Helga Niessen
Born on the 11th of November, 1941, Helga Niessen was a former professional German tennis player born in Essen, Germany. Her career-best performance includes the Grand Slam singles in which she managed to reach the finals but lost to Margaret Court by 2 sets.
Bud Collins ranked Helga Niessen Masthoff to be among the top ten players in the year 1970, 1971 as well as 1973. These years gave her the highest-ranking of being the 6th best tennis player among the world players.
She also holds the title to win the German title three consecutive times in the years 1972, 1973, and 1974. She defeated Martina Navratilova in the final match of 1974 by three sets.
In the year 1971, Helga Niessen was the runner up contestant in the same tournament and lost the game against Billie Jean King by two sets. In the Mexico City Olympic Games held in the year 1968 in which tennis was introduced as a demonstration sport, Helga Niessen won the title of both the singles and doubles titles with Edda Budding and won gold and silver medals in mixed doubles with her teammate Jurgen Fabbunder.
In the 1976 French Open tournament, Masthoff was partnered with Kathy Harter and reached the final match of the women’s doubles match. She lost the game by three sets.
The German tennis player also played for West Germany’s Fed Cup team from the years 1965 to 1967 and then in 1969 and 1970 and them throughout 1972 to 1977. The win-loss record of her career is 15 – 8 in doubles and 23 – 10, 38 – 18 in singles.
Helena Sukova
Helena Sukova was born in Czechoslovakia in 1965. She started playing tennis at a tender age and started her professional career when she was just 16. She reached World No. 4 in singles while her best rank is World No. 1 in women’s doubles. She also won a Grand Slam in doubles and won another four titles at Wimbledon.
She also won a title at French Open and another at the Australian Open. She won a silver medal in the 1988 and 1996 Olympics. Her partner in both the medals was Jana Novotna. Helena Sukova is still considered a respectable name in the world of Tennis. Her contributions to the game are commendable.
Sukova also represented her country helping it win the prestigious Fed Cup four times. One of her career-high was winning Hopman Cup in 1989. Overall, she won 10 singles titles and 69 doubles titles during her successful career. She was runner up four times in Grand Slam singles.
She retired in 1988 but entered 2006 Wimbledon through a wild card. Cyril Suk also won a wild card entry to the Wimbledon the same year. Unfortunately, both the wild card holders lost their first match and got knocked out straight away. Although she had some success in her singles career too, her actual strength and achievements were in doubles tennis.
