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Maureen Catherine Connolly-Brinker (née Connolly; September 17, 1934 – June 21, 1969), known as " Little Mo", was an American tennis player, the winner of nine major singles titles in the early 1950s. In 1953, she became the first woman to win a Grand Slam (all four major tournaments during the same calendar year). She is also the only player in history to win a title without losing a set at all four major championships. The following year, in July 1954, a Equestrianism accident seriously injured her right leg and ended her competitive tennis career at age 19. She died of ovarian cancer at the age of 34.
Connolly won her first Wimbledon title in 1952, defeating Louise Brough in the final. She had arrived at the tournament with a shoulder injury but refused to withdraw when Tennant instructed her to do so. The ensuing argument resulted in the end of their partnership. Connolly was seeded first at the 1952 U.S. Championships, and she successfully defended her title with a victory in the final against Doris Hart. For the 1953 season, she hired a new coach, the Australian Davis Cup captain Harry Hopman, and she entered all four Grand Slam tournaments for the first time. She defeated Julie Sampson in the Australian Open final and Doris Hart in the finals of the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Championships to become the first woman, and only the second tennis player after Don Budge, to win the world's four major titles in the same year, commonly known as a Grand Slam. She lost only one set in those four tournaments.
Connolly won the last nine Grand Slam singles tournaments she played, including 50 consecutive singles matches. During her Wightman Cup career from 1951 through 1954, she won all seven of her singles matches. Connolly's achievements made her the darling of the media and one of the more popular personalities in the U.S.; she was named Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press for three straight years, from 1951 through 1953. In 1954, Connolly did not defend her title at the Australian Championships, but successfully defended her French and Wimbledon championships.
In 1957, she published an autobiography titled Forehand Drive. Connolly recognized the downside of her tennis career, writing "I have always believed greatness on a tennis court was my destiny, a dark destiny, at times, where the court became my secret jungle and I a lonely, fear-stricken hunter. I was a strange little girl armed with hate, fear, and a Golden Racket."
Connolly was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1969 and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1956, she was inducted by the San Diego Hall of Champions into the Breitbard Hall of Fame honoring San Diego's finest athletes both on and off the playing surface.. San Diego Hall of Champions
Since 1973, the Maureen Connolly Challenge Trophy is played, a yearly competition between the best female tennis players age 18 and younger from the United States and Great Britain.
Brinker Elementary School in Plano, Texas is named in honor of her. The school was dedicated on November 20, 1988.
Connolly was portrayed by Glynnis O'Connor in Little Mo, a television movie that aired on September 5, 1978. Little Mo, allmovie.com; accessed January 2, 2014.
In 2019, the United States Postal Service released a commemorative Forever stamp in her honor.
| Collins (2010), p. 394 |
| Collins (2010), p. 480 |
| Australian Championships | A | A | A | A | W | A | 1 / 1 | 5–0 | |
| French Open | A | A | A | A | W | W | 2 / 2 | 10–0 | |
| Wimbledon | A | A | A | W | W | W | 3 / 3 | 18–0 | |
| U.S. Championships | 2R | 2R | W | W | W | A | 3 / 5 | 20–2 | |
| Win–loss | 1–1 | 1–1 | 6–0 | 12–0 | 22–0 | 11–0 | 9 / 11 | 53–2 |
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