Players | WTA Tennis English No videos found 0 ò Accumulated 24 Grand Slam singles titles, 19 doubles and 19 mixed; holds all-time records for most Grand Slam singles titles (24), mixed doubles titles (19) and total titles (62) ò In 1970, became second woman in tennis to achieve the Grand Slam - Australian, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and United States singles titles in the same calendar year; at Roland Garros, trailed Olga Morozova 6-3, 5-2 and suffered from leg cramps before coming back; injured ankle during Wimbledon, so rushed the net as much as possible in defeating Billie Jean King in final; also is the only player to achieve a Grand Slam in both singles and mixed doubles, winning all four mixed titles with Ken Fletcher in 1963 ò In four years, 1962, 65, 69 and 73, won three of the four Grand Slams; only Wimbledon eluded her in 1962, 69 and 73, and Roland Garros in 1965 ò In the 1970 Wimbledon final

, defeated Billie Jean King 14-12, 11-9; the 46 games in the match and 26-game first set are both Wimbledon finals records ò One of three women to accomplish Triple Crowns (Grand Slam singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles) at the 1963 Australian and 1970 US Open (King and Navratilova are the others) ò Won the Australian Open a record 11 times ò Never seeded lower than No.

2 at Wimbledon; first appearance was in 1961 ò Lost to Bobby Riggs 6-2, 6-1 on Mother's Day in 1973 in an exhibition match SINGLES Winner (92 Open Era): 1968 - Hurlingham, Manchester, Beckenham, Irish Open, Hoylake, Dutch Open, Berkeley, Dewar-Stalybridge, Dewar-Perth, Dewar-Aberavon, Dewar-Torquay, Queen's Covered Court Champs, Dewar Cup Finals-London; 1969 - Australian Open , Roland Garros , US Open , Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Caracas, San Juan, Charlotte, Houston, Bournemouth, Hurlingham, Bristol, Newport-Wales, Frinton, Rock Invitation-NY, Merion GC Champs-Philadelphia, US Champs-Boston, Berkeley; 1970 - Australian Open , Roland Garros , Wimbledon , US Open , Perth, Hobart, Victorian Open-Melbourne, ITPA Philadelphia, Vanderbilt-New York, Dallas, South African Open, Sutton, Bournemouth, Guildford, Bristol, Queen's London Champs, Frinton, Budapest International

, Dutch Open, Merion Grass Champs-Pennsylvania, Canadian Open; 1971 - Australian Open , Sydney, Perth, Auckland, Durban, South African Open, Hurlingham, Bournemouth, Queen's London GC Champs, Irish Open; 1972 - Western Champs [Cincinatti], VS Newport [RI], VS Oakland, Dewar-Edinburgh, Dewar-Glasgow, Dewar-Birmingham, Dewar-Manchester, Dewar-London, Perth, Sydney; 1973 - Australian Open , Roland Garros , US Open , BMC Oakland, BMC Los Angeles, Washington DC, Miami Indoors, VS Detroit, Chicago, Richmond, Philadelphia, Boston, Jacksonville, Irish Open, Nashville, Allaire [NJ], Newport [RI], World Invitational-Sea Pines; 1974 - West Australian Champs [Perth]; 1975 - Chicago; 1976 - Toyota-Melbourne.

DOUBLES Winner (48 Open Era): 1976 - Melbourne (w/Stove); 1975 - US Open (w/Wade), Bridgestone Doubles (w/Wade); 1973 - Australian Open (w/Wade), Roland Garros (w/Wade), US Open (w/Wade); 1971 - Australian Open (w/Goolagong), South African Open (w/Goolagong); 1970 - Australian Open (w/Dalton), Wimbledon (w/Dalton), Melbourne (w/Dalton), Sydney (w/Dalton), Frinton (w/Lloyd), Eastbourne (w/Tegart); 1969 - Perth (w/Tegart), Melbourne (w/Tegart), Sydney (w/Tegart), Brisbane (w/Tegart); 1968 - US Open (w/Bueno), Rome (w/Wade), Manchester (w/Bueno), Berkeley (w/Bueno), Beckenham (w/Bueno), West Kirby (w/Wade), Perth (w/Walkden), Aberavon (w/Walkden), London I (w/Walkden

).

MIXED DOUBLES Winner (19 Open Era): 1975 - US Open ; 1974 - South Africian Open (w/Riessen); 1972 - US Open (w/Riessen); 1971 - South African Open (w/Stolle); 1970 - US Open (w/Ralston), South Africian Open (w/Riessen); 1969 - Roland Garros (w/Riessen), US Open (w/Riessen); 1968 - Rome (wRiessen), Berkeley (w/Smith), West Kensington (w/Smith). Overall Stats Court, Margaret Jean - Woman - The Australian Women's Register Smith, Margaret (maiden name, 16 July 1942 - 27 October 1967) Summary Margaret Court was one of Australia's greatest sportswomen. She won 62 grand slam titles and, in 1970, was the second woman in history to win the Australian, French, U.S. and Wimbledon titles in a calendar year.

Winner of the ABC Sportsman of the Year Award in 1963 and 1970, Margaret Court was appointed to the Order of the British Empire - Member (Civil) on 1 January 1967 for services to sport and international relations. In 1970 she also won the Walter Lindrum Award. In January 2003, Tennis Australia renamed Melbourne Park's Show Court One to the Margaret Court Arena. She was the recipient of the 2003 Australia Post Australian Legends Award, and featured on a special 50c stamp. In 2006 she was awarded the International Tennis Federation's (ITF) highest accolade, the Philippe Chatrier Award. Details When Margaret Court (née Smith) was thirteen years old Frank Sedgeman, the Australian tennis champion, told her that she was so talented, she could be the first Australian women to win Wimbledon. Eight years later she achieved that goal, and then spent the next decade or so creating tennis records.

In 2007, she remains the most prolific winner, male or female, of major championships, having notched up 62 titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles between 1960 and 1975, including seven straight Austrlian Championships between 1960-1966. She took the Australian, French, Wimbledon and U.S. singles titles all within 1970 to become the second female Calendar Year Grand Slam winner at after Maureen Connolly, who achieved the feat in 1953. She is the only player to achieve a Calendar Year Grand Slam in doubles as well as in singles. In purely statistical terms, her nearest all time 'rivals', Martina Navratilova, with 56 majors, and Roy Emerson, heading the men with 28, are a long way behind. Court has 24 titles in singles alone, three ahead of Steffi Graf when she left the game. Putting this into some contemporary perspective, Roger Federer, with ten grand slam titles and Serena Williams, with eight, still have some work to do if they are going to catch her.

As the citation to accompany her 1979 induction in to the International Tennis Hall of Fame reads, 'For sheer strength of performance and accomplishment there has never been a tennis player to match Margaret Smith Court.' Not bad for an ordinary girl from regional Australia. Born in July, 1942, Margaret Smith was, quite literally, a fighter from the moment she drew breath. Her mother nearly died giving birth to her and Margaret was very ill upon arrival. Fortunately, she lived to grow up and go to school in Albury, New South Wales, a regional centre in the state's southeast situated on the Murray River. Her circumstances were not affluent. Her parents owned neither the house they lived in, a very modest, two bedroom, thin-walled, asbestos dwelling with a tin roof that stretched to fit a family of six, nor a car. Margaret was lucky, therefore, that she lived across the road from twenty-four grass tennis courts. She was also lucky that the coach there, Wally Rutter, spotted her and took the time to nurture her talent.

It was Rutter who brought her to the attention of Sedgeman and it was Sedgeman who encouraged her to come to Melbourne so that she could make the most of her potential. At 16 she moved to Melbourne to widen her experience and to receive specialist coaching. In retrospect, she also thinks she was lucky to grow up a tomboy in a neighbourhood full of sports mad boys, with whom she regularly competed. She suggests, however, that it was 'determination to succeed and to be the best' rather than competitiveness that later drove her to succeed. Whatever the motivation, there is no doubt that she became the best, although she never really sat down to measure how good she was until she'd finished playing. She didn't know exactly how many titles she had won until she retired and even then that was only because someone else (English commentator John Barrett) had counted them for her. This is not to say that Margaret was blasé about her success; rather it is an indication of her modesty and source of motivation. She did not do things for the glory and attention but because she always had personal goals. There were three in particular, throughout the course of her career, that drove her to 'be the best'.

The first of them, to be the first Australian woman to win Wimbledon, she met in 1963. The second, to win the Calendar Year Grand Slam (the Wimbledon and the Australian, United States, French Opens all in the one year) eventuated in 1970 and the third, to be the first mum to be number one in the world, she achieved in 1973. She tried coming back after having her second child but says that, at that point, she didn't have a goal, so she knew it was time to give the game up, which she did in 1975. Margaret had natural talent, athleticism and strength; her court coverage was amazing and the power of her serve-volley game set her apart in the women's game. She and one of her early physical instructors, Stan Nicholls, did things differently in order to capitalise upon and enhance her physical strength. She spent a lot of time in the gym lifting weights in an era when very few women did this as a matter of course. But she also attributes the power of her game to her early upbringing. 'As a young girl, I used to train with the men.

I practiced with the men all the time and I thought I had to serve-volley, because they wouldn't invite me to play with them if I didn't…I was brought up playing with the men.' Consequently, she developed a style of game that saw her constantly serve-charging the net and, in so doing, introduced change into the women's game. The British, who were unused to their female tennis players being so physically imposing and aggressive on the court, called her the 'Aussie Amazon'. Apart from being strong, her physique gave her other natural advantages. People used to think she was taller than she was (5'9") because she was all arms and legs. (Indeed her International Tennis Hall of Fame still describes her as 'nearly six feet tall'.) In particular, her reach was 'telescopic'; one of her regular opponents, Billie Jean King, called her 'the Arm', because of it. It was like it added extra inches to the length of her racquet. One can only speculate on how much better she might have been if, as a natural left-hander, she hadn't been trained not to be at school, as was the policy at the time she was growing up.

'Sometimes I wished I had've stayed lefty,' she says. 'I would have had probably a better serve.' At times, it seemed that the only person capable of beating Margaret was Margaret herself. Sometimes she suffered from nerves and was accused, in modern day parlance, of choking, most famously against crowd favourite, Evonne Goolagong (Cawley) in the 1971 Wimbledon final. (Perhaps they might have bit there tongues if they had known she was pregnant with her first child at the time!) Seeded 1 in her first attempt at Wimbledon in 1962, and after having a bye in the first round, she got bundled out in the second round by an unseeded player named Billie Jean Moffitt (later King). It wasn't one of her greatest days and she remembers phoning home talking to her Mum, who said "I suppose you'll give up tennis now and come home.' On the contrary, she replied, 'No, I'm going to go on to America and I'm going to win everything,' True to her word, she won the U.S. Championship that year, beating Darlene Hard in straight sets.

Margaret was consistently excellent in both singles and doubles over the next four-five years, winning 29 grand slam titles in the period 1962-66. Towards the end of 1965, however, she began to get tired of life on the road and, having won all the grand slam events and thinking she had achieved all that she could achieve in tennis, she decided to retire the next year. She moved to Perth, Western Australia and tried something entirely different; she opened a boutique. Travelling had given her a taste for noce clothes and she decided to turn her hobby into a business venture. Perth is also where she met her husband, Barry Court, son of then Premier of Western Australia, Sir Charles Court and brother to the future premier, Richard Court. This was a family that was very far removed from the tennis world - Barry didn't even know how to score the game and his mother, when introduced to her said 'Oh, that's interesting, you have the same name as the tennis player'. In Perth, for a year or so, Margaret escaped from the world of tennis and refreshed.

No struggles with administrators about the quality of accomodation she had to stay in when on tour; no dealing with media outlets curious about her personal life, Margaret enjoyed living life outside the tennis world. She married Barry in 1967 (the same year she was awarded an M.B.E.) and suggested they go overseas - Barry had never left the country and she was keen to share the life she had lead with him. 'Maybe I'll go back and play tennis and you will see where I've come from'. She returned to the game in 1968 and had the best two-season run in history in 1969-70, with seven majors, missing out only at Wimbledon in1969, where she lost in the semis to champion Ann Haydon Jones, 10-12, 6-3, 6-2. Her new goal, to win the Calendar Year Grand Slam was achieved in 1970.

The Wimbledon final she won to achieve that goal, against Billie Jean King, is she says the game 'means more to me than most probably means the most to her.' With an injured ankle, she played two marathon sets (there were no tie-breakers then) to win 11-9, 14-12. She played again in 1971 until she discovered she was pregnant with her first child, Daniel. After he was born, everyone assumed she would give the game away for good. Instead, she decided she had something else to prove; she was going to be the first mother to be number one in the world. Not only did she go on to do this in 1973, she did it in extraordinary style, playing some of the best tennis of her career and winning 24 of 25 tournaments she played. In 1974, her second child, Marika, was born. Court started playing again but her heart wasn't in it and so she retired permanently in 1977 around the same time she learned she was expecting the third of her four children. When she retired from tennis for good, life took a big turn, initially, not for the best.

Brought up a Catholic, she regularly attended church but one day when she was attending a service in France given in French and Latin, she released how disconnected she was from her spiritual self, and how she needed more than the traditional church could offer her. During this period, she suffered from depression and was physically unwell; the world's once fittest woman was weak, fearful and afraid to go to sleep. She experienced a crisis of confidence and a crisis of faith. It wasn't until she began to attend Bible school in the early 1980s that the disparate threads of her life began to mesh again, and Margaret committed herself fully to the Pentacostal Church. In 1991 she was officially ordained to the ministry and a year later she established her own outreach ministry, Margaret Court Ministries Inc. In 1995 she entered into formerly unchartered waters by founding and establishing Victory Life Centre, of which she is the Senior Pastor. With an average Sunday attendance of 1300+ this makes it one of the Perth's largest and dynamic churches. Recognised as an inspirational speaker as her new career developed, Margaret's tennis achievements were also recognised in a variety of was at this time.

In 1993, together with Rod Laver, she was inducted into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame, the first players to be granted this honour. In 2002 Tennis Australia named the Number 1 Court at Melbourne Park, the home of the Australian Open, 'Margaret Court Arena' , in 2007 she received an Order of Australia. Margaret still plays tennis. 'I know the spiritual side,' she says, 'I need to keep the outer man fit as well. And she still plays hard - she is still very determined. 'I don't think that ever leaves you,' she says. 'I'm a very focused person.' Only now, instead of changing the game of tennis, she's working at 'changing nations'. Margaret Court's Grand Slam Wins: Wimbledon Archival resources National Library of Australia Interview with Margaret Court, tennis player, lay preacher, christian healer and senior minister (sound recording), interviewer, Gail O'Hanlon, 1994, ORAL TRC 3346; National Library of Australia.

Details Published resources The Australian Women's Register Exhibitions Faith, Hope and Charity Australian Women and Imperial Honours: 1901-1989, Australian Women's Archives Project, March 2003, . Details She's Game: Women Making Australian Sporting History, Australian Women's Archives Project, 2007, . Details Smart, Judith and Swain, Shurlee (eds), 'Court, Margaret Jean', The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, Australian Women's Archives Project, 2 May 2014, . Details Books Court, Margaret, Winning words : the creative power of what you say, Strand Publishing, Sydney, 1999, 155 pp. Details Court, Margaret Smith, 1942-, Court on Court : a life in tennis, Allen & Unwin, London, 1976, 211 pp. Details Oldfield, Barbara, A winning faith : the Margaret Court story, Sovereign World, Kent, England, c1993, 126 pp.

Details Journal Articles Williams, Sue, 'All-time Australian tennis great Margaret Court found her true from serving Jesus', The Australian Women's Weekly, February 2003, 2003, p. 240. Details Newspaper Articles Talking Heads, Peter Thompson with Margaret Court, 2006-10-30, . Details 'Court, Margaret (1942-)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, . Details See also Brasch, Nicolas, Great Australian Women in Sport, Heinemann, Port Melbourne (Vic.), 1997, 32 pp. Details Herd, Margaret (ed.), Who's Who in Australia 2002, 38 edn, Crown Content, Melbourne, 2002, 2020 pp. Details Popham, Daphne; Stokes, K.A.; Lewis, Julie, Reflections : profiles of 150 women who helped make Western Australia's history; Project of the Womens Committee for the 150th Anniversary Celebrations of Western Australia, Carrolls, Perth, Melbourne [etc.]:, 1979, 266 pp.

Details Shepherd, Jim, Encyclopedia of Australia Sport, Rigby Publishers, 1980, 471 pp. Details Digital resources She's Game: Women Making Australian Sporting History - Margaret Court Women Making Australian Sporting History Margaret Court More information about Margaret Court can be found in the AWAP register. When Margaret Court (née Smith) was thirteen years old Frank Sedgeman, the Australian tennis champion, told her that she was so talented, she could be the first Australian woman to win Wimbledon. Eight years later she achieved that goal, and then spent the next decade or so creating tennis records. In 2007, she remains the most prolific winner, male or female, of major championships, having notched up 62 titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles between 1960 and 1975, including seven straight Australian Championships between 1960 and 1966. She took the Australian, French, Wimbledon and U.S. singles titles all within 1970 to become the second female Calendar Year Grand Slam winner after Maureen Connolly, who achieved the feat in 1953.

She is the only player to achieve a Calendar Year Grand Slam in doubles as well as in singles. In purely statistical terms, her nearest all time 'rivals', Martina Navratilova, with 56 majors, and Roy Emerson, heading the men with 28, are a long way behind. Court has 24 titles in singles alone, three ahead of Steffi Graf when she left the game. Putting this into some contemporary perspective, Roger Federer, with ten grand slam titles and Serena Williams, with eight, still have some work to do if they are going to catch her. As the citation to accompany her 1979 induction in to the International Tennis Hall of Fame reads, 'For sheer strength of performance and accomplishment there has never been a tennis player to match Margaret Smith Court.' Not bad for an ordinary girl from regional Australia. Born in July, 1942, Margaret Smith was, quite literally, a fighter from the moment she drew breath. Her mother nearly died giving birth to her and Margaret was very ill upon arrival. Fortunately, she lived to grow up and go to school in Albury, New South Wales, a regional centre in the state's southeast, situated on the Murray River.

Her circumstances were not affluent. Her parents owned neither the house they lived in, a very modest, two bedroom, thin-walled, asbestos dwelling with a tin roof that stretched to fit a family of six, nor a car. Margaret was lucky, therefore, that she lived across the road from twenty-four grass tennis courts. She was also lucky that the coach there, Wally Rutter, spotted her and took the time to nurture her talent. It was Rutter who brought her to the attention of Sedgeman and it was Sedgeman who encouraged her to come to Melbourne so that she could make the most of her potential. At 16 she moved to Melbourne to widen her experience and to receive specialist coaching. In retrospect, she also thinks she was lucky to grow up a tomboy in a neighbourhood full of sports mad boys, with whom she regularly competed. She suggests, however, that it was 'determination to succeed and to be the best' rather than competitiveness that later drove her to succeed. Whatever the motivation, there is no doubt that she became the best, although she never really sat down to measure how good she was until she'd finished playing.

She didn't know exactly how many titles she had won until she retired and even then that was only because someone else (English commentator John Barrett) had counted them for her. This is not to say that Margaret was blasé about her success; rather it is an indication of her modesty and source of motivation. She did not do things for the glory and attention but because she always had personal goals. There were three in particular, throughout the course of her career, that drove her to 'be the best'. The first of them, to be the first Australian woman to win Wimbledon, she met in 1963. The second, to win the Calendar Year Grand Slam (the Wimbledon and the Australian, United States, French Opens all in the one year) eventuated in 1970 and the third, to be the first mum to be number one in the world, she achieved in 1973. She tried coming back after having her second child but says that, at that point, she didn't have a goal, so she knew it was time to give the game up, which she did in 1975.

Margaret had natural talent, athleticism and strength; her court coverage was amazing and the power of her serve-volley game set her apart in the women's game. She and one of her early physical instructors, Stan Nicholls, did things differently in order to capitalise upon and enhance her physical strength. She spent a lot of time in the gym lifting weights in an era when very few women did this as a matter of course. But she also attributes the power of her game to her early upbringing. 'As a young girl, I used to train with the men. I practiced with the men all the time and I thought I had to serve-volley, because they wouldn't invite me to play with them if I didn't…I was brought up playing with the men.' Consequently, she developed a style of game that saw her constantly serve-charging the net and, in so doing, introduced change into the women's game. The British, who were unused to their female tennis players being so physically imposing and aggressive on the court, called her the 'Aussie Amazon'. Apart from being strong, her physique gave her other natural advantages. People used to think she was taller than she was (5'9") because she was all arms and legs.

(Indeed her International Tennis Hall of Fame still describes her as 'nearly six feet tall'.) In particular, her reach was 'telescopic'; one of her regular opponents, Billie Jean King, called her 'the Arm', because of it. It was like it added extra inches to the length of her racquet. One can only speculate on how much better she might have been if, as a natural left-hander, she hadn't been trained not to be at school, as was the policy at the time she was growing up. 'Sometimes I wished I had've stayed lefty,' she says. 'I would have had probably a better serve.' At times, it seemed that the only person capable of beating Margaret was Margaret herself. Sometimes she suffered from nerves and was accused, in modern day parlance, of choking, most famously against crowd favourite, Evonne Goolagong (Cawley) in the 1971 Wimbledon final.

(Perhaps they might have bitten their tongues if they had known she was pregnant with her first child at the time!) Seeded 1 in her first attempt at Wimbledon in 1962, and after having a bye in the first round, she got bundled out in the second round by an unseeded player named Billie Jean Moffitt (later King). It wasn't one of her greatest days and she remembers phoning home talking to her Mum, who said 'I suppose you'll give up tennis now and come home.' On the contrary, she replied, 'No, I'm going to go on to America and I'm going to win everything,' True to her word, she won the U.S. Championship that year, beating Darlene Hard in straight sets. Margaret was consistently excellent in both singles and doubles over the next four-five years, winning 29 grand slam titles in the period 1962-66. Towards the end of 1965, however, she began to get tired of life on the road and, having won all the grand slam events and thinking she had achieved all that she could achieve in tennis, she decided to retire the next year.

She moved to Perth, Western Australia and tried something entirely different; she opened a boutique. Travelling had given her a taste for nice clothes and she decided to turn her hobby into a business venture. Perth is also where she met her husband, Barry Court, son of then Premier of Western Australia, Sir Charles Court and brother to the future premier, Richard Court. This was a family that was very far removed from the tennis world - Barry didn't even know how to score the game and his mother, when introduced to her said 'Oh, that's interesting, you have the same name as the tennis player'. In Perth, for a year or so, Margaret escaped from the world of tennis and freshened up. No struggles with administrators about the quality of accomodation she had to stay in when on tour; no dealing with media outlets curious about her personal life, Margaret enjoyed living life outside the tennis world. She married Barry in 1967 (the same year she was awarded an M.B.E.) and suggested they go overseas - Barry had never left the country and she was keen to share the life she had lead with him. 'Maybe I'll go back and play tennis and you will see where I've come from'.

She returned to the game in 1968 and had the best two-season run in history in 1969-70, with seven majors, missing out only at Wimbledon in1969, where she lost in the semis to champion Ann Haydon Jones, 10-12, 6-3, 6-2. Her new goal, to win the Calendar Year Grand Slam was achieved in 1970. The Wimbledon final she won to achieve that goal, against Billie Jean King, is she says the game 'means more to me than most'. With an injured ankle, she played two marathon sets (there were no tie-breakers then) to win 11-9, 14-12. She played again in 1971 until she discovered she was pregnant with her first child, Daniel. After he was born, everyone assumed she would give the game away for good. Instead, she decided she had something else to prove; she was going to be the first mother to be number one in the world.

Not only did she go on to do this in 1973, she did it in extraordinary style, playing some of the best tennis of her career and winning 24 of 25 tournaments she played. In 1974, her second child, Marika, was born. Court started playing again but her heart wasn't in it and so she retired permanently in 1977 around the same time she learned she was expecting the third of her four children. When she retired from tennis for good, life took a big turn, initially, not for the best. Brought up a Catholic, she regularly attended church but one day when she was attending a service in France given in French and Latin, she released how disconnected she was from her spiritual self, and how she needed more than the traditional church could offer her. During this period, she suffered from depression and was physically unwell; the world's once fittest woman was weak, fearful and afraid to go to sleep. She experienced a crisis of confidence and a crisis of faith.

It wasn't until she began to attend Bible school in the early 1980s that the disparate threads of her life began to mesh again, and Margaret committed herself fully to the Pentacostal Church. In 1991 she was officially ordained to the ministry and a year later she established her own outreach ministry, Margaret Court Ministries Inc. In 1995 she entered into formerly unchartered waters by founding and establishing Victory Life Centre, of which she is the Senior Pastor. With an average Sunday attendance of 1300+ this makes it one of the Perth's largest and dynamic churches. Recognised as an inspirational speaker as her new career developed, Margaret's tennis achievements were also recognised in a variety of ways at this time. In 1993, together with Rod Laver, she was inducted into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame, the first players to be granted this honour. In 2002 Tennis Australia named the Number 1 Court at Melbourne Park, the home of the Australian Open, 'Margaret Court Arena'.

In 2006 she was awarded the International Tennis Federation's (ITF) highest accolade, the Philippe Chatrier Award and in 2007 she received an Order of Australia. Margaret still plays tennis. 'I know the spiritual side,' she says, 'I need to keep the outer man fit as well.' And she still plays hard - she is still very determined. 'I don't think that ever leaves you,' she says. 'I'm a very focused person.' Only now, instead of changing the game of tennis, she's working at 'changing nations'. Image Mrs Court serving in Women's singles against Miss L. Hunt Image Courtesy of the National Archives of Australia © Australian Women's Archives Project, 2007 Margaret Smith Court Biography (Clergywoman/Tennis Player) Birthplace: Albury, Australia Best known as: Australian winner of the 1970 women's Grand Slam Margaret Smith Court was the dominant women's tennis player of the 1960s. As Margaret Smith she went to Wimbledon in 1962 as a heavy favorite, but in a famous upset lost to American Billie Jean Moffit (later Billie Jean King).

Smith returned the next year and became the first Australian to win it all. She retired in 1966, married and started a family, but returned to tennis in 1970. That year Margaret Smith Court won the rare Grand Slam: singles titles at Wimbledon plus the U.S., French and Australian Open tournaments. All in all, Court won 24 major singles titles and 62 Grand Slam events (singles and doubles), both being the most in history. In 1991 she was ordained as a Christian minister and founded the Victory Life Church in Perth, Australia. She was enshrined in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1979. Extra credit: Court won the Australian Open every year from 1960-1966 and 11 times in all, the last in 1973… Her record of 62 major titles has lasted into the 21st century… The only other women to complete the Grand Slam in one year are Maureen Connolly (1953) and Steffi Graf (1988). Copyright © 1998-2017 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.

Margaret Court (Tennis Player) - Pics, Videos, Dating, & News Margaret Court A Retired Australian Professional Female Tennis Player and Christian Minister Female Born Jul 16, 1942 Margaret Court, also known as Margaret Smith Court, is a retired World No. 1 professional tennis player and Christian minister from Australia. She is best known for her sporting career, in which she amassed more Grand Slam titles than any other player in history.

In 1970, Court became the first woman during the open era (and the second woman in history) to win the singles Grand Slam (all four majors in the same calendar year).… Read More related links Tennis Radwanska Dumped Out Of Australian Open Second Round Yahoo News - about 17 hours ago '* Radwanska humbled by unfancied Croatian Lucic-Baroni * Pole suffers earliest Melbourne Park exit since 2009 (Adds quotes) By Ian Ransom MELBOURNE, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Third seed and former semi-finalist Agnieszka Radwanska was knocked out of the second round of the Australian Open by Croatia\'s Mirjana Lucic-Baroni on Thursday, becoming the highest seed to fall in the women\'s draw at Melbourne Park. World number 79 Lucic-Baroni left Radwanska and the <mark>Margaret Court</mark> Arena crowd...

Tennis Australian Open Order Of Play On Wednesday Yahoo News - 3 days ago 'Jan 17 (Reuters) - Order of play on the main showcourts on day three of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park on Wednesday (play begins at 0000 GMT; prefix denotes seeding): ROD LAVER ARENA Stefanie Voegele (Switzerland) v 13-Venus Williams (U.S.) 1-Angelique Kerber (Germany) v Carina Witthoeft (Germany) Noah Rubin (U.S.) vs 17-Roger Federer (Switzerland) Not before 0800 GMT: Samantha Crawford (U.S.) v 7-Garbine Muguruza (Spain) 1-Andy Murray (Britain) v Andrey Rublev (Russia) <mark>MARGARET... Wawrinka 'sorry' For Klizan Body Blow At Australian Open Yahoo News - 4 days ago ' Stan Wawrinka apologised for slamming a ball at Martin Klizan after he survived a tense five-setter to reach the Australian Open second round on Monday.

The three-time Grand Slam champion, fought back from a break down in the final set to overhaul the 35th-ranked Slovak 4-6, 6-4, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 in 3hr 24min on <mark>Margaret Court</mark> Arena. There was a dramatic moment in the final set when Wawrinka fired a volley at a defenceless Klizan, who had conceded the point after a rally and was s... Tennis Williams Fights Off Halep To Reach U.S. Open Semi Finals Yahoo News - Sep 08, 2016 '* Halep saves all 12 second set break chances * Williams to face Pliskova in semi-finals (Adds quotes, detail) By Steve Keating NEW YORK, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Simona Halep did something no one else was able to do against Serena Williams at the U.S. Open on Wednesday but still could not stop the world number one from advancing to the semi-finals of the year\'s final grand slam. The scrappy fifth seeded Romanian managed to take the first break points from Williams during the Flushing Meadows for...

Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Margaret Court. CHILDHOOD 1942 Birth Born on July 16, 1942. TEENAGE 1960 17 Years Old She began playing tennis when she was eight years old and was 17 in 1960 when she won the first of seven consecutive singles titles at the Australian Championships. Show Less Court became the first female player from Australia to win a Grand Slam tournament abroad, when she won the French and US Championships in 1962. … Read More The year after that, she became the first Australian woman to win Wimbledon.<br /><br /> After Wimbledon in 1966, Court temporarily retired from tennis. Read Less She also won 11 of the 17 Grand Slam singles tournaments she entered, beginning with the 1962 Australian Championships and ending with the 1966 Australian Championships. … Read More She was 146â2 (98.6%) against unseeded players in Grand Slam singles tournaments.

Read Less TWENTIES 1965 22 Years Old … In January 2003, Show Court One at the sports and entertainment complex Melbourne Park was renamed Margaret Court Arena. <br /><br />During the 1960s Court was considered to have a very long reach which added a new dimension to women's volleying. With a height and reach advantage and being extremely strong, she was very formidable at the net and had an effective overhead shot. She was considered unusually mobile for her size and played an all attack, serve and volley style which, when added to her big serve, dominated conservative defensive players. Part of what helped her win was her commitment to fitness training. Court was dubbed "The Aussie Amazon" because she did weights, circuit training and running along sandy hillsides. This training helped keep her relatively injury-free through most of her career. <br /><br />Court won a record 62 Grand Slam tournament titles, including a record 24 singles titles, 19 women's doubles titles, and a record 19 mixed doubles titles.

Read Less The total rises to 64 Grand Slam titles (21 mixed doubles) when the shared titles at the Australian Championships/Open in 1965 and 1969 are considered. … Read More The mixed doubles finals of those years were not played because of bad weather and the titles are shared by both of the finalist pairs.<br /><br /> Court won 62 of the 85 Grand Slam tournament finals (72.9%) she played, including 24â5 (82.8%) in singles finals, 19â14 (57.6%) in women's doubles finals, and 19â4 (82.6%) in mixed doubles finals.<br /><br /> Court reached the final in 29, the semifinals in 36 and the quarterfinals in 43 of the 47 Grand Slams singles tournaments she played. Read Less 1967 24 Years Old She married Barry Court in 1967, whose father, Sir Charles Court, and brother, Richard Court, served as premiers of Western Australia.

Show Less She returned to tennis in 1968 and in 1970 won all four Grand Slam singles titles. … Read More The next year, she lost the Wimbledon singles final to Evonne Goolagong Cawley while pregnant with her first child, Daniel, who was born in March 1972. Court made a comeback the same year and played in the US Open and then played throughout 1973. Her second child, Marika, was born in 1974. She started playing again in November of that year. After missing most of 1976 after having her third child, she returned to the tour in early 1977 but retired permanently that year when she learned that she was expecting her fourth child. Her last Grand Slam tournament appearance in the singles was in the 1975 US Open.

Her last ever Grand Slam tournament appearance was in the 1976 Australian Open in the women's doubles.<br /><br /> Court is one of only three players to have achieved a career "boxed set" of Grand Slam titles, winning every possible Grand Slam title â singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles â at all four Grand Slam events. The others are Doris Hart and Martina Navratilova. Court, however, is the only person to have won all 12 Grand Slam events at least twice. Read Less She also is unique in having completed a boxed set before the start of the open era in 1968 and a separate boxed set after the start of the open era. … Read More Court lost a heavily publicised and USâtelevised challenge match to a former World No. 1 male tennis player, the 55-year-old Bobby Riggs, on 13 May 1973, in Ramona, California. Court was the top-ranked women's player at the time, and it has been reported that she did not take the match seriously because it was a mere exhibition.

Using a mixture of lobs and drop shots, Riggs beat her 6â2, 6â1. Four months later, Billie Jean King beat Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes match in the Houston Astrodome. Read Less 1969 26 Years Old She won 11 of the 16 Grand Slam singles tournaments she entered, beginning with the 1969 Australian Open and ending with the 1973 US Open. 1970 27 Years Old Court is the only player to have won the Grand Slam in both singles and mixed doubles. She won the singles Grand Slam in 1970, the mixed doubles Grand Slam in 1963 with fellow Australian Ken Fletcher and the mixed doubles Grand Slam in 1965 with three different partners (Fletcher, John Newcombe and Fred Stolle).

… Read More Court won more than half of all the Grand Slam contests held in 1963 (8 of 12), 1964 (7 of 12), 1965 (9 of 12), 1969 (8 of 12), 1970 (7 of 11) and 1973 (6 of 11).<br /><br /> According to the end-of-year rankings compiled by London's Daily Telegraph from 1914 to 1972, Court was ranked World No. 1 six times: 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1969 and 1970. Read Less THIRTIES 1973 30 Years Old She was also ranked No. 1 for 1973 when the official rankings were produced by the Women's Tennis Association. … Read More Court was raised as a Roman Catholic but became involved with Pentecostalism in the mid-1970s.

Read Less FORTIES 1983 40 Years Old In 1983, she gained a theological qualification from the Rhema Bible Training Centre, and in 1991 was ordained as an independent Pentecostal minister. … Read More She subsequently founded a ministry known as Margaret Court Ministries. Read Less FIFTIES 1995 52 Years Old In 1995, she founded a Pentecostal church known as the Victory Life Centre in Perth. … Read More She still serves as its senior pastor. Her television show, A Life of Victory, appears on the Australian Christian Channel. She has generally embraced teachings associated with the Word of Faith movement. Since 2010, she has been the president of Victory Life International, a network of like-minded churches.<br /><br /> In her role as minister, Court has become a consistent critic of homosexuality in general and same-sex marriage in particular in Australia. In November 1994, when delivering a speech at a prayer breakfast held at Parliament House, Court exclaimed, "Homosexuality is an abomination to the Lord!

Read Less LATE ADULTHOOD 2002 60 Years Old Abortion is an abomination to the Lord!" In 2002, she campaigned against laws proposed and passed by the Government of Western Australia that granted same-sex couples the equal legal rights to opposite-sex couples, and in 2011 publicly spoke out against federal government plans to legalise same-sex marriage. … Read More Although stating that she does not hate homosexuals and welcomes them into her congregation, she has publicly expressed her opinion that same-sex sexual activity is a sinful choice and that the LGBT community is "aggressively demanding marriage rights that are not theirs to take".<br /><br /> Court has been criticised for such statements by openly homosexual tennis players Billie Jean King, Rennae Stubbs and Martina Navratilova; the latter called them "truly frightening". An LGBT rights protest group urged spectators to display rainbow gay flag banners at the Margaret Court Arena during the 2012 Australian Open and called for the renaming of the venue. Court condemned their actions as "a political stunt".

Parodied for her views online, Court has also been criticised by the Australian Press Council (APC) for propagating false and "potentially dangerous" information about homosexuality in an article she had published in the Herald Sun tabloid. In response, the Australian Christian Lobby condemned the APC's decision, declaring it to be a "dangerous precedent against free speech". Read Less 2010 68 Years Old … In 1970 Court became the first woman during the open era (and the second woman in history) to win the singles Grand Slam (all four major tournaments in the same calendar year). She won a record 24 of those titles, a record that still stands. She also won 19 women's doubles and 21 mixed doubles titles, giving her a record 64 major titles overall. She is the only woman to win the mixed doubles Grand Slam, which she accomplished twice. Her all surfaces (hard, clay, grass and carpet) singles career winning percentage of 91.68% (1180â107) is one of the best of all time according to the Sporteology website.

Her open era singles career winning percentage of 91.37% (593â56) is unequaled, as is her open era winning percentage of 91.7% (11â1) in Grand Slam finals. Her win-loss performance in all Grand Slam singles tournaments was 90.12% (210â23). She was 95.31% (61â3) at the Australian Open, 90.38% (47â5) at the French Open, 85.10% (51â9) at Wimbledon and 89.47% (51â6) at the US Open. She also shares the open era record for most Grand Slam singles titles as a mother with Kim Clijsters. The International Tennis Hall of Fame states, "For sheer strength of performance and accomplishment there has never been a tennis player to match (her)." Read Less In 2010, the Herald Sun newspaper of Melbourne, Australia called her the greatest female tennis player of all time.

… Read More Court is one of only six tennis players to ever win a multiple slam set in two disciplines, matching Roy Emerson, Martina Navratilova, Frank Sedgman, Doris Hart and Serena Williams. Court, however, is the only one in tennis history to complete a multiple slam set, twice, in all three disciplines: singles, women's doubles and mixed doubles.<br /><br /> Having grown up as a Roman Catholic, Court became associated with Pentecostalism in the 1970s and became a Pentecostal Christian minister in 1991. She later founded the Margaret Court Ministries. In this capacity she has been a vocal critic of LGBT rights.<br /><br /> Margaret Smith was the youngest of the four children of Lawrence Smith and Catherine Smith (nÃ©e Beaufort). She has two older brothers, Kevin and Vincent, and a sister, Conor Dorsett, who now lives in Bow. She is a natural left-hander who was persuaded to change to a right hand grip. Read Less Original Authors of this text are noted on .

Players | WTA Tennis English No videos found 0 ò Accumulated 24 Grand Slam singles titles, 19 doubles and 19 mixed; holds all-time records for most Grand Slam singles titles (24), mixed doubles titles (19) and total titles (62) ò In 1970, became second woman in tennis to achieve the Grand Slam - Australian, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and United States singles titles in the same calendar year; at Roland Garros, trailed Olga Morozova 6-3, 5-2 and suffered from leg cramps before coming back; injured ankle during Wimbledon, so rushed the net as much as possible in defeating Billie Jean King in final; also is the only player to achieve a Grand Slam in both singles and mixed doubles, winning all four mixed titles with Ken Fletcher in 1963 ò In four years, 1962, 65, 69 and 73, won three of the four Grand Slams; only Wimbledon eluded her in 1962, 69 and 73, and Roland Garros in 1965 ò In the 1970 Wimbledon final

, defeated Billie Jean King 14-12, 11-9; the 46 games in the match and 26-game first set are both Wimbledon finals records ò One of three women to accomplish Triple Crowns (Grand Slam singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles) at the 1963 Australian and 1970 US Open (King and Navratilova are the others) ò Won the Australian Open a record 11 times ò Never seeded lower than No.

2 at Wimbledon; first appearance was in 1961 ò Lost to Bobby Riggs 6-2, 6-1 on Mother's Day in 1973 in an exhibition match SINGLES Winner (92 Open Era): 1968 - Hurlingham, Manchester, Beckenham, Irish Open, Hoylake, Dutch Open, Berkeley, Dewar-Stalybridge, Dewar-Perth, Dewar-Aberavon, Dewar-Torquay, Queen's Covered Court Champs, Dewar Cup Finals-London; 1969 - Australian Open , Roland Garros , US Open , Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Caracas, San Juan, Charlotte, Houston, Bournemouth, Hurlingham, Bristol, Newport-Wales, Frinton, Rock Invitation-NY, Merion GC Champs-Philadelphia, US Champs-Boston, Berkeley; 1970 - Australian Open , Roland Garros , Wimbledon , US Open , Perth, Hobart, Victorian Open-Melbourne, ITPA Philadelphia, Vanderbilt-New York, Dallas, South African Open, Sutton, Bournemouth, Guildford, Bristol, Queen's London Champs, Frinton, Budapest International

, Dutch Open, Merion Grass Champs-Pennsylvania, Canadian Open; 1971 - Australian Open , Sydney, Perth, Auckland, Durban, South African Open, Hurlingham, Bournemouth, Queen's London GC Champs, Irish Open; 1972 - Western Champs [Cincinatti], VS Newport [RI], VS Oakland, Dewar-Edinburgh, Dewar-Glasgow, Dewar-Birmingham, Dewar-Manchester, Dewar-London, Perth, Sydney; 1973 - Australian Open , Roland Garros , US Open , BMC Oakland, BMC Los Angeles, Washington DC, Miami Indoors, VS Detroit, Chicago, Richmond, Philadelphia, Boston, Jacksonville, Irish Open, Nashville, Allaire [NJ], Newport [RI], World Invitational-Sea Pines; 1974 - West Australian Champs [Perth]; 1975 - Chicago; 1976 - Toyota-Melbourne.

DOUBLES Winner (48 Open Era): 1976 - Melbourne (w/Stove); 1975 - US Open (w/Wade), Bridgestone Doubles (w/Wade); 1973 - Australian Open (w/Wade), Roland Garros (w/Wade), US Open (w/Wade); 1971 - Australian Open (w/Goolagong), South African Open (w/Goolagong); 1970 - Australian Open (w/Dalton), Wimbledon (w/Dalton), Melbourne (w/Dalton), Sydney (w/Dalton), Frinton (w/Lloyd), Eastbourne (w/Tegart); 1969 - Perth (w/Tegart), Melbourne (w/Tegart), Sydney (w/Tegart), Brisbane (w/Tegart); 1968 - US Open (w/Bueno), Rome (w/Wade), Manchester (w/Bueno), Berkeley (w/Bueno), Beckenham (w/Bueno), West Kirby (w/Wade), Perth (w/Walkden), Aberavon (w/Walkden), London I (w/Walkden

).

MIXED DOUBLES Winner (19 Open Era): 1975 - US Open ; 1974 - South Africian Open (w/Riessen); 1972 - US Open (w/Riessen); 1971 - South African Open (w/Stolle); 1970 - US Open (w/Ralston), South Africian Open (w/Riessen); 1969 - Roland Garros (w/Riessen), US Open (w/Riessen); 1968 - Rome (wRiessen), Berkeley (w/Smith), West Kensington (w/Smith). Overall Stats Margaret Smith Court Margaret Smith Court Member of the Australian Federation Cup Team 1963-1965, 1968-1970 Member of the Australian Championship Federation Cup Team 1964-1965, 1968, 1970 Overall Record: 35-5 Citizenship: AUS Born: July 16, 1942 in Albury, Australia Played: Right-handed Dominating.

There’s no better or more appropriate word to describe Margaret Smith Court’s assault on worldwide tennis courts. It can be debated, with plenty of supportive reference material, that no athlete – male or female – has so thoroughly dominated their sport like Court, certainly not in tennis. Her name is plastered throughout the record books, some of her accomplishments needing a second read to make sure they’re not a typographical error. From 1960 until 1975, Court won a record 24 major singles titles, best in history, regardless of gender. Court tacked on 21 major titles in mixed doubles and another 19 in doubles, pushing her total to a mind-boggling 64 major championships. By comparison, Martina Navratilova earned 59 major titles in her glorious career and all-time male leader Roy Emerson won 28. In 1970, she became the second female in history to win a calendar year Grand Slam (first in the Open Era), joining Maureen Connolly, who was the inaugural titlist in 1953. Steffi Graf became only the third female Grand Slam winner in 1988.

On three occasions, in 1965, 1969, and 1973, Court won three of the four major events she played. Court’s career spanned both amateur and professional eras, amassing a 1,180-107 record – the most in history – which equates to a remarkable 92 percent winning mark. When the Open Era commenced in 1968, Court compiled a 593-56 record and won at the same uncanny clip. She was a buzz saw with the sharpest blades, winning 24 of her major titles in 29 opportunities (83 percent). She went 11-of-12 in championship matches in the Open Era (92 percent), when the competition and stakes were ratcheted up considerably higher. Court is one of only five players in tennis history, joining Navratilova, Serena Williams, Roy Emerson, and Frank Sedgman, to win a career Grand Slam in two categories, but she stands alone as the only player in history to win multiple Grand Slams in all three categories.

Court won singles, doubles, and mixed doubles championships at all four majors, and only Navratilova and Doris Hart can claim the same, but Court won all 12 majors twice. No one in history has come remotely close to that record. An astonishing 40 of her major championships came in doubles, the coup de grace coming in 1963 when she teamed with fellow Aussie Ken Fletcher to win the mixed doubles Grand Slam. In 1965 she became the only female player in history to win a mixed doubles Grand Slam twice, winning the French and Wimbledon with Fletcher, the Australian with John Newcombe and the U.S. Nationals with Fred Stolle. Court’s 40 doubles and mixed doubles titles were enormous accomplishments, winning 11 at the Australian, eight at the French, seven at Wimbledon, and 12 the U.S. Nationals/US Open (The Australian doubles titles in 1965 and 1969 were shared due to inclement weather postponing the final). Court was born in Albury, New South Wales, Australia and won 23 of her 64 majors at the Australian Nationals/Open.

In 1960, when she was 17, Court won the first of seven consecutive Australian championships (1960-66) and 11 overall (1969, 1970-71, 1973). She was a different breed of tennis player, placing paramount importance on fitness training, a discipline instilled into her from her coach Stan Nicholls. Court, who was nicknamed the “Aussie Amazon,” was perhaps the fittest player on tour, her strength and endurance buoyed by weight, circuit, and cardio training and running sand hills. Her physical advantage enabled her to overpower her opponent in a relentless serve-and-volley game. Court’s reach at net was all-encompassing, prompting fellow Hall of Famer Billie Jean King to tab her “The Arm.” Court had a powerful serve, using all of her body parts effectively – employing a strong knee bend and a smooth arm rotation. Her supreme fitness enabled her to return to competitive tennis on three occasions after having children. After her third child was born in 1975, Court’s career had only two years remaining.

She shares the record for the most major titles by a mother with Belgium’s Kim Clijsters. Court won 13 major singles titles as an amateur, defeating fellow Aussie Jan Lehane O’Neill four times, Maria Bueno three times, Lesley Turner Bowrey twice, Billie Jean Moffitt/King twice, and Darlene Hard and Nancy Richey once each. In those 13 championships, Court swept her opponent eight times, three went the distance, one came when her opponent retired (Bueno at the 1965 Australian when down 5-2 in the third), and one was in a walkover (Richey at the 1966 Australian). In her 11 Open Era titles, she upended eight different opponents, including Evonne Goolagong Cawley three times. Only Goolagong Cawley defeated Court in a major final, winning the 1971 Wimbledon Ladies Championship in three sets. “After I defeated Margaret Court at Wimbledon in 1971, I found out later she was pregnant and I thought, ‘so that’s why she played so badly,’” Goolagong joked.

Court won more than 100 matches five times in her career, but the pinnacle came in 1970 when she won 21 of 27 tournaments and 104 of 110 matches en route to winning the Grand Slam. She was particularly punishing that year, losing just 13 games at the Australian Open in six matches and rolling through fellow Aussie Kerry Melville, 6-3, 6-1, to win the first leg. The French Open was slightly more difficult, just one potential stumbling block in the second round when Russian Olga Morozova pushed Court to three sets, including 6-6 in the second, before the No. 1 seed prevailed, 3-6, 8-6, 6-1. Come the semifinals and finals, Court lost eight total games in defeating Julie Heldman, 6-0, 6-2, and West German Helga Niessen, 6-2, 6-4, for the second leg. The Wimbledon Ladies Singles final featured No. 1 Court against No. 2 Billie Jean King, and the match was as competitive as any final Court had played in thus far.

She earned the third leg of her Grand Slam, but it wasn’t a cakewalk, 14-12, 11-9. The US Open was the last major in Court’s path, and though she lost only 13 games in her five matches leading to the championship match against No. 2 seed Rosie Casals, the final went three sets. Against Casals, Court displayed a range of shots that complimented her serve and volley technique. Her lob was particularly proficient that afternoon before a capacity crowd hopeful to witness tennis history. The match was tied a one set apiece, but in the third, Court executed her serve, approach shots, net play, lob, and overhead to perfection and cruised to victory, 6-2, 2-6, 6-1. When Casals’s forehand went wide and Court had etched her name in the record books, there was no triumphant tossing of the racquet or leaping the net or falling the court in disbelief. Court methodically and calmly walked to the net and shook Casals’s hand.

She retreated to her seat courtside $7,500 richer – which was the biggest monetary prize in women’s tennis at the time – and had become a calendar year Grand Slam champion, fulfilling a dream long in the making. Court was calm, cool and composed. Court missed the 1967 (temporarily retired) and most of the 1972 season after the birth of first child. Each return to tennis produced a better version, and the 1973 season was no different. She won 18 tournaments and 102 of 108 matches. She won her last majors – the Australian over Goolagong (6-4, 7-5) and the French over a defiant young Chris Evert, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4. In that victory, Court displayed her multi-faceted game against the proficient groundstroke attack Evert employed. She often traded strokes with the baseliner, would chip and charge the net off either her backhand or forehand side, served with great aplomb, and displayed great lateral mobility. With the victory, she was halfway towards a second calendar year Grand Slam. As the No.

1 seed at Wimbledon, Court advanced to the semifinals, where Evert exacted a measure of revenge, stopping Court from becoming the only female player in history to win two Grand Slams, 6-1, 1-6, 6-1. For the Aussie it was the third of four losses in a Wimbledon semifinal, the last coming in 1975 after she returned to the tour after the birth of her second child. Court displayed her champion mettle at the US Open two months later, defeating compatriot Goolagong, 7-6, 5-7, 6-2, for her fifth and final title in New York. Between 1961 and 1975, Court was the world’s top ranked player, a distinction that made her a target for the hustling tennis promoter Bobby Riggs, who challenged her to a tennis match in Ramona, California on May 13, 1973, which happened to fall on Mother’s Day.

The made-for-television event on ABC brought out a gallery of celebrities and tennis stars, including John Wayne, Don Budge, Pancho Segura, Casals, and more each who had an opinion on who would win. Court did not take the match particularly seriously and wasn’t prepared for Riggs, who hit soft and short and used dinks and lobs to defeat Court, 6-2, 6-1, in what was dubbed “The Mother’s Day Massacre.” Court’s loss led to Riggs and Kings meeting in the famous “Battle of the Sexes” four months later in Houston’s Astrodome. In no fashion could that loss tarnish Court’s accomplishments. She had won more than half of the majors she competed in in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1969, 1970 and 1973. On 36 occasions she was a semifinalist and reached the quarterfinals in 43 of 47 singles majors.

Court seemingly never tired of playing tennis, finding time to win four championships (1964, 1965, 1968, 1970) as a member of the Aussie Fed Cup team. Honors abounded for Court. She was made Member of the Order of the British Empire (1967), inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame (1985), the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame (1993), earned the ITF’s Phillippe Chatrier Award (2006), and was made Officer of the Order of Australia for her services to tennis (2007). In January 2003, Show Court One at Melbourne Park, home to the Australian Open since 1988, was renamed Margaret Court Arena. The soft-spoken and quiet Court found her calling in religion following her tennis career. She was ordained as a minister in 1991, first touring throughout Australia in a mobile ministry. “I pastor a very large church in western Australia,” Court said. “We have over 2,000 people, a Bible School, community services, a lot of things linked with it. So my life is very full today.

Not enough days in the week.” Her autobiography, Court on Court, was published in 1975. Grand Slam Best Results 24 Singles | 19 Doubles | 21 Mixed Doubles Singles

Question: What was the maiden name of tennis player Margaret Court?
Answer: Smith