FRANK SHIELDS was the original tennis badboy.

With film star good lucks and a nonchalance that once saw him skip a Wimbledon final, Shields left a huge imprint on the sport during the 1930s.

A New Yorker through and through, Shields reached the final of his home tournament at the US Championships, which would later become known as the US Open, in 1930.

The following year, Shields reached the Wimbledon final but did not take to Centre Court for the final, supposedly due to an "ankle injury".

As reported by the Telegraph , however, cultural critic Jeffrey Hart once claimed of the 1931 showpiece: "This was a murky episode, in which legend has it that Shields was busy investigating the attributes of a matched pair of French countesses.

"The truth is probably that he had a badly twiste

See Full Page