Margaret Court

Margaret Court
AO MBE

Court in 1964
Country (sports)  Australia
Residence Perth, Western Australia
Born (1942-07-16) 16 July 1942
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 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
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 21 (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 Australian tennis player and former world No. 1. She is currently a Christian minister in Perth, Western Australia. In tennis, 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). She won 24 of those titles (11 in the Open era), 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 unequalled, 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 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.

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, and 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 an older sister, June Shanahan. 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.

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][9] The next year, she lost the Wimbledon singles final to Evonne Goolagong Cawley while pregnant[10] 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.[11] Her last Grand Slam tournament appearance overall was in the 1976 Australian Open in the women's doubles.[12]

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.

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[13] 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.[14]

In January 2003, Show Court One at the sports and entertainment complex Melbourne Park was renamed Margaret Court Arena.[15] Since 2012, the Arena has attracted calls for its name to be changed, on the basis of Court's statements against gay and lesbian rights.[16][17][18]

Playing style, Grand Slam 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 the net and had an effective overhead shot.[19] 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.[20] 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.[21]

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[22] 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 of the finalist pairs.

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

Career timeline

Margaret Court playing doubles at Wimbledon with Evonne Goolagong

Honours

Post tennis career and religious views

Court was raised as a Roman Catholic but became involved with Pentecostalism in the mid-1970s. In 1983, she gained a theological qualification from the Rhema Bible Training Centre, and in 1991 was ordained as an independent Pentecostal minister. She subsequently founded a ministry known as Margaret Court Ministries.[28] In 1995, she founded a Pentecostal church known as the Victory Life Centre in Perth.[29] She still serves as its senior pastor. Her television show, A Life of Victory, airs Sundays on the Australian Christian Channel and locally in Perth on community television station West TV. She has generally embraced teachings associated with the Word of Faith movement.[28] Since 2010, she has been the president of Victory Life International, a network of like-minded churches, and is a long-standing patron of The Australian Family Association and Drug Free Australia.[30][31]

In her role as minister, Court has been a consistent critic of LGBTI rights and same-sex marriage in Australia.[32] She maintains a belief that homosexuality and abortion are considered abominations by God[33] and openly opposed the 2002 Gay and Lesbian Law Reform which provided a raft of equality measures. Court has been criticised for such statements by openly homosexual tennis players Billie Jean King, Rennae Stubbs and Martina Navratilova,[32][34] and in 2012, an LGBT rights protest group called for the renaming of Margaret Court Arena.[16] Court condemned their actions as "a political stunt".[35][36][37]

Court was strongly criticised in May 2017 after writing a letter to The West Australian decrying Qantas airlines for being a corporate supporter of same-sex marriage and claiming she would boycott the airline. The letter, and further followup interviews, again led to calls from some Australians and tennis players to rename the Margaret Court Arena.[38][39][40][41][42][17][43][44] Some politicians, including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, rejected calls for the change of name, saying the name "celebrates Margaret Court the tennis player."[45] As the New York Times reported on May 31, "Court has remained steadfast. Speaking to 20Twenty Vision Radio Network on Monday, Court described tennis as 'full of lesbians' who predatorily 'took young ones into parties,' and compared the efforts to teach children about gender fluidity to the methods of Nazism and communism."[18]

Grand Slam tournaments

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

All-time Grand Slam records

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.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Greatest Tennis Player". Retrieved 9 September 2014.
  2. ↑ "Stats Corner: Kim Joins Elite Club". WTA. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
  3. ↑ "Making the case for Clijsters and Li". Retrieved 13 September 2014.
  4. ↑ "Moms who broke barriers". Retrieved 13 September 2014.
  5. ↑ "Hall of Famers – Margaret Court Smith "The Arm"". International Tennis Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 19 November 2006. Retrieved 14 February 2007.
  6. ↑ "Legend Margaret Court tips Sam Stosur to win French Open". Retrieved 27 May 2011.
  7. ↑ Carmody, Rebecca. "Moral High Ground For New Liberal President". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 11 August 2012.
  8. ↑ "U.S. Open Tennis – Grand Slam for Mrs. Court.". The Canberra Times. 15 September 1970. p. 22 – via National Library of Australia.
  9. ↑ Roberts, Roberts, ed. (2008). Great Australian Sporting Moments. Carlton, Vic.: The Miegunyah Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-0522855470.
  10. ↑ "Clijsters wins US Open". The Age. 14 September 2009. Retrieved 29 October 2012.
  11. ↑ "US Open". www.itftennis.com. International Tennis Federation (ITF).
  12. ↑ "Australian Open". www.itftennis.com. International Tennis Federation (ITF).
  13. ↑ Roberts, Selena (21 August 2005). "Tennis's Other 'Battle of the Sexes,' Before King-Riggs". The New York Times.
  14. ↑ Kirkpatrick, Curry (21 May 1973). "Mother's Day Ms. Match". Sports Illustrated. 38 (20): 35–37.
  15. ↑ "History | Margaret Court Arena". www.margaretcourtarena.com.au. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  16. 1 2 Passa, Dennis (13 January 2012). "Tennis legend Margaret Court stirs clash on gay rights". The Florida Times-Union. Retrieved 14 January 2012.
  17. 1 2 "Margaret Court: Tennis is 'full of lesbians', says Australian Grand Slam legend". BBC. 31 May 2017. Retrieved 31 May 2017.
  18. 1 2 Rothenberg, Ben (31 May 2017). "Players Want Margaret Court Arena Renamed Over Remarks on Gays". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  19. ↑ Robertson, Max (1974). The Encyclopedia of Tennis. The Viking Press. pp. 174, 219.
  20. ↑ Macdonald, Geoff (29 August 2011). "NY Times: Aces of the Game". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 March 2012.
  21. ↑ "Margaret Smith Court Career Retrospective". Archived from the original on 9 May 2012. Retrieved 25 March 2012.
  22. ↑ "Margaret (Smith) Court". Tennis Australia. Retrieved 29 December 2012.
  23. ↑ It's an Honour – Member of the Order of the British Empire
  24. ↑ "Margaret Court AO MBE". Sport Australia Hall of Fame. Retrieved 12 September 2013.
  25. ↑ It's an Honour – Australian Sports Medal
  26. ↑ It's an Honour – Centenary Medal
  27. ↑ It's an Honour – Officer of the Order of Australia
  28. 1 2 Brian Baxter, "Margaret Court's Word of Faith", The Skeptics, Vol 27 No 3, Spring 2007.
  29. ↑ "Church in Perth Victory Life Centre".
  30. ↑ "Reverend Dr Margaret Court". Retrieved 14 April 2016.
  31. ↑ "AFA Welcomes Three New Patrons". AFA Family Update vol 23 no 2. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
  32. 1 2 Gray, Stephen (15 December 2011). "Former tennis star Margaret Court serves up controversy over gay marriage". Pink News. Retrieved 19 April 2012.
  33. ↑ "The latest entertainment news for Australia's LGBTIQ community – Gay News Network".
  34. ↑ Sheldrick, Drew (12 December 2011). "Tennis greats blast Court". Sydney Star Observer. Retrieved 12 December 2011.
  35. ↑ "Court in same sex tennis furore". The Sydney Morning Herald. 12 January 2012. Retrieved 11 January 2012.
  36. ↑ Le Grand, Chip (23 January 2012). "Gays won't drive me from the Open, says Margaret Court". The Australian. Retrieved 14 January 2012.
  37. ↑ McCormick, Joseph (25 January 2012). "Margaret Court maintains stance on gay marriage". Pink News. Retrieved 19 April 2012.
  38. ↑ "Margaret Court Arena name change called for after star's Qantas boycott over gay marriage support". ABC News. 26 May 2017.
  39. ↑ Anderson, Ben (May 31, 2017). "Margaret Court says tennis is 'full of lesbians' and homosexuality will 'destroy' your life". The West Australian. Retrieved May 31, 2017.
  40. ↑ Baum, Greg (May 31, 2017). "'The devil's after our kids': Margaret Court's second serve". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved May 31, 2017.
  41. ↑ Brennan, Rose (May 31, 2017). "Margaret Court’s Christian radio rant on lesbians in tennis and transgender children". News.com.au. Retrieved May 31, 2017.
  42. ↑ nine.com.au staff (May 31, 2017). "Margaret Court says tennis 'full of lesbians'". 9news.com.au. Retrieved May 31, 2017.
  43. ↑ Reuters (May 31, 2017). "Veteran Margaret Court Says Tennis 'Full of Lesbians'". The New York Times. Retrieved May 31, 2017.
  44. ↑ "Faith leader condemn's Margaret Court's latest outburst". just.equal. Retrieved May 31, 2017.
  45. ↑ "Malcolm Turnbull says Margaret Court's name should stay on tennis arena".
  46. ↑ Clarey, Christopher (30 January 2017). "At 74, Margaret Court Remains Outspoken on Her Prowess, and Beliefs". The New York Times. New York Times, 30 Jan 2017. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
  47. 1 2 Pruitt, Sarah. "Tennis’ Elusive Grand Slam – History in the Headlines". HISTORY.com. The History Channel, 2 July 2015. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Margaret Court.
Records
Preceded by
United States Helen Wills Moody		 Most Career Grand Slam Singles Titles
1970 – 		Succeeded by
Incumbent
Preceded by
United States Maureen Connolly Brinker (1953)		 Winning a Grand Slam
1970 		Succeeded by
West Germany Steffi Graf (1988)
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