a lonely, fear-stricken hunter. I was a strange little girl armed with hate, fear, and a Golden Racket."

Death

In 1966, Connolly was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. On June 4, 1969, she underwent a third operation for a stomach tumor at Baylor Hospital in Dallas.

Legacy

According to John Olliff and Lance Tingay of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, Connolly was ranked in the world top 10 from 1951 through 1954, reaching a career high of world number one in those rankings from 1952 through 1954. Connolly was included in the year-end top-10 rankings issued by the United States Lawn Tennis Association from 1950 through 1953. She was the top-ranked U.S. player from 1951 through 1953.

Connolly was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1969 and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1956, she was inducted by the San Diego Hall of Champions into the Breitbard Hall of Fame honoring San Diego's finest athletes both on and off the playing surface.

Since 1973, the Maureen Connolly Challenge Trophy is played, a yearly competition between the best female tennis players age 18 and younger from the United States and Great Britain.

Brinker Elementary School in Plano, Texas is named in honor of her. The school was dedicated on November 20, 1988.

Connolly was portrayed by Glynnis O'Connor in Little Mo, a television movie that aired on September 5, 1978.

In 2019, the United States Postal Service released a commemorative Forever stamp in her honor.

Grand Slam finals

Singles: 9 (9 titles)

Doubles: 6 (2 titles, 4 runner-ups)

Mixed doubles: 3 (1 title, 2 runner-ups)

Grand Slam singles performance timeline

References

References

1. (September 6, 1951). "Maureen Connolly wins amateur tennis crown". Wilmington (NC) Morning Star.
2. (February 23, 1955). "Maureen Connolly to wed; gives up tennis comeback". The Day.
3. Joey Seymour. (Spring 2008). "San Diego's Sweetheart: Maureen Connolly". The Journal of San Diego History.
4. King, Billie Jean. (1988). "We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Women's Tennis". McGraw-Hill.
5. (June 5, 2005). "Heroes and villains: Maureen Connolly".
6. (September 6, 1951). "Maureen Connolly youngest net champ in history". Pittsburgh Press.
7. Snider, Steve. (September 7, 1951). "Maureen Connolly planning to be 'real tennis player'". News and Courier.
8. (June 22, 1969). "Maureen Connolly, tennis star, dies". The New York Times.
9. (January 8, 1954). "Little Mo named top female athlete 3rd time". Toledo Blade.
10. (June 22, 1969). "Tennis great Mo Connolly dies in Texas". Spokesman-Review.
11. ''[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8408166016021329600 Connolly v. Pre-Mixed Concrete Co.]'', 49 Cal. 2d 483, 319 P.2d 343 (1957).
12. (February 22, 1955). "1955: American Tennis Star 'Little Mo' to Quit". BBC.
13. Bell, Norman. (June 11, 1955). "Maureen Connolly, tennis queen, becomes a bride". The Day.
14. "Forehand Drive". WorldCat.
15. Fein, Paul. (2003). "Tennis Confidential : Today's Greatest Players, Matches, and Controversies". Potomac Books.
16. G. Brinker, Nancy. (2010). "Promise Me : How a Sister's Love Launched the Global Movement to End Breast Cancer". Three Rivers Pr..
17. (June 22, 1969). "Cancer beats 'Little Mo'". The Age.
18. Collins, Bud. (2008). "The Bud Collins History of Tennis: An Authoritative Encyclopedia and Record Book". New Chapter Press.
19. United States Tennis Association. (1988). "1988 Official USTA Tennis Yearbook". H.O. Zimman, Inc..
20. {{usurped
21. (August 21, 2012). "U.S., Britain to compete in 2012 Maureen Connolly Challenge Trophy". USTA.
22. "The Maureen Connolly Challenge Trophy". Maureen Connolly Brinker Tennis Foundation.
23. "Brinker Elementary School website".
24. Bowden, Robert. (September 5, 1978). "Glynnis O'Connor pours self into portrayal of 'Little Mo'". St. Petersburg Times.
25. [http://www.allmovie.com/work/little-mo-127064 ''Little Mo''], allmovie.com; accessed January 2, 2014.
26. (March 14, 2019). "USPS to issue "Little Mo" stamp to honor 1950s tennis champ". United States Postal Service.
27. Collins, Bud. (2010). "The Bud Collins History of Tennis". New Chapter Press.
28. Barrett, John. (2014). "Wimbledon: The Official History". Vision Sports Publishing.
29. "Honour Roll – Women's Singles".
30. Collins (2010), p. 394
31. Collins (2010), p. 480
32. "Honour Roll – Women's Doubles".
33. "Honour Roll – Mixed Doubles".