September 11, 1938, 75 years ago today: Don Budge wins the U.S. Open, defeating fellow American (and his sometimes doubles partner) Gene Mako, and becomes the first tennis player to win all 4 majors and complete the Grand Slam: The Australian, French, British (Wimbledon) and U.S. Opens. To this day, only one other men’s singles performer has ever done the Grand Slam, Rod Laver, and he did it twice, in 1962 and 1968. In women’s singles, it was done by Maureen Connolly in 1953, Margaret Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988. Budge ended up winning 6 straight majors, 1937-38. This was matched on the women’s side by Connolly (1952-53), Court (1969-71) and Martina Navratilova (1983-84), but for all her achievements, Martina never did all 4 in one calendar year. Seven men and 10 women have won a “career grand slam,” winning each of the 4 majors at least once: Fred Perry (Britain) by winning the 1935 French, Budge, Connolly, Doris Hart with the 1954 U.S., Shirley Fry Irvin with the 1957 Australian, Laver, Roy Emerson with 1964 Wimbledon, Billie Jean King with the 1972 French, Chris Evert with the 1982 Australian, Martina with the 1983 U.S., Andre Agassi with the 1999 French, Serena Williams (but not Venus) with the 2003 Australian, Rafael Nadal with the 2010 U.S., and Maria Sharapova with the 2012 French.
Posted on: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 14:09:58 +0000
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