Margaret Court

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Margaret Court
AO MBE
Margaret Court 1964.jpg
Margaret Court in 1964
Country (sports)  Australia
Residence Perth, Western Australia
Born (1942-07-16) 16 July 1942 (age 82)
Albury, New South Wales
Height 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Turned pro 1960
Retired 1977
Plays Right-handed (one-handed backhand)
Int. Tennis HoF 1979 (member page)
Singles
Career record {{#property:P564}}
Career titles 192 (92 during the open era)
Highest ranking No. 1 (1962)
Grand Slam Singles results
Australian Open W (1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973)
French Open W (1962, 1964, 1969, 1970, 1973)
Wimbledon W (1963, 1965, 1970)
US Open W (1962, 1965, 1969, 1970, 1973)
Doubles
Career record {{#property:P555}}
Highest ranking No. 1 (1963)
Grand Slam Doubles results
Australian Open W (1961, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973)
French Open W (1964, 1965, 1966, 1973)
Wimbledon W (1964, 1969)
US Open W (1963, 1968, 1970, 1973, 1975)
Other doubles tournaments
Tour Finals W (1973, 1975)
Mixed doubles
Career titles 19 (7 during the open era)
Grand Slam Mixed Doubles results
Australian Open W (1963, 1964, 1965, 1969)
French Open W (1963, 1964, 1965, 1969)
Wimbledon W (1963, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1975)
US Open W (1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1969, 1970, 1972)
Team competitions
Fed Cup W (1964, 1965, 1968, 1971)

Margaret Court AO, MBE (née Smith; born 16 July 1942), also known as Margaret Smith Court, is a retired world No. 1 professional tennis player. She is currently a Christian minister in Perth, Australia, but is best known for her sporting career, in which she amassed more major 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 major tournaments in the same calendar year). Court 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% (1180–107) is one of the best of all-time, according to the Sporteology website.[1] Her open era singles career winning percentage of 91.37% (593–56) is also unequaled, as is her open era winning percentage of 91.7% (11-1) in Grand Slam finals.[2] Her win-loss performance in all Grand Slam singles tournaments was 90.12% (210–23). She was 95.31% (61–3) at the Australian Open, 90.38% (47–5) at the French Open, 85.10% (51–9) at Wimbledon, and 89.47% (51–6) at the US Open. She also shares the open era record for most Grand Slam singles titles as a mother with Kim Clijsters.[3][4] The International Tennis Hall of Fame states, "For sheer strength of performance and accomplishment there has never been a tennis player to match (her)".[5] In 2010, the Herald Sun newspaper of Melbourne, Australia called her the greatest female tennis player of all time.[6] Court is one of only six tennis players all-time to 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 all of tennis history to complete a multiple slam set, twice, in all three disciplines: singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles.

Having converted from Catholicism to Pentecostalism in the 1970s, Court became a Pentecostal Christian minister in 1991 and later founded the Margaret Court Ministries. In this capacity she has been a vocal critic of LGBT rights.

Tennis career

Margaret Smith was the youngest of the four children of Lawrence Smith and Catherine Smith (née 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. 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.

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. The year after that, she became the first Australian woman to win Wimbledon.[citation needed]

After Wimbledon in 1966, Court temporarily retired from tennis. She married Barry Court in 1967, whose father, Sir Charles Court, and brother, Richard Court, served as premiers of Western Australia.[7] She returned to tennis in 1968 and in 1970 won all four Grand Slam singles titles.[8] The next year, she lost the Wimbledon singles final to Evonne Goolagong Cawley while pregnant[9] 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 was in 1975.[citation needed]

Court is one of only three players to have achieved a career "boxed set" of Grand Slam titles, winning every possible Grand Slam title – singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles – 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. 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.[citation needed]

Court lost a heavily publicised and US–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[10] 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 6–2, 6–1. Four months later, Billie Jean King beat Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes match in the Houston Astrodome.[11]

In January 2003, Show Court One at the sports and entertainment complex Melbourne Park was renamed Margaret Court Arena.[citation needed]

Playing style, titles, and world rankings

Margaret Court at the net in 1970

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 net and had a great overhead shot.[12] 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.[13] Part of what helped her win was her commitment to fitness training. Ms. 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.[14]

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. The total rises to 64 Grand Slam titles (21 mixed doubles) when the shared[15] titles at the Australian Championships/Open in 1965 and 1969 are considered. The mixed doubles finals of those years were not played because of bad weather and the titles are shared by both sides of the finalist pair.

Court won 62 of the 85 Grand Slam tournament finals (72.9%) she played, including 24–5 (82.8%) in singles finals, 19–14 (57.6%) in women's doubles finals, and 19–4 (82.6%) in mixed doubles finals.

Court reached the final in 29, the semifinals in 36, and the quarterfinals in 43 of the 47 Grand Slams singles tournaments she played. 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. 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. Court was 146–2 (98.6%) against unseeded players in Grand Slam singles tournaments.

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).

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).

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. Court also was ranked No. 1 for 1973 when the official rankings were produced by the Women's Tennis Association.

Religious views and ministry

Born into the Christian faith, Court was raised as a Roman Catholic but converted to Pentecostalism in the mid-1970s. In 1983, she gained a theological qualification from the Rhema Bible Training Centre and in 1991 became a minister. Court subsequently went on to found a ministry known as Margaret Court Ministries.[16] In 1995, Court founded a Pentecostal church known as the Victory Life Centre in Perth.[17] 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.[16]

Views on homosexuality

In her role as minister, Court has become a consistent critic of homosexuality in general and same-sex marriage in particular in Australia.[18] In November 1994, when delivering a speech at Parliament House in Canberra, Court exclaimed that "Homosexuality is an abomination to the Lord! Abortion is an abomination to the Lord!"[19] 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,[20] and in 2011 publicly spoke out against federal government plans to legalize same-sex marriage.[21] 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".[22]

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".[18][23] 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.[24] Court condemned their actions as "a political stunt".[25][26][27] Parodied for her views online,[28] 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.[29] In response, the Australian Christian Lobby condemned the APC's decision, declaring it to be a "dangerous precedent against free speech".[29]

Career timeline

Margaret Court playing doubles at Wimbledon with Evonne Goolagong
  • 1960 – Won her first singles title at the Australian Championships but lost the junior girls final there to Lesley Turner Bowrey.
  • 1962 – Won three of the four Grand Slam singles tournaments.
  • 1963 – Became the first Australian woman to win a singles title at Wimbledon. She and Ken Fletcher became the only team to win all four Grand Slam mixed doubles titles during the same calendar year.
  • 1964 – Won three of the four Grand Slam mixed doubles tournaments. Her women's doubles title at Wimbledon completed her career "boxed set" of Grand Slam titles.
  • 1965 – Won three of the four Grand Slam singles tournaments and all four Grand Slam mixed doubles titles, with three different partners.
  • 1966 – After losing to Billie Jean King at Wimbledon in a semi final match, Smith temporarily retired.
  • 1968 - Returned to match play late in 1967 and playing a full schedule in 1968, reached the final of the Australian Championships, losing to King; her first defeat in the championships.
  • 1969 – Won three of the four Grand Slam singles and mixed doubles tournaments.
  • 1970 – Won all four Grand Slam singles tournaments, defeating Kerry Melville Reid in the Australian Open final, Helga Niessen Masthoff in the French Open final, Billie Jean King in the Wimbledon final, and Rosemary Casals in the US Open final. Maureen Connolly in 1953 and Steffi Graf in 1988 are the only other women who have won all four Grand Slam singles tournaments during the same calendar year.
  • 1971 – Won the Australian Championship for the 10th time. After losing the Wimbledon singles final, temporarily retired to prepare for the birth of her first child in March 1972.
  • 1972 – Returned to the tour after missing the Wimbledon Championships.
  • 1973 – Won three of the four Grand Slam singles and women's doubles tournaments. Became the first mother in the open era to win the Australian, French, and US Open Championships. Lost her match with Bobby Riggs. Her women's doubles title at the US Open completed a "boxed set" of Grand Slam titles won exclusively after the start of the open era in 1968.
  • 1974 – Absent from the game until November because of the birth of her second child. Won the Western Australian Championships on her playing return and reached the final of the New South Wales Championships the following week.
  • 1975 – Played the final Grand Slam singles match of her career, losing to Martina Navratilova in a quarterfinal of the US Open 6–2, 6–4. At her final Australian championships (played in December 1974) she suffered her only defeat prior to the final in all her appearances at the event, losing to Navratilova in a quarter final. Having won the mixed doubles at her last Wimbledon (partnering Marty Riessen), she partnered with Virginia Wade at the US Open to win her 62nd Grand Slam title and 19th Grand Slam women's doubles title, defeating King and Casals in the final. This was Court's last Grand Slam title and match.
  • 1976 – Having reached the final of the Virginia Slims of Akron tournament in February (losing to Evert) Court was absent from the game for most of the year due to the birth of her third child. In September, she reached the final of the Toray Sillook Open, losing to Stove.
  • 1977 – Played the final singles match of her career, defeating Greer Stevens in the third round of the Virginia Slims Championships of Detroit 5–7, 7–6, 6–3. Court defaulted the quarterfinal to Françoise Dürr upon learning that she was pregnant with her fourth child.

Honours

Grand Slam tournaments

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Main article: Margaret Court career statistics

Grand Slam tournament performance timeline

Tournament 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 Career SR
Australian Open 2R W W W W W W W A F W W W A W A QF 11 / 14
French Open A A QF W QF W F SF A A W W 3R A W A A 5 / 10
Wimbledon A A QF 2R W F W SF A QF SF W F A SF A SF 3 / 12
US Open A A SF W F 4R W A A QF W W A SF W A QF 5 / 11
SR 0 / 1 1 / 1 1 / 4 3 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4 3 / 4 1 / 3 0 / 0 0 / 3 3 / 4 4 / 4 1 / 3 0 / 1 3 / 4 0 / 0 0 / 3 24 / 47

A = did not participate in the tournament.

SR = the ratio of the number of Grand Slam singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.

Records

  • Records in bold indicate peer-less achievements.

All-time Grand Slam records

  • These are standing records for all time period in tennis history.
Grand Slam records per tournament

Career tournament records

Time span Record accomplished Players matched
1960–1977 All time women's record of 192 Singles titles Stands alone†
1968-1976 Open era record of 46 career grass court singles titles Stands alone
1968–1977 Open era career singles match winning percentage (all surfaces) 91.17% (593–56) Stands alone
1968–1977 Open era career singles match winning percentage (hard court) 91.73% (111-10) Stands alone
1968–1977 Open era career singles match winning percentage (grass court) 93.01% (293-22) Stands alone
1970 Open era record of 21 singles titles won in one year Stands alone
1973 WTA Tour record of 18 singles titles won in one year Stands alone

† Some sources have Elizabeth Ryan winning over 200 singles titles in her career.[citation needed]

See also

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References

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  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Brian Baxter, "Margaret Court's Word of Faith", The Skeptics, Vol 27 No 3, Spring 2007.
  17. ↑ Victory Life Centre, Perth Western Australia
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ http://gaynewsnetwork.com.au/news/northern-territory/3521-martina-navratilova-other-tennis-legends-return-court-s-anti-gay-serve.html
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ It's an Honour – Member of the Order of the British Empire
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ It's an Honour – Australian Sports Medal
  33. ↑ It's an Honour – Centenary Medal
  34. ↑ It's an Honour – Officer of the Order of Australia

External links

Records
Preceded by Most Career Grand Slam Singles Titles
1970 –		 Succeeded by
Incumbent
Preceded by Winning a Grand Slam
1970		 Succeeded by
West Germany Steffi Graf (1988)

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