Maureen Connolly
Maureen Catherine Connolly Brinker was born on the 17th of September, 1934 in San Diego, California. She is popularly known as the second tennis player and the first women tennis star to have won all four Grand Slam titles in a single year.
She started her career at the age of 10 and within 4 years she had won 56 consecutive Singles matches and the very next year in 1951, she bagged the title of being the youngest US National Championship winner of the under 18 girls category beating Shirley Fry.
Connolly was ranked among the top ten tennis players from 1951 to 1954 where she was standing at the World’s No. 1 position from 1952 to 1954. She was also a top-ranked US Top player from 1951 to 1953. She was inducted in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1969 and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1987.
She won the Australian Open in 1953 and the French Open in 1953 and 1954. She also won the Wimbledon in 1952, 1953, and 1954 along with winning the US Open in 1951, 1952, and 1953. She won all the last 7 Singles Grand Slam matches she played.
Connolly also won two doubles titles at the Australian Open in 1953 and the French Open in 1954 and one Mixed Doubles title in the French Open in 1954. She had an accident while horse riding and crushed her right leg ending her career in 1954 however she officially announced retirement in 1955. She died on 21 June 1969 aged 34 due to Cancer.
Jan Lehane
Jan Lehane O’Neill was born on the 9th of July, 1941, and reached a career-high rank of No. 7 in 1963. She was ranked in the top ten in the years 1960, 1963, and 1964.
Lehane won 2 Grand Slam titles in the Mixed Doubles in the Australian Open in 1960 and 1961, paired with Trevor Fancutt and Bob Hewitt respectively. She was also the finalist of the Mixed Doubles in the same tournament in 1964 losing to Margaret Court and Ken Fletcher.
Lehane reached the Australian Open Singles final for four consecutive years from 1960 to 1963 but lost every time to Margaret Court. She also reached the Australian Open Doubles Finals twice in 1961 with Mary Bevis Hawton and in 1963 with Lesley Turner Bowrey, but lost both to a team that included Margaret Court with Mary Carter Reitano in 1961 and Robyn Ebbern in 1963.
Lehane also managed to reach the semifinals of the Australian Open singles in 1959 and 1964, along with reaching only the quarter-finals in 1971. Lehane was not lucky enough with the other Grand Slam titles and managed to reach only the singles quarter-finals of all of them.
She reached the quarter-finals of the French Open singles in 1960, 1962, 1963, and 1964. She also reached the semi-finals of the Wimbledon singles once in 1962 and the US Open singles in 1960 and 1961. The years 1960, 1961, and 1962 were the ones in which Lehane participated in all four Grand Slam singles matches.
