| File:Margaret Court backhand.jpg | |
| Country (sports) | Australia |
|---|---|
| Residence | Perth, Western Australia |
| Born | (1942-07-16) 16 July 1942 (age 81) Albury, New South Wales |
| Height | 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) |
| Turned pro | 1960 |
| Retired | 1977 |
| Plays | Right-handed |
| Int. Tennis HoF | 1979 (member page) |
| Singles | |
| Career titles | 192 (92) during open era |
| Highest ranking | 1 (1973) |
| 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 | – |
| Career titles | 48 during open era |
| Highest ranking | – |
| Last updated on: 27 January 2007. | |
Margaret Court, AO MBE, (born 16 July 1942, also known as Margaret Smith Court) is a retired former World No. 1 tennis player from Australia. In 1970, she became the first woman during the open era and the second woman in history to win all four Grand Slam tournament singles titles in the same calendar year. Court won a record 24 of those titles during her career. She also won 19 women's doubles and 19 mixed doubles titles, giving her a record 62 Major titles overall. Her all surfaces (hard, clay, grass, and carpet) career match winning percentage of 91.74 (1177/106) is an all-time record. 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)".[1] She is regarded by some to be the greatest female tennis player of all time.[2]
Born Margaret Smith in 1942, in Albury, New South Wales, she 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, June. She is a natural left-hander who was persuaded to change to a right hand grip. Margaret began playing tennis when she was eight years old and was 17 when she won the first of seven consecutive singles titles at the 1960 Australian Championships.
After Wimbledon in 1966, Court temporarily retired from tennis. She married Barrymore Court in 1967 and became known as Margaret Smith Court or Margaret Court. She returned to tennis in 1968 and won all four Grand Slam singles titles in 1970. The next year, Court lost the Wimbledon singles final to Evonne Goolagong Cawley while pregnant[citation needed] 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 played throughout 1973. Her second child, Marika, was born in 1974. Court started playing again in 1975. After missing most of 1976 after having her third child, she returned to the tour in early 1977 but retired permanently in 1977 when she learned she was expecting the last of her four children. Her last Grand Slam appearance was in 1975.
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, same-sex doubles and mixed doubles – at all four Grand Slam events. The others are Doris Hart and Martina Navrátilová. 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.
Court lost a heavily publicized and U.S.–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 written that she did not take the match seriously, assuming that she would win without difficulty. Using a mixture of lobs and drop shots, however, 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.
In 1979, Court was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
In January 2003, Show Court One at Melbourne Park was renamed Margaret Court Arena. Also in 2003, Australia Post honoured her and fellow Australian tennis Rod Laver by putting their images on postage stamps.
As of October 2008, Court lives in Perth, Western Australia.
Her father-in-law, Sir Charles Court, and brother-in-law, Richard Court, were Liberal premiers of Western Australia.
Court was raised as a Catholic, but became a Pentecostal 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 the Margaret Court Ministries.[3]
In 1995, Court founded Victory Life Centre in Perth,[4] a Pentecostal church. 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.[3]
In 1990, Court said that Martina Navrátilová and other lesbian and bisexual players were ruining the sport of tennis and setting a bad example for younger players.[5][6][7]
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!"[3]
In 2002, Court said that homosexuals commit "sins of the flesh" and can be "changed".[8] She stated that when the open era started, "there was quite a lot of [homosexuality] in there" and added that "a few of the older ones ... were [homosexual]", with younger players being "sort of snared in with it".[8] These comments were made in the context of Damir Dokić's claim that he would kill himself if his high-profile professional tennis-playing daughter, Jelena, became a lesbian.[9]
Court campaigned against laws proposed and eventually passed by the Government of Western Australia in 2002 that gave gay people and lesbians equal legal rights as de facto couples.[8] In an interview she gave on Australian television concerning the laws, she expressed a belief that homosexuality could destroy families.[10]
In December 2011 Court publicly spoke out against gay marriage, stating that "Politically correct education has masterfully escorted homosexuality out from behind closed doors, into the community openly and now is aggressively demanding marriage rights that are not theirs to take".[11] Openly gay tennis players Navratilova, Billie Jean King and Rennae Stubbs criticised Court's comments.[12]
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. She won 64 Grand Slam tournament titles, including 21 mixed doubles titles, if the shared championships at the Australian Championships/Open in 1965 and 1969 are counted. The finals were not played because of bad weather. Court could have won even more mixed doubles titles had the event been held at the 1970, 1971, 1973, and 1975 Australian Opens.
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. Her won-lost record in Grand Slam singles tournaments was 210–23 .901 (47–5 at the French Championships/Open, 51–9 at Wimbledon, 51–6 at the U.S. Championships/Open, and 61–3 at the Australian Championships/Open). 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 the Grand Slam events 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 through 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.
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Main article: Margaret Court career statistics |
| Tournament Name | Years | Record accomplished | Player tied |
| Australian Open – U.S. Open | 1965, 1970 | Reached all four Major finals in a calendar year twice. | Martina Navratilova Steffi Graf |
| Australian Championships – French Open | 1960–1973 | 24 Major singles titles | Stands alone |
| Australian Open | 1960–1973 | 11 singles titles | Stands alone |
| Tournament Name | Years | Record accomplished | Player tied |
| Australian Open – U.S. Open | 1970 | won the Grand Slam | Steffi Graf |
| U.S. Open – Australian Open | 1969–1971 | Six consecutive Major singles titles won | Martina Navratilova |
| Australian Open – U.S. Open | 1973 | Most Major singles titles as a mother (3) | Kim Clijsters |
| Australian Open | 1973 | Winner of Australian Open singles title as a mother | Kim Clijsters |
| French Open | 1973 | Winner of French Open singles title as a mother | Stands alone |
| U.S. Open | 1973 | Winner of U.S. Open singles title as a mother | Kim Clijsters |
| Australian Open | 1969–71 | 3 consecutive wins | Evonne Goolagong Cawley, Steffi Graf Monica Seles, Martina Hingis |
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