Bill Johnston

William ("Little Bill") Johnston (2 November, 1894 - 1 May, 1946) was an American tennis champion.

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. 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 in 1946 at the age of 51.

Little Bill Johnston and Big Bill Tilden before a match, rights granted by the Chicago Historical Society

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

• List of male tennis players