Of all the hundreds of sporting heroes who died in the First World War, which ended 100 years ago on Sunday, few can have been as brilliant at their craft as Anthony Wilding. The New Zealander, who died on active service in France in 1915, won the gentlemen’s singles at The Championships four years in a row and captured the public’s imagination with his good looks and endearing personality.

Wilding has been described as the first matinee idol of tennis. He was engaged to an American actress, travelled between tournaments in Europe on his motor bike and was hugely popular with spectators everywhere.

An unerringly consistent ball-striker, Wilding was a baseliner who hit his strokes with great power and accuracy. At 6ft 2in tall he combined strength with athleticism, while his commitment to fitness set new standards.

“It is impossible to get into a state of physical efficiency by tennis alone,” Wilding wrote in his book “On the Court and Off”, which recounted his playing career. “Play must be combined with various other exercises. The prizefighter does not limit his training to sparring.”

Wilding, who was respected for his honesty and integrity as well as his outstanding athletic ability, led a lifestyle which enabled him to be at his best on the court. His advice to other players was clear: “Be moderate in all things, especially in eating, smoking and drinking.”

His parents were British but moved to New Zealand, where he was born and grew up. He excelled at a number of sports but did not play tennis seriously until he was 14, when he partnered his father, who won the New Zealand doubles championship on five occasions.

At 19 Wilding travelled to England in order to study law at Trinity College, Cambridge. For the rest of his life he spent much of his time in Europe.

Wilding first visited The Championships in 1903 and was hugely impressed by what he saw. “At the time I wondered if I would ever have the pluck to enter for Wimbledon, for the play seemed to me then nothing short of wonderful,” he wrote in “On the Court and Off”.

However, Wilding was playing at The Championships one year later. Having beaten Albert Prebble in the first round, he was paired with Ireland’s Harold Mahony, the champion of 1896, in the second. “To my great delight I captured a set and made Mahony talk to himself a great deal,” Wilding later wrote.

Wilding won his first gentlemen’s singles title in 1910. He beat Beals Wright in the All-Comers’ Final despite losing the first two sets, his victory a tribute both to his fitness and his thoughtful strategy. “He won because, like a sagacious commissariat officer, he apportioned his resources over five sets instead of three,” The Daily Telegraph reported.

Until 1922 the defending champion had to play only one match, in the Challenge Round, against the winner of the All-Comers’ Final. Wilding beat Arthur Gore 6-4, 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 in the Challenge Round of 1910, to the delight of his fellow New Zealanders. “Every friend in that country, from the Prime Minister downwards, cabled me his delight,” Wilding wrote.

Twelve months later Wilding beat Roper Barrett in the Challenge Round. The match was played in stifling heat, with an exhausted Barrett retiring before the start of the deciding set. A four-sets victory over Gore in the Challenge Round of 1912 gave Wilding his third successive title, but his greatest triumph came the following year when he beat Maurice McLoughlin, of the United States, 8-6, 6-3, 10-8.

McLoughlin, who was nicknamed “the California Comet”, had a booming serve and forehand and was expected by many to be too powerful for Wilding, but in front of a packed crowd of more than 7,000 the New Zealander delivered one of his finest performances. He was the last player to win the gentlemen’s singles title four years in a row until Bjorn Borg repeated the feat in the 1970s.

Wilding, who also won the gentlemen’s doubles four times, played his last match at The Championships in 1914, when he was beaten in the Challenge Round by Norman Brookes, his doubles partner and Australasia Davis Cup team mate.

Wilding was Australian champion twice and in 1913 won what were regarded as the three most important titles in the world, in Paris, Wimbledon and Stockholm.

Playing in tournaments across Europe enabled him to indulge his love of motor cycling. “There is only one joy better than flying along a clean, sound French road at forty miles an hour, and that is the joy of flying at sixty miles an hour,” he wrote.

Wilding, who was engaged to Maxine Elliot, a Broadway actress and businesswoman, joined the Royal Marines on the outbreak of the First World War. A captain in command of 30 men, he died during the Battle of Aubers Ridge in May 1915 at the age of 31.