Maria Bueno (June 8, age 78)
Brazilian tennis legend Maria Bueno, who won three Wimbledon singles trophies, died on Friday in her native São Paulo. She was 78.
Bueno had received treatment for oral cancer after being diagnosed in 2016. Throughout her career, she won 19 Grand Slam championships, seven of them in singles, between 1958 and 1968. Bueno was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1978.
According to her website, she won 589 tournaments.
Bueno reached the singles final at the French Open, where a brief tribute to her was shown before the women’s championship game in Paris on Saturday.
“She was the reigning queen of tennis in her day,” Billie Jean King told The New York Timesin 1987 after playing Bueno in an exhibition doubles match at Madison Square Garden. “She just projected well and was so graceful with long, flowing strokes. She had all the things that people liked in a champion.”
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