Most consecutive tennis Grand Slam women's singles finals contested in a season

In 1953, Maureen Connolly beat Doris Hart (both USA) in three consecutive Grand Slam finals, winning the French Championships (6-2, 6-4), Wimbledon (8-6, 7-5) and the US National Championships (6-2, 6-4). Connolly, who died in 1969 at the age of just 34, won nine Grand Slam singles titles between 1951 and 1954, including a record-setting six consecutively in 1952-53 (subsequently equalled by Margaret Court in 1969-71 and Martina Navratilova in 1983-84). Also in 1953, Connolly became the first woman to complete a calendar-year “Grand Slam”, having already beaten compatriot Julia Sampson at the Australian Championships before her three matches against Hart.

Navratilova and Chris Evert (1984) and Navratilova and Steffi Graf (1987) later contested three consecutive calendar-year finals, while sisters Serena Williams and Venus Williams (2002-03) played four consecutive finals across two seasons, with Serena winning them all. Seventy-two years later, in 2025, Connolly and Hart’s achievement was matched in the men’s game by Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, who became the first men to contest three consecutive major singles finals in one season. Connolly (b. 17 September 1934), affectionately known as “Little Mo”, was 10 days short of her 19th birthday when she landed the calendar-year “Grand Slam” by beating Hart in the final of the 1953 US Open. The following year, just two weeks after winning Wimbledon for the third year in a row, Connolly fractured her leg in a horse-riding accident and had to retire from tennis, abandoning her plans to turn professional after the 1954 US National Championships. Ironically, she had taken up tennis as a child after her mother had been unable to fund riding lessons. In her short career, she won nine of the 11 Grand Slam singles tournaments she contested, and also claimed two women’s doubles titles (with Julia Sampson at the Australian Championships in 1953, and with Eleanor “Nell” Hall Hopman at the French Championships in 1954) and a mixed doubles title (with Lew Hoad at the French Championships in 1954). Hart (b. 20 June 1925) won six Grand Slam singles titles (1949-55), 14 women’s doubles titles (1947-54; 11 with Shirley Fry) and 15 mixed doubles titles (1949-55; eight with Frank Sedgman and seven with Vic Seixas). In 1954, aged 29, Hart became the first player – male or female – to complete a Grand Slam “Boxed Set”, winning a singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles title at each of the four major tournaments. Margaret Court (1964) and Martina Navratilova (2003) are the only players to have matched this feat in the years since. Hart achieved her success on court despite suffering from osteomyelitis as a child, which resulted in her having a permanently impaired right leg.