William ("Little Bill") Johnston (2 November1894 - 1 May1946) 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.
Bradman told Johnston that the selectors thought highly of his potential as a medium-fast bowler to reinforce the short bursts of pace spearheads Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller and that pace bowlers were in short supply.
Johnston finished the season at the top of the first-class bowling averages and was chosen as one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year, who opined that "no Australian made a greater personal contribution to the playing success of the 1948 side".
Johnston was a keen student of the game, and although he did not see a state match until his debut, and watched only one Test before his debut, he supplemented his knowledge by reading cricket books.
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