Pauline Betz

Pauline Betz playing at Wimbledon in 1946.
Pauline Betz, who has died aged 91, was a leading tennis player of the 1940s, winning five Grand Slam singles titles, including Wimbledon in 1946, the first time she competed in the tournament. But she was never able to defend the title. The next year she became the victim of one of the worst examples of ruthless pomposity by amateur officials in the days when "professional" in sport was a dirty word. Until the arrival of open tennis in 1968, anyone signing a contract with a professional promoter was immediately banned from all the world's great tournaments, such as Wimbledon and Roland Garros. But Betz was banned without even having signed a contract. In fact, it was only on the evidence of a letter written by a third party – Elwood Cooke, who was the husband of another player, Sarah Palfrey Cooke – inferring that Betz might want to turn pro that the United States Lawn Tennis Association banned one of the best players. "It was a crime," said Jack Kramer, the 1947 Wimbledon champion who went on to sign Betz to the tour he ran with Bobby Riggs, another Wimbledon titleholder, in the late 1940s. Kramer, who fought for open tennis throughout the next two decades while signing up leading players such as Lew Hoad and Rod Laver to feed his tour, was a huge admirer of Betz. "She was a terrific all-round talent," he said. "She was a bridge champion, a fine golfer and was great at ping pong. But, above all, she was easily the best athlete of any woman I saw play the game." Betz was born in Dayton, Ohio, and brought up in Los Angeles, where her mother was a PE teacher. She played in tennis tournaments across California in her teens, before studying economics on a scholarship at Rollins College, in Florida, graduating in 1943, a year after her first Grand Slam win. She was in five consecutive finals of the US championships at Forest Hills during the second world war, winning three of them. She won the title again in 1946, the same year she won Wimbledon without dropping a set, beating the great Louise Brough in the final 6-2, 6-4. That year she also reached the final at the French championships at Roland Garros, losing to Margaret Osborne duPont 7-5 in the third set. Soon after, Betz was afforded the rare honour of a Time magazine cover. "But I was still working as a waitress," she said in an interview in 2005. "It's just the way things were in those days." After her ban, Betz was approached by Kramer. He and Riggs were searching for a back-up attraction to the tour he and Pancho Segura were playing around the US. "It was getting to be a problem because I was beating Segoo all the time because he couldn't handle my serve," he said. "So we hit on the idea of signing Gussie Moran, who had made a huge splash wearing Ted Tinling's lace panties at Wimbledon. But we needed someone for her to play and Pauline was the obvious choice. However, we soon found we had landed ourselves with the same problem. Pauline was much too good for Gussie and you can't go on selling the public mis-matches." One night, when the tour had moved on to Philadelphia, Kramer and Riggs went to see Betz in her hotel room. Riggs put it to her straight. "Do you think you could do us a favour and twist an ankle?" he asked. She burst into tears when told the reason why, and still went on beating Moran until, finally, in Milwaukee, Gussie won a match. "Well, I hope you're satisfied now," Pauline yelled at Riggs, as she stormed off the court. In 1949 Betz married Bob Addie, a sports columnist for the Washington Post. Her life became a good deal more glamorous after turning pro. Not to be outdone by Gussie, she wore silver lamé shorts and shocking pink sweaters on tour and often appeared in the doubles in a zebra-striped outfit. She moved easily among the smart set and was frequently to be found at the Stork Club in New York in the company of Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and the heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey. In later decades Betz taught tennis in Maryland, where there is now a Pauline Betz Addie Tennis Centre at Bethesda. Her husband died in 1982. She is survived by five daughters, one of whom, Kim Addonizio, is a poet and novelist.   • Pauline May Betz, tennis player, born 6 August 1919; died 31 May 2011