The absurd question has an answer that doubles as a splendid Scrabble score: Jadwiga Jedrzejowska.
Miss Jedrzejowska, who was born on October 15, 1912, in Krakow and died on February 28, 1980, in Katowice, is, as every reader no doubt knows, the last Polish woman to appear in a Wimbledon final. In 1937, since one asks, and she lost in three sets.
Agnieszka Radwanska has now followed in her footsteps by defeating Angelique Kerber 6-3, 6-4 and will meet Serena Williams in tomorrow's final.
Radwanska's knowledge of Miss Jedrzejowska was, at best, sketchy. "Well, I know that she was the finalist," she replied when asked if the venerable figure of a Wimbledon past had intruded on her childhood. "I know her name, yeah," she said.
She is much more familiar with the name of Williams. This is a dynasty that has dominated Wimbledon in recent years and Serena is now back in the final for the first time since those distant days of 2010.
"It's always tough," said Radwanska, who reached her first grand slam final and will face a player who has now appeared in seven singles finals at Wimbledon alone.
"She's a very tough opponent and hitting the ball very well. Of course, she's playing great tennis on the grass. I don't really have anything to lose, so I'm just going to try my best."
The form of Williams looks like a side view of the Cuillins. This is a player who crashed out in the first round of the French Open and has endured some turbulence on her road to this year's final. It took Williams 23 aces to tame the challenge of Zheng Jie in an earlier round. She broke that record, smashing 24 past Victoria Azarenka in a gruelling 6-3, 7-6 (6) victory.
The American is looking to add to a tally of 13 grand slam titles and she has not lost a set to Radwanska in their two meetings, but these were both four years ago. A lot has happened in the world of Williams since. Venus, who suffers from Sjogren's Syndrome, an auto-immune illness, lost to Elena Vesnina in the first round of Wimbledon this year. It is difficult to see how the four-time champion can now recover her glorious heights.
Serena, however, has made an astonishing recovery from her trauma last year. She underwent surgery for blood clots on her lungs, discovered when she cut her foot on glass at a restaurant in Germany.
The four-time Wimbledon champion is now 30 and the last thirtysomething to win the women's title was Martina Navratilova, at 33, in 1990. Williams has the same power to intimidate that was the hallmark of the Czech player.
Radwanska, of course, does not have the same history. Yesterday was her debut in a grand slam semi-final though she is a serial quarter-finalist. But on tour she has produced consistent form, reaching a semi-final or better in eight of her 14 events this year. She has also won three titles, in Dubai, Miami and Brussels. The Pole, aged 23, and ranked No.3 in the world, does have Wimbledon heritage as she was the junior champion in 2005.
However, Williams may be on a mission. The dynasty of the sisters must be in its latter stage. With Venus dreadfully compromised by illness, Serena is left to conduct the family business of accumulating titles.
She has often seemed distracted in the past. She has been traumatised by personal tragedy as in the shooting of her sister, Yetunde, in 2003. She has been hampered by injury and she has also lost focus as she has pursued interests such as acting and design.
Yet the Williams sisters, in their pomp, are the modern queens of Wimbledon – together, they play for another final appearance in the women's doubles today – and Serena has the capability to carry that standard further forward in the singles tomorrow.
When she lacks motivation, she can drift in and out of tournaments but when she is fully engaged there is no more fearsome sight in tennis.
Venus was quietly defiant about her future in the sport, despite her early defeat in the singles. The older sister, at 32, insisted she would be back but increasingly the family's hopes in grand slams lie with Serena.
There was a family conference ahead of the match with Petra Kvitova. Serena came out and thrashed the Czech in straight sets. This focus continued yesterday.
"Some things happen sometimes and you have absolutely no control over it," she said. "So I think it's how you recover from that, and how you handle the downs even more than the ups can really judge you as a character."
Her motivation in tennis, too, is all about grand slams, particularly Wimbledon. "I really try to take every tournament seriously, but at the end of the day you add up those grand slams and it really helps," she said. "It's really kind of cool to have trophies in your house that are so meaningful; you grow up dreaming about it but never really knowing you can make it."
Serena Williams has made it, over and over again. She bids to add another trophy tomorrow. Radwanska will make her challenge but Serena, if fully motivated, must be the strongest of favourites.
As Damon Runyon once remarked, the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.
