Polish Jadwiga Jedrzejowska, who was a friend of Chaplin and persecuted by the Nazis.

Iga Swiatek made history at Wimbledon . But not only by winning her first title at the world's most important tournament, or by achieving it 6-0, 6-0 in just 57 minutes. The former world No. 1 also made history by becoming the first Polish woman to win the All England Championships, after two compatriots reached the final: Jadwiga Jedrzejowska in 1937 and Agnieszka Radwanska in 2012.

Radwanska's career is well known. She reached number two in the rankings, won 20 titles in her career (including the 2015 Masters), and her compatriot Wojtek Fibak once compared her to Martina Hingis because "she's a player who understands the geometry of the court." But here the invitation is to discover Jedrzejowska, the first elite Polish tennis player to reach the finals of Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and Forest Hills in the 1930s (losing to Chilean Anita Lizana, British Dorothy Round, and French Simonne Mathieu, respectively) and champion of Queen's, for example, in four consecutive editions between 1936 and 1939. However, there is also a very special story (another story) surrounding this player whose career was cut short at the start of World War II because, like much of her country's population, she was persecuted. Her status as a great champion allowed the Swedish government to offer her political asylum, but she decided to stay in Poland. When the Nazis offered her the chance to play again for Germany, she rejected the offer. She decided to quietly retreat from the spotlight.

Tennis was a logical destiny for Jedrzejowska from a very young age. The sounds of the sport had always been with her, as her house was next to the courts of the Krakow Academic Sports Association . Her home was poor. Her father and three brothers worked as laborers at the city's sewage treatment plant. At age 8, she had her first "job." Curious, she would wander onto the tennis courts and pass balls to the players in exchange for a few coins. There, she held a racket in her hands for the first time, and when she hit a ball, she knew her life would change. So did the men who admired her power. Time passed, and at 10, her father made her a wooden racket. And she slept with it.

She began beating all her friends, both men and women. Until someone suggested that the Academic Sports Association itself accept her as a member. She was already 13 years old and had special needs. However, she faced her first social boycott: women didn't want to play with the daughter of a worker. So she began training with men. And so she refined her shots and increased the strength of her impacts.

She was barely a teenager and had become the best Polish tennis player , but she couldn't play for the national team because she didn't have a dress or the required long socks . Eventually, the club bought her the right clothes. This allowed her to participate in the Polish Championships. But more problems arose. As if she hadn't had anything else to worry about, she was expelled from school. According to the law, it was illegal to be a member of a sports club and not study. She wrote a letter to the Ministry of Education complaining, and after their intervention, she was readmitted and passed her final high school exams.

Time passed, she began to travel, and her results in the most important tournaments began to repeat themselves. Since her surname was unpronounceable, someone called her "Ha Ha." And that nickname stayed with her forever. In 1937, at Wimbledon, she lost an incredible final when she was 4-1 down in the third set. "I just wanted to go to my room and hide under the covers. I couldn't stand it, but I calmed down. I told myself that a Polish woman should admit the bitterness of defeat with dignity. So I pulled myself together and left that room with a smile," she once recalled. That match made her a celebrity for her compatriots. In addition to becoming the best athlete in her country, Jedrzejowska began promoting sweets, hats, and fur coats from renowned brands of the time. Poverty, which she hated, was a thing of the past. However, she turned down an offer of $25,000 and a 10 percent win bonus from Bill Tilden to play for money because, she said, "I don't want to be a slave to the courts."

Her sponsors paid for her trip to the United States on the luxury ocean liner "Queen Mary." There, she played little due to various injuries. While watching a match, she got angry at a gray-haired stranger who was shouting criticism at the players. She told him, "You don't know anything about tennis." Embarrassed, Jedrzejowska quickly realized that this man was one of the most famous personalities in the world. She apologized, and Charles Chaplin —that was him—anticipated her, commenting, "I did it on purpose so we could talk. It was I who behaved like an idiot." They became close friends and corresponded until the silent film icon's death in 1977.

When he returned to Poland in 1939, war was looming. A nightmare began, and Polish athletes began struggling to stay united. Along with Janusz Kusociński (Olympic 10,000-meter champion) and other athletes, he began meeting in a Warsaw bar belonging to the captain of his country's Davis Cup team, and they all tried to survive the hardships of war. Thus was founded the famous sports tavern "Pod Kogutem." But the Germans found out, using Nazi soldiers as spies at these meetings.

He could have emigrated. Although he always believed his place was in Poland. During the occupation, he worked in a shoe factory . One day, the Gestapo raided his apartment. He was offered a transfer to neutral Sweden because King Gustav V, an old tennis partner, had intervened with the German authorities. Nothing changed his decision to remain with his family.

That Warsaw apartment burned down during the uprising. Among the ruins, the tennis player found her Wimbledon finalist trophy. In 1946, she married engineer Alfred Galert, whom she had met before the war on the tennis courts in Chełmek, near Krakow. The couple settled in Katowice. They had no children.

Jędrzejowska, who by this point in her life weighed 20 kilos less than in her golden years, continued playing, but only in her home country until the mid-1960s, defeating opponents who could have been her daughters (although she smoked compulsively, played cards at night, and slept very little). She continued living in a modest, small apartment and supplemented her income by working as a tennis court manager. One day, a hidden safe in her old club was opened and there they found a medal she had been given for finishing as a Wimbledon finalist and an emerald bracelet given to her by Gustav V. It was her last joy in tennis. She died in 1980 in Katowice and was buried in the Rakowicki Cemetery in Kraków.

Someone must have told Jedrzejowska's story to Swiatek at some point. And if Jedrzejowska were still alive, she would know of her compatriot's social commitment, one of the first players on the tour who didn't hesitate to support the Ukrainian cause from the start in the face of the Russian invasion. Extremes always come together. Always.