Eleanor "Teach" Tennant (1895 – May 11, 1974) was a
tennis
Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...
player and coach from the U.S., notable for the being the first female player to turn professional.
Tennant was once ranked third in America and was the coach of Grand Slam winners
Alice Marble
Alice Irene Marble (September 28, 1913 – December 13, 1990) was an American tennis player who won 18 Grand Slam championships between 1936 and 1940: five in singles, six in women's doubles, and seven in mixed doubles. She was ranked world No. ...
,
Bobby Riggs
Robert Larimore Riggs (February 25, 1918 – October 25, 1995) was an American tennis champion who was the world No. 1 amateur in 1939 and world No. 1 professional in 1946 and 1947. He played his first professional tennis match on December ...
,
Pauline Betz
Pauline May Betz Addie (née Betz, August 6, 1919 – May 31, 2011) was an American professional tennis player. She won five Grand Slam singles titles and was the runner-up on three other occasions. Jack Kramer called her the second best femal ...
, and
Maureen Connolly
Maureen Catherine Connolly-Brinker (née Connolly; September 17, 1934 – June 21, 1969), known as "Little Mo", was an American tennis player, the winner of nine major singles titles in the early 1950s. In 1953, she became the first woman to win ...
. Tennant also coached Hollywood stars including
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901November 16, 1960) was an American actor often referred to as the "King of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". He appeared in more than 60 Film, motion pictures across a variety of Film genre, genres dur ...
and
Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard (born Jane Alice Peters; October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress, particularly noted for her energetic, often off-beat roles in screwball comedies. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Lombard ...
, who gave her the nickname Teach.
Grand Slam finals
Doubles: (1 runner-up)
Further reading
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References
1895 births
1974 deaths
Place of birth missing
Place of death missing
American female tennis players
American tennis coaches
20th-century American sportswomen
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