From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William ("Little Bill") Johnston (November 2,
1894 in San
Francisco, California – May 1, 1946 in San Francisco, California) was an American
tennis champion. He was the co-World No.
1 player in 1919 and in 1922 respectively along with Gerald
Patterson and Bill
Tilden. He won the U.S.
Championships in 1915 and 1919, and Wimbledon in 1923.
Until "Big Bill"
Tilden began to defeat him regularly in 1920, Johnston had been
the best American player for a number of years. He remained
competitive with Tilden for the next seven or eight years, but was
never again able to beat him in an important match (for instance in
1922 Johnston defeated Tilden three times in four occasions but the
latter beat Johnston in the final of the U.S. Championships in five
sets). Together they won seven consecutive Davis Cup trophies, a
record that still stands as of early 2008.
Johnston was a small, frail-appearing man who suffered ill
health from his Navy service in World War I. He was renowned, however, for
the power and deadliness of his forehand drive, which he hit shoulder-high
with a Western grip, and which was universally considered the best
forehand of all time until the advent of Pancho Segura and his two-handed forehand
in the late 1940s. Johnston died of tuberculosis in 1946 at the age
of 51.
Johnston was inducted into the International Tennis Hall
of Fame in 1958.
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