Julie Heldman

Julie Heldman was a top American tennis player in the 1960s and early 1970s. She was ranked #2 in the US in 1968-69, and reached high world rankings of #5 in 1969 and 1974. Heldman won 22 singles titles in her career, including the 1969 Italian Open and the 1974 Canadian Championship, and was the 1974 US Clay Court Doubles Champion. At the 1972 Maccabiah Games, she won all three events – singles, doubles, and mixed.

Her best finishes at Grand Slam events were reaching the semi-finals of the 1970 French Open and the 1974 Australian and US Opens. At the 1968 Olympics she played the demonstration events both in Guadalajara and Mexico City, winning the mixed doubles in Guadalajara, with Herb Fitzgibbon, and the women’s doubles in Mexico City with Rosie Reyes.

Heldman graduated from Stanford in 1966 and later obtained a law degree from UCLA in 1981, where she was UCLA Law Review editor. In 1985 Heldman became President & Co-Chair of Signature Eyewear. Heldman is a member of the Stanford Athletics Hall of Fame, the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the ITA Women’s Hall of Fame, the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, and the USTA Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame.