Who was the first woman to win the Grand Slam of tennis?
Maureen Connolly. In 1953 she entered all four Grand Slam tournaments for the first time. She defeated Julie Sampson Haywood in the Australian Championships final and Doris Hart in the finals of the French Championships, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Championships to become the first woman, and only the second person, to win the world’s four major titles in the same year, commonly known as a “Grand Slam”. She lost only one set in those four tournaments. In 1954, Connolly did not defend her title at the Australian Championships but successfully defended her French and Wimbledon championships. On July 20, 1954, just two weeks after she won her third straight Wimbledon title, she was horseback riding when an accident with a truck crushed her right leg, ending her tennis career at age 19.
