Bill Johnston

William ("Little Bill") Johnston (born November 2, 1894 in San Francisco, California – died May 1, 1946 in San Francisco, California) was an American tennis champion. He was the co-World No. 1 player in 1919 along with Gerald Patterson.

Until "Big Bill" Tilden began to defeat him regularly in 1920, Johnston had been the best American player for a number of years. He remained competitive with Tilden for the next seven or eight years, but was never again able to beat him in an important match (for instance in 1922 Johnston defeated Tilden three times in four occasions but the latter beat Johnston in the final of the U.S. Championships in five sets). Together they won seven consecutive Davis Cup trophies, a record that still stands as of the early 2000s.

Johnston was a small, frail-appearing man who suffered ill health from his Navy service in World War I. He was renowned, however, for the power and deadliness of his forehand drive, which he hit shoulder-high with a Western grip, and which was universally considered the best forehand of all time until the advent of Pancho Segura and his two-handed forehand in the late 1940s. Johnston died of tuberculosis in 1946 at the age of 51.

Johnston was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1958.