Nathalie Tauziat

Nathalie Tauziat

Nathalie Tauziat built her career on a serve-and-volley game that was already going extinct in the women's draw by the time she perfected it. At Wimbledon in 1998, thirty years old, she reached her only Grand Slam final, the first Frenchwoman to get that far since Suzanne Lenglen in 1925. She lost to Jana Novotna, another serve-and-volleyer, in a final that read like the style's last stand on grass. It stands as her 0 major among 8 career titles.

She peaked later than almost anyone, reaching world No. 3 at 32. Two years after Wimbledon she published Les Dessous du Tennis Feminin, a book that turned on her own tour: sponsors chasing glamour over game, young bodies sold before young talent, the sport's commercial machine described from the inside by a player who had spent fifteen years in it. It cost her friendships in the locker room and gave the WTA one of its few honest insider accounts.