Helga Masthoff

Helga Masthoff

Paris, 1970. Helga Niessen, not yet Masthoff, beat second seed Billie Jean King in the quarterfinals at Roland Garros and became the first German to reach a major singles final in the open era. Margaret Court stopped her 6-2, 6-4 on the way to the calendar Grand Slam, but the run crowned the leading German woman of her generation: world No. 6 that year, with major semifinals at Roland Garros in 1972 and 1974 and the US Open in 1973.

Clay carried nearly everything she won. Six feet tall, patient from the baseline, with a feared drop shot, she collected 55 career titles, including three straight German Opens from 1972 to 1974 and three at Monte Carlo, her favourite stop. She beat a teenage Martina Navratilova twice on the 1974 clay swing and won the German national championship ten times between 1965 and 1978, the first two before open tennis. Married in 1970, she played on as Helga Masthoff and later ran a tennis hotel in the Canary Islands.