Bill Tilden
American tennis player (1893–1953)
William Tatem Tilden II (February 10, 1893 – June 5, 1953), nicknamed "Big Bill", was an American tennis player. He was the world No. 1 amateur for six consecutive years, from 1920 to 1925, and was ranked as the world No. 1 professional by Ray Bowers in 1931 and 1932 and Ellsworth Vines in 1933. Tilden won 14 Major singles titles, including 10 Grand Slam events, one World Hard Court Championships and three professional majors. He was the first American man to win Wimbledon, first claiming the title in 1920. He also won a joint-record seven U.S. Championships titles (shared with Richard Sears and Bill Larned).
Tilden dominated the world of international tennis in the first half of the 1920s, and during his 20-year amateur period from 1911 to 1930, won 138 of 192 tournaments he contested. He owns a number of all-time tennis achievements, including the career match-winning record and the career winning percentage at the U.S. Championships. At the 1929 U.S. National Championships, Tilden became the first player to reach ten finals at the same Grand Slam event.
“Bill Tilden” enters the record as american tennis player (1893–1953). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bill, Tilden and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Bill Tilden” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Bill, Tilden and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q54684. VIAF identifies the subject as 10643585. The Library of Congress control number is n85298523. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1893, 1953, 1920 and 1925.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bill Tilden” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.