Margaret Osborne duPont

Margaret Osborne duPont ( born March 4, 1918 in Joseph, Oregon as Margaret Osborne; † 24 October 2012 in El Paso, Texas) was an American tennis player. She won a total of 37 Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

Life

Margaret Osborne came in 1918 on a farm in Joseph in the U.S. state of Oregon to the world. At the age of nine, her family moved to Spokane, Washington State, where Margaret first came to the tennis match into contact. Two years later the family moved to San Francisco. There, Margaret played on the tennis courts in Golden Gate Park, and has written articles for the American Lawn Tennis Magazine. In 1936 she graduated from high school. Since her parents could not finance their college education, she decided to pursue a career as a tennis player. In the same year she won the American Junior Championships in singles and in doubles.

From 1938 Osborne was one of the ten best American tennis players. During the Second World War, she worked in a naval shipyard. After the war, she won several times in singles at the French and the U.S. Championships and the Wimbledon Championships. The U.S. Championships in double she could already win in 1941. Between 1946 and 1957 she was one of the ten best female tennis players in the world from 1947 to 1950 it was listed as the world's best tennis player. Your last title she won at age 44 in 1962 in Wimbledon mixed doubles.

From 1938 to 1958 Osborne took ten times the Wightman Cup in part, and won all the games. Eight times was able to win the Cup the American team.

1947 Osborne married the wealthy businessman William duPont, offspring of the founding family of the chemical company DuPont. The couple sat down at the family residence Bellevue Hall in Wilmington, Delaware down, where Margaret was able to train a total of nine tennis courts and all surfaces (hard courts, sand, grass). She never took part in the Australian Championships, as her husband was afraid not to tolerate the Australian weather. The marriage was divorced in 1964. After William died a year later, Margaret Osborne moved with her only son William to El Paso, Texas, in a house with Margaret Varner Bloss and devoted himself to horse breeding.

1967 Osborne was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She died in 2012 at the age of 94 years at her home in El Paso.

Grand Slam title

Singles

Doubles

Mixed

Swell

• Collins, B.: History of tennis. 2nd edition. New Chapter Press, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-942257-70-0, pp. 622 f
• Obituary from the Daily Telegraph of 29 October 2012 ( online)
• Obituary from the New York Times of 25 October 2012 ( online)