Maureen Connolly: The First Woman to Win the Grand Slam, at 18, and Finished at 19
"Little Mo" won all four majors in 1953 and dropped one set doing it. Ten months later a riding accident ended her career.
On 7 September 1953, at the US Championships in New York, Maureen Connolly beat Doris Hart 6–2, 6–4. She was 18. She had just become the first woman to win all four major singles titles in one calendar year, and only the second player of either sex, after Don Budge.
She lost one set in the four tournaments.
The four finals
| Major | Final | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Australian Championships | Julia Sampson | 6–3, 6–2 |
| French Championships | Doris Hart | 6–2, 6–4 |
| Wimbledon | Doris Hart | 8–6, 7–5 |
| US Championships | Doris Hart | 6–2, 6–4 |
The single set she dropped came in the quarterfinals in Paris. The Wimbledon final was the closest, and both women later called it the best match of their lives.
Little Mo
The nickname came from a San Diego sportswriter, Nelson Fisher, when she was
- He compared her firepower to the battleship USS Missouri, known as
"Big Mo." The comparison fitted the game: Wikipedia describes her as a baseline player of great power and accuracy, right-handed, with a one-handed backhand.
She was not born right-handed on court. Her first coach, Wilbur Folsom, switched her from a left-handed grip to a right-handed one. Eleanor Tennant coached her from 1948 and through her first US title in 1951, which she won at 16, the youngest champion of that tournament at the time. They split after a dispute in 1952 over whether she should play Wimbledon while injured. For 1953, the Grand Slam year, she hired Harry Hopman.
20 July 1954
Connolly won Roland Garros and Wimbledon again in 1954. That summer she was out riding in San Diego when a passing concrete-mixer truck startled her horse, Colonel Merryboy. She was pinned between the horse and the truck, and the compound fracture to her right leg ended her competitive career. She was 19.
She played one-set exhibitions afterwards and worked as a commentator. She sued the concrete company and won. Wikipedia dates the jury verdict to 1957; Tennis Majors dates the settlement to 1958 and describes it as the largest personal-injury award of its time.
What was in the hand
No source we read names Connolly's racquet, string or tension. The 1953 season is one of the best-documented in women's tennis for results, and almost undocumented for equipment. We have left that side of the story blank rather than describe a frame from a photograph.
Why it matters
Connolly's whole major career lasted from September 1951 to July 1954. In that time she won nine major singles titles.
What she did next matters too. She married Norman Brinker, a member of the 1952 US Olympic equestrian team, and set up the Maureen Connolly Brinker Foundation in Texas to promote junior tennis. She died in 1969, aged 34. The foundation still carries her name.
More than seventy years on, the 1953 record still reads as it did then: four majors, one set lost, at 18.
Sources
- Maureen Connolly — Wikipedia read 30 Oct 2026
- September 7, 1953: The day Maureen "Little Mo" Connolly became the first woman to complete the calendar-year Grand Slam — Tennis Majors read 30 Oct 2026
- Maureen Connolly — International Tennis Hall of Fame read 30 Oct 2026