72 Years Ago In TIME

By Melissa August, Amanda Bower, Beau Briese, Rhett Butler, Ellin Martens, Sora Song, Kadesha Thomas and Josh Tyrangiel

As impressive as America's current women's tennis stars are, none is as dominant as HELEN NEWINGTON WILLS was in her day. When TIME put her on the cover in 1929--for the second time in three years--Wills was in the midst of winning four straight Wimbledon singles titles. She won 31 major championships in all.

In 1918 Dr. Clarence A. Wills took his quiet pig-tailed daughter to a sunny tennis court in Berkeley, Cal., and handed her a racquet which she swung at first like a nightstick. She missed the first ball. She changed her grip and hit the next one. Within a month she could defeat her father... Masculinity characterizes the Wills game. No woman hits a ball so hard. Whenever she can she practices with a man because "it is the best training, the men are naturally more strong, though not always so deft." Her training is strictly a personal matter. She dislikes to think of people reading of what she likes to eat (string beans, chocolate ice cream) and drink (milk)... She does not know housework, nor will she learn. Last week she said: "I intend to do everything just the same when I am married--my tennis, my painting--and I want to take up golf."

--TIME, July 1, 1929