Hildegard Krahwinkel Sperling (née Krahwinkel; 26 March 1908 – 7 March 1981) was a German-Danish
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. She won three consecutive singles titles at the
French Championships
The French Open (), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a tennis tournament organized by the French Tennis Federation annually at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. It is chronologically the second of the four Grand Slam tennis events eve ...
from 1935 to 1937. Krahwinkel Sperling is generally regarded as the second-greatest female German tennis player in history, behind
Steffi Graf
Stefanie Maria Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a r ...
. Sperling played a counterpunching game, predicated on speed, and wore down opponents.
Helen Jacobs once wrote that Sperling was the third-best player she ever played, behind
Helen Wills Moody and
Suzanne Lenglen
Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen (; 24 May 1899 – 4 July 1938) was a French tennis player. She was the inaugural world No. 1 from 1921 to 1926, winning eight Grand Slam titles in singles and twenty-one in total. She was also a four-time World ...
.
She became a dual-citizen after marrying a Dane, Svend Sperling, in December 1933.
Career
According to
A. Wallis Myers and
John Olliff of ''The Daily Telegraph'' and the ''Daily Mail'', Sperling was ranked in the world top 10 from 1930 through 1939 (no rankings issued from 1940 through 1945), reaching a career high of world no. 2 in these rankings in 1936. However, according to Ned Potter of ''
American Lawn Tennis'', Sperling was the top-ranked player for 1936.
From 1935 through 1937, Sperling won three consecutive singles titles at the
French Championships
The French Open (), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a tennis tournament organized by the French Tennis Federation annually at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. It is chronologically the second of the four Grand Slam tennis events eve ...
. She is one of only five women in history to do so. The others are Moody (1928–1930),
Monica Seles
Monica Seles (born December 2, 1973) is a Serbian–American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for ...
(1990–1992),
Justine Henin
Justine Henin (; born 1 June 1982) is a Belgian former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 117 weeks, i ...
(2005–2007) and
Iga Świątek
Iga Natalia Świątek (; born 31 May 2001) is a Polish professional tennis player. She has been ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women’s singles by the Women's Tennis Association, Women’s Tenn ...
(2022–2024).
Sperling's only loss on a clay court from 1935 through 1939 was to
Simonne Mathieu
Simonne Mathieu ( Passemard;) (31 January 1908 – 7 January 1980) was a tennis player from France, born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, who was active in the 1930s. She won the French Championships singles title in 1938 and 1939.
During ...
at a tournament in Beaulieu, France in 1937. The score was 7–5, 6–1, and the two sets took 2 hours and 45 minutes to play. Two games lasted an hour. It was Mathieu's only victory versus Sperling in over 20 career matches.
Sperling twice reached the singles final at
Wimbledon
Wimbledon most often refers to:
* Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London
* Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships
Wimbledon may also refer to:
Places London
* W ...
but never won the title. In 1931, she lost to her compatriot
Cilly Aussem. In 1936, she lost to Jacobs. However, Sperling won the mixed doubles title that year, playing with
Gottfried von Cramm
Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm (; 7 July 1909 – 8 November 1976) was a German tennis player who won the French Open, French Championships twice, becoming the first non American, British, Australian or French playe ...
.
From 1933 through 1939, Sperling won the singles title at the
German Championships six consecutive times (the tournament was not held in 1936 because of the
Berlin Olympics
The 1936 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XI Olympiad () and officially branded as Berlin 1936, were an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, then capital of Nazi Germany. Berlin won the bid to ...
). This record stood for five decades until Graf won the tournament nine times (but not more than four consecutively). Sperling also won the singles title at the
Italian Championships in 1935 and defeated Moody in the semifinals of the 1938 Queens Club London championships,
just before Moody won her eighth Wimbledon singles title. Sperling's last international singles title was at the 1950 Scandinavian Covered Courts Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark when she was age 41. Sperling won several championships in Denmark while that country was occupied by Germany during World War II. Sperling never entered the
U.S. Championships because of scheduling conflicts with the German Championships.
In recognition of her winning the French Championships three times, being a Wimbledon finalist twice, reaching the semifinals of the French Championships and Wimbledon an additional six times, and being ranked in the top 10 for 10 consecutive years, Sperling was inducted into the
International Tennis Hall of Fame
The International Tennis Hall of Fame is located in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. It honors both players and other contributors to the sport of tennis. The complex, the former Newport Casino, includes a museum, 13 grass tennis courts, an ...
in 2013.
Grand Slam finals
Singles (3 titles, 2 runners-up)
Doubles (0 titles, 2 runners-up)
Mixed doubles (1 title, 1 runner-up)
Grand Slam singles tournament timeline
See also
*
List of female tennis players
*
Grand Slam women's singles champions
*
Performance timelines for all female tennis players who reached at least one Grand Slam final
Notes
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sperling, Hilde Krahwinkel
1908 births
1981 deaths
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
Tennis players from Essen
Sportspeople from the Rhine Province
German emigrants to Denmark
German female tennis players
French Championships (tennis) champions
Wimbledon champions (pre-Open Era)
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's singles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in mixed doubles
World number 1 ranked female tennis players
20th-century German sportswomen