page_title: Helen Wills
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Helen Wills / Early life
caption_attribution_description: A 1927 portrait sculpture of Helen Wills titled "Helen of California" by Haig Patinkian, on display at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Photo by Jim Heaphy.
context_page_description: Helen Newington Wills, also known as Helen Wills Moody and Helen Wills Roark, was an American tennis player. She became famous around the world for holding the top position in women's tennis for a total of nine years: 1927–33, 1935 and 1938. She won 31 Grand Slam tournament titles during her career, including 19 singles titles.
  Wills was the first American woman athlete to become a global celebrity, making friends with royalty and film stars despite her preference for staying out of the limelight. She was admired for her graceful physique and for her fluid motion. She was part of a new tennis fashion, playing in knee-length pleated skirts rather than the longer ones of her predecessors. Unusually, she practiced against men to hone her craft, and she played a relentless game, wearing down her female opponents with power and accuracy. In 1933, she beat the eighth-ranked US male player in an exhibition match.
  Her record of eight wins at Wimbledon was not surpassed until 1990 when Martina Navratilova won her ninth. She was said to be "arguably the most dominant tennis player of the 20th century", and has been called by some the greatest female player in history.
context_section_description: She was born as Helen Newington Wills on October 6, 1905, in Centerville, Alameda County, California (now Fremont), near San Francisco. She was the only child to Clarence A. Wills, a physician and surgeon at Alameda County Infirmary and Catherine Anderson, who had graduated with a B.S. degree in Social Science at the University of California at Berkeley. Her parents had married on July 1, 1904 in Yolo County, California. She lived in the small town of Byron, California, and practiced her tennis game at the Byron Hot Springs resort. 
  She was tutored by her mother at home until she was eight years old. After her father enlisted in the military in December 1917 and was posted in France with the American Expeditionary Forces her mother enrolled her at Bishop Hopkins Hall in Burlington, Vermont. When World War I ended the family moved back to Northern California, to Berkeley, where they took up residence near Live Oak Park. Wills enrolled as a ninth-grader at the Anna Head School, a private day and boarding school, where she graduated in 1923 at the top of her class. Wills then attended the University of California, Berkeley, as both her parents had done, on an academic scholarship, and graduated in 1925 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
  When she was eight years old, her father bought her a tennis racket and they practiced on the dirt courts next to the Alameda County Hospital as well as at Live Oak Park. Wills' interest in tennis was kindled after watching exhibition matches by famous Californian players including May Sutton, Bill Johnston and her particular favorite, Maurice McLoughlin.
  In August 1919, she joined the Berkeley Tennis Club as a junior member on the advice of tennis coach Wiliam "Pop" Fuller who was a friend of her father. In the spring of 1920, she practiced for a few weeks with Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, four-time winner of the U.S. Championships singles title, on strokes, footwork and tactics.
caption: "Helen of California", a portrait sculpture by Haig Patigian, on display at the de Young Museum in San Francisco
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1326", "Image ImageLength": "2314", "Image Make": "HTC", "Image Model": "HTC6525LVW", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "3.4.0-g5093fc3", "Image DateTime": "2015:12:12 14:52:24", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "234", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[37, 46, 20169/1250]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[122, 28, 73077/10000]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "0", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[22, 52, 23]", "GPS GPSProcessingMethod": "ASCII", "GPS GPSDate": "2015:12:12", "Image GPSInfo": "5958", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "0", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "0", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/40", "EXIF FNumber": "2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "125", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:12:12 14:52:24", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:12:12 14:52:24", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "5321/1000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "499993/250000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "other", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "191/50", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "909", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1520", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2688", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "5928", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0/0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard"}