Virginia Wade
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Country (sports) | United Kingdom |
---|---|
Born | Bournemouth, Dorset |
10 July 1945
Height | 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) |
Turned pro | 1968 |
Retired | 1986 |
Plays | Right-handed (one-handed backhand) |
Prize money | US$ 1,542,278 |
Int. Tennis HoF | 1989 (member page) |
Singles | |
Career record | 839–329[1] |
Career titles | 55[1] |
Highest ranking | No. 2 (3 November 1975)[2] |
Grand Slam Singles results | |
Australian Open | W (1972) |
French Open | QF (1970, 1972) |
Wimbledon | W (1977) |
US Open | W (1968) |
Doubles | |
Career record | 42–48[1] |
Highest ranking | No. 1 (1973) |
Grand Slam Doubles results | |
Australian Open | W (1973) |
French Open | W (1973) |
Wimbledon | F (1970) |
US Open | W (1973, 1975) |
Other doubles tournaments | |
Tour Finals | W (1975) |
Last updated on: 26 May 2014. |
Sarah Virginia Wade, OBE (born 10 July 1945) is a British former professional tennis player. She won three Grand Slam singles championships and four Grand Slam doubles championships, and is the only British woman in history to have won titles at all four Grand Slam tournaments. She was ranked as high as No. 2 in the world in singles, and No. 1 in the world in doubles. She won the women's singles championship at Wimbledon on 1 July 1977, in that tournament's centenary year, and was the last British tennis player to have won a Grand Slam singles tournament until Andy Murray won the US Open in 2012. She remains the last British female to have won a Grand Slam singles title. After retiring from competitive tennis, she coached for four years[3] and has also worked as a tennis commentator and game analyst for the BBC and Eurosport.
Contents
Early life
Born in Bournemouth in England, Virginia Wade learned to play tennis in South Africa, where her parents moved when she was one year old. Her father was the Archdeacon of Durban.[4] When Wade was 15, the family moved back to England and she went to Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School and Talbot Heath School, Bournemouth.[5][6] In 1961 Wade was in the tennis team of Wimbledon County Girls' Grammar School. She went on to study mathematics and physics at the University of Sussex, graduating in 1966.[7]
Tennis career
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Wade's tennis career spanned the end of the amateur era and the start of the open era. In 1968, she scored two notable firsts. As an amateur, she won the inaugural open tennis competition — the British Hard Court Open at Bournemouth (her birthplace). She turned down the US$ 720 first prize. Five months later, she had become a professional and captured the women's singles championship at the first US Open (and the prize-money of $6,000)($40,829 today), defeating Billie Jean King in the final.
Wade's second Grand Slam singles championship came in 1972 at the Australian Open. There, she defeated the Australian Evonne Goolagong Cawley in the finals 6–4, 6–4.
Wade won at Wimbledon, England, in 1977. It was the sixteenth year in which Wade had played at Wimbledon, and she made her first appearance in the final by beating the defending champion Chris Evert in a semifinal 6–2, 4–6, 6–1. In the finals, she faced Betty Stöve. Not only was 1977 the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Wimbledon Championships, but it was also the 25th year of the reign (the Silver Jubilee) of Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen attended the Wimbledon championships for the first time in a quarter-century to watch the final. Wade beat Stöve in three sets to claim the championship, nine days before her 32nd birthday. Wade received the trophy from Queen Elizabeth, and the audience at Centre Court burst out into a chorus of "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow!" to celebrate her triumph.
She was the subject of This Is Your Life in December 1977 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the National Sports Stadium at London's Crystal Palace.
Wade also won four Grand Slam women's doubles championships with Margaret Smith Court – two of them at the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, one at the Australian Open, and one at the French Open.
Over her career, Wade won 55 professional singles championships and amassed $1,542,278 dollars in career prize money. She was ranked in the world's top 10 continuously from 1967 to 1979. Her career spanned a total of 26 years. She retired from singles competition at the end of the 1985 tennis season, and then from doubles at the end of 1986.
In 1983, at the age of 37, she won the Italian Open women's doubles championship, along with her teammate Virginia Ruzici of Romania.
The 24 times that Wade played in the women's singles tournament at Wimbledon is an all-time record.[citation needed]
After tennis
Since 1981, while she was still playing, Wade has been a reporter on tennis events for the BBC.[8] In 1982, Wade became the first woman to be elected to the Wimbledon Committee. [9]
In 1986, Wade was honoured with the distinction of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).[8]
In 1989, Wade was also inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island.[10]
Major finals
Grand Slam finals
Singles: 3 finals (3 titles, 0 runner–ups)
Outcome | Year | Championship | Surface | Opponent in final | Score in final |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Winner | 1968 | US Open | Grass | Billie Jean King | 6–4, 6–2 |
Winner | 1972 | Australian Open | Grass | Evonne Goolagong | 6-4, 6-4 |
Winner | 1977 | Wimbledon | Grass | Betty Stöve | 4–6, 6–3, 6–1 |
Women's doubles: 10 finals (4 titles, 6 runner-ups)
Outcome | Year | Championship | Surface | Partner | Opponents in final | Score in final |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Runner-up | 1969 | US Open | Grass | Margaret Court | Françoise Dürr Darlene Hard |
0–6, 6–4, 6–4 |
Runner-up | 1970 | Wimbledon | Grass | Françoise Dürr | Rosie Casals Billie Jean King |
6–2, 6–3 |
Runner-up | 1970 | US Open | Grass | Rosie Casals | Margaret Court Judy Tegart Dalton |
6–3, 6–4 |
Runner-up | 1972 | US Open | Grass | Margaret Court | Françoise Dürr Betty Stöve |
6–3, 1–6, 6–3 |
Winner | 1973 | Australian Open | Grass | Margaret Court | Kerry Harris Kerry Melville |
6–4, 6–4 |
Winner | 1973 | French Open | Clay | Margaret Court | Françoise Dürr Betty Stöve |
6–2, 6–3 |
Winner | 1973 | US Open | Grass | Margaret Court | Rosie Casals Billie Jean King |
2–6, 6–3, 7–5 |
Winner | 1975 | US Open | Clay | Margaret Court | Rosie Casals Billie Jean King |
7–5, 2–6, 7–6(7–5) |
Runner-up | 1976 | US Open | Clay | Olga Morozova | Linky Boshoff Ilana Kloss |
6–1, 6–4 |
Runner-up | 1979 | French Open | Clay | Françoise Dürr | Betty Stöve Wendy Turnbull |
3–6, 7–5, 6–4 |
Year-End Championships finals
Doubles: 2 finals (1 title, 1 runner–up)
Outcome | Year | Championship | Surface | Partner | Opponents in final | Score in final |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Winner | 1975 | Los Angeles | Carpet | Margaret Court | Rosie Casals Billie Jean King |
6–7(2–7), 7–6(7–2), 6–2 |
Runner-up | 1977 | New York City | Carpet | Françoise Dürr | Martina Navrátilová Betty Stöve |
7–5, 6–3 |
Singles championships (55)
(Source: Virginia Wade at the Women's Tennis Association)
- Bold type indicates a Grand Slam championship
- 1968 – US Open, Bloemfontein, Bournemouth, East London, Dewar Cup-Crystal Palace
- 1969 – Cape Town, Hoylake, Dewar-Perth, Dewar-Stalybridge, Dewar-Aberavon, Dewar-Crystal Palace, East London
- 1970 – German Indoors, West Berlin Open, Irish Open, Stalybridge, Aberavon
- 1971 – Cape Town, Catania Open, Rome, Newport-Wales, Cincinnati, Dewar-Billingham, Dewar-Aberavon, Dewar Cup Final-London, Clean Air Classic
- 1972 – Australian Open, VS Indoors-Mass., Merion, Buenos Aires
- 1973 – Dallas, Bournemouth, Dewar-Aberavon, Dewar-Edinburgh, Dewar-Billingham, Dewar Cup Final-Albert Hall
- 1974 – VS Chicago, Bournemouth, VS Phoenix, Dewar-Edinburgh, Dewar Cup-London
- 1975 – VS Dallas, VS Philadelphia, Paris Indoors, Eastbourne, Dewar Cup, Stockholm
- 1976 – U.S. Indoor Championships, Dewar Cup
- 1977 – Wimbledon, World Invitational Hilton Head, Tokyo Sillook
- 1978 – Mahwah, Tokyo Sillook, Florida Open
Grand Slam singles tournament timeline
Tournament | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | Career SR | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Australia | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | W | QF | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | 2R | 2R | 2R | 1 / 5 |
France | A | A | A | A | A | 4R | A | 2R | QF | 1R | QF | 3R | 2R | A | A | A | A | 2R | 3R | 4R | 3R | 1R | 1R | 2R | 0 / 14 | |
Wimbledon | 2R | 2R | 2R | 4R | 2R | QF | 1R | 3R | 4R | 4R | QF | QF | SF | QF | SF | W | SF | QF | 4R | 2R | 2R | QF | 3R | 3R | 1 / 24 | |
United States | A | A | 4R | 2R | QF | 4R | W | SF | SF | A | QF | QF | 2R | SF | 2R | QF | 3R | QF | 3R | 3R | 1R | 2R | 2R | A | 1 / 20 | |
SR | 0 / 1 | 0 / 1 | 0 / 2 | 0 / 2 | 0 / 2 | 0 / 3 | 1 / 2 | 0 / 3 | 0 / 3 | 0 / 2 | 1 / 4 | 0 / 4 | 0 / 3 | 0 / 2 | 0 / 2 | 1 / 2 | 0 / 2 | 0 / 3 | 0 / 3 | 0 / 3 | 0 / 3 | 0 / 4 | 0 / 4 | 0 / 3 | 3 / 63 | |
Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Year End Ranking | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 15 | 30 | 59 | 40 | 61 | 89 |
A = did not participate in the tournament.
SR = the ratio of the number of singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.
Note: The Australian Open was held twice in 1977, in January and December.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 WTA website
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- ↑ http://virginia-wade.com/
- ↑ Sarah Virginia Wade "Ginny"
- General
External links
- Official website
- Virginia Wade at the Women's Tennis Association
- Virginia Wade at the International Tennis Hall of Fame
- Virginia Wade's appearance on This Is Your Life
Preceded by | BBC Sports Personality of the Year 1977 |
Succeeded by Steve Ovett |
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- ITF template using numeric ID
- Use dmy dates from December 2011
- Use British English from December 2011
- Pages using infobox tennis biography with tennishofid
- Pages using infobox tennis biography with unsupported parameters
- Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008
- Official website not in Wikidata
- 1945 births
- Living people
- Alumni of the University of Sussex
- Australian Open (tennis) champions
- BBC Sports Personality of the Year winners
- British expatriates in South Africa
- English sports broadcasters
- English sports coaches
- English tennis coaches
- British female tennis players
- French Open champions
- Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles
- Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's singles
- Officers of the Order of the British Empire
- People educated at Talbot Heath School
- People educated at Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School
- People from Bournemouth
- Sportspeople from Durban
- Tennis commentators
- International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
- US Open (tennis) champions
- Wimbledon champions