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Steffi Graf – the first racket of the world for 377 consecutive weeks
German tennis player Steffi Graf won all the Grand Slam tournaments in 1988 and, in addition, became the champion of the XXIV Olympics in Seoul the same year, winning singles. In addition to these great sporting achievements, she also has other tennis records.
The full name of the great tennis player Stephanie Maria Graf, but she went down in the history of sports, like Steffi Graf, – the journalists slightly shortened her name, just like it was with Don Budge and Rod Laver. She was born in 1969 in the German city of Mannheim, and the first who was able to discern her outstanding tennis abilities was Steffi Graf’s father. He became her first coach, having managed to instill in her a selfless love for this difficult sport and fostered a fighting spirit in her – an inalienable quality of a tennis player. Continue reading
Bill Tilden: Triumph and Tragedy
William Tatem Tilden II (02.10.1893 – 07.07.1953) was born in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, USA) in a wealthy family of immigrants from the United Kingdom. He was a painful child, his mother for this reason, did not begin to send him to school, he taught at home. In addition to tennis, Bill (a diminutive of William) from childhood was fond of poetry, theater and music and later spent most of his income on these hobbies.
Tilden first picked up a tennis racket in 1899, when at the age of six he was relaxing with his parents in a mountain resort in Catskill (New York, USA). Returning to Philadelphia, he signed up for the Cricket Germantown club, of which his 8-year-old brother Herbert was a member (approx. Author – Herbert Marmaduk Tilden in 1907, 1910, 1911 became the finalist of the US National mixed doubles championship). Continue reading
Dwight Davis – Founder of the Davis Cup Tournament
Dwight Filley Davis was born July 5, 1879 in St. Louis (Missouri) in the family of a successful businessman, from the English family of aristocrats who arrived in the New World and were able to make a millionaire fortune in banking operations and wholesale haberdashery. After graduating from the Smith Academy in St. Louis (an elite primary school of the University of Washington, which teaches boys from 4 to 16 years old), he entered Harvard University in 1896 at the Department of Economics, which he graduated in 1900. (his parents wanted to prepare him for doing business in the family business). Already in his first year, he seriously became interested in tennis, although the first time Dwight took a racket in the resort town of Oceanside (Massachusetts) in the summer of 1894, where his mother Maria brought him. Davis devoted so much time to tennis that it affected his performance and he was left in his second year.
Dwight Davis was a restrained person in life, which did not prevent him from practicing an aggressive style of play on the court, especially since his height of 183 cm contributed to this. In addition, he was left-handed, which in general allowed him to achieve high results. However, the risky tactics of the game brought him not only victories, but also unexpected Continue reading
