Maria Bueno, a Brazilian tennis great who won three Wimbledon singles titles and four US Opens in the 1950s and 1960s, has died after battling mouth cancer. She was 78.
Bueno was admitted to a hospital in Sao Paulo on Tuesday and on Friday the hospital released a statement confirming her death.
It declined to provide more details out or respect for her family.
Nicknamed "The Tennis Ballerina" because of her graceful style, Bueno was a former top-ranked player who spent most of her career on the court before the professional era.
She won 19 grand slam titles overall, seven in singles, 11 in doubles and one in mixed doubles, between 1959 and 1966.
She also reached the singles final at both the Australian Open and the French Open.
Bueno was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1978.
She won her first major at Wimbledon in 1959, when she was 19 and was the first non-American woman to win Wimbledon and the US Open in same season.
Billie Jean King, who beat Bueno in the 1966 Wimbledon final, said the Brazilian was one of the players that made tennis less of a men's game.
"Maria was a big star who caught the interest of the fans at a time when the men took centre stage. She helped lay the groundwork for what was to come," King told Bueno's website in 2009.
Her last major title came in 1968 when she won the doubles title at the US Open alongside Australian Margaret Court - one of her biggest rivals in singles.
Bueno and Court faced each other in five major finals, with Bueno winning two of them.
