It is one of the most powerful but also the saddest stories in tennis history. American star Maureen Connolly was 19 years old when she had a calendar grand slam and a total of nine big four tournament wins. But then came a fatal horse accident.
When she woke up in the hospital after the operation, she knew she was sick. Top tennis is over. And what about the fact that the doctors convince her otherwise and she doesn’t see it so darkly. She felt that she would not be able to return to the courts. The injury was too serious.
And all this just because she couldn’t resist her great love. Riding a horse. “I was driving along the road, I stopped when I saw a truck coming from a distance. But the horse got scared, jumped in front of the truck just as it passed us and my leg got between the car and the side of the horse,” Connoly later described the accident .
It’s a paradox. As a child, she dreamed of one day becoming a rider, of spending her life in the saddle. But for her mother, who raised and supported her daughter from the age of three alone, the lessons at the riding school were too expensive.
So little Maureen bought the cheapest racquet for a dollar and fifty cents and went to play tennis on the public courts in San Diego.
It soon became clear that this girl was a talent. She had a huge steam in both hands. She first played left-handed, then her first coach retrained her to be right-handed and she still excelled.
That’s why one of the American journalists already gave her the nickname “Little Mo” in her junior year, referring to the American battleship USS Missouri, which was nicknamed “Big Mo”.
“With perfect timing, composure, poise and confidence, Connolly produced some of the most powerful strokes the game has ever known,” The New York Times editor Allison Danzig described her play.
But while the strong army ship is still a symbol of peace, because it was on it that Japan signed its surrender in 1945, Connolly declared war on all adversaries. She learned to hate everyone on the court so that she would be motivated enough to beat them.
“I always saw only my opponent on the court. If you threw dynamite on the court next door, I wouldn’t have noticed,” the American tennis player recalled.
At the age of 16, she became the youngest winner of the US Open, two years later she collected a clean calendar grand slam. No one could counter her aggressive tennis. In total, she collected nine trophies from the big four.
The following year, on June 20, there was a fatal collision with a concrete truck. Broken leg, torn tendons. Connolly tried to rehabilitate, she tried to get back, but when she found that she couldn’t even run the short of the net because of the pain, she announced that she was ending her active career.
“Tennis can be pretty hard when you dedicate your whole life to it. I had the life of a champion full of travel. Now I’m looking forward to the calmer pace of being a housewife. I’m happy,” she said at the time.
And she enjoyed the family atmosphere. She married the well-known restaurateur Norman Brinker and raised two daughters. But she did not leave tennis completely, she devoted herself to it as a journalist and commentator.
Unfortunately not for long. In 1966, doctors diagnosed her with ovarian cancer. She underwent three operations, but on June 21, 1969, at the age of 34, she succumbed to a cruel disease. This year marks 55 years since her death.
“We won’t know today how many titles she would have won if the accident hadn’t happened. But she probably would have set a whole series of hard-to-break records,” her American successor, American Billie Jean King, said of Connoly.
