Early Tennis Career
Tilden was not no. one at his prep school Germantown Academy nor even good enough to play on his college team. The shy, self-absorbed, sometimes arrogant young man dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania and began to practice his game against a backboard, and he also became a dedicated student of the game. In just three years, he worked his way up the ranks. Prior to 1920, he had won a number of Canadian doubles titles, but at the U.S. National Championships in 1918 and 1919 he lost the singles final to Robert Lindley Murray and "Little Bill" Johnston, respectively in straight sets. He won the 1920–1925 U.S. singles championships and is so far the leader, holding 6 consecutive U.S. titles and 7 total U.S wins. In the winter of 1919–20, he moved to Rhode Island where, on an indoor court, he devoted himself to remodeling his relatively ineffective backhand into a much more effective one. With this change, he became the world no. 1 tennis player and the first American to win the Wimbledon singles championship.
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