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.

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. She returned to tennis in 1968 and in 1970 won all four Grand Slam singles titles. 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.

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 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.

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

Playing style, titles and world rankings

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.

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 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.

Religious views and ministry

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. In 1995, she founded a Pentecostal church known as the Victory Life Centre in Perth. 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.

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. In November 1994, when delivering a speech at a prayer breakfast held at Parliament House, Court exclaimed, "Homosexuality is an abomination to the Lord! 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. 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".

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".

Career timeline

• 1959 - Competed at the Australian Championships for the first time losing in the second round against eventual tournament winner Mary Reitano.
• 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.
• 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 only her second defeat in the Singles 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.
• 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

• On 1 January 1967, she was made Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), for her services to sport and international relations.
• In 1963 and 1970, she became winner of the ABC Sportsman of the Year Award.
• In 1970 she also won a Western Australian honour, the Walter Lindrum Award.
• In 1979, Court was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
• In 1985, Court was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame and then elevated to Legend status in 1998.
• In 1993 in Melbourne, she was inducted into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame.
• In 2000, Court was awarded the Australian Sports Medal for her impressive tennis career.
• In 2001, she was awarded the Centenary Medal for her service to Australian tennis.
• In 2003 Court became the recipient of the 2003 Australia Post Australian Legends Award. Australia Post honoured her, together with fellow Australian tennis player Rod Laver by featuring her on postage stamp.
• In 2006 she was awarded the International Tennis Federation's (ITF) accolade, the Philippe Chatrier Award.
• In 2007, she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for her services to tennis, as a mentor and to the community.

Grand Slam tournaments

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.

Accomplishment	Years	Record	Players matched
Grand Slam singles titles won	1960-1973	24	Stands alone
Grand Slam overall titles won	1960-1975	62*	Stands alone
Grand Slam mixed doubles titles won	1960-1975	19*	Stands alone
Australian Grand Slam singles titles won	1960-1973	11	Stands alone
Australian Grand Slam overall titles won	1960-1977	21	Stands alone
French Grand Slam overall titles won	1962-1973	13	Stands alone
Grand Slam completed (all 4 majors in one calendar year) - singles	1970	-	Maureen Connolly, Steffi Graf
Grand Slam completed - mixed doubles	1963 & 1965	-	Stands alone
Triple Crown (singles, doubles & mixed doubles champion at same event)	1963-1970	5	Suzanne Lenglen
Career Boxed Set (minimum of every title in all 3 disciplines at all 4 Majors)	1960-1969	2	Stands alone
Most consecutive number of Major titles won	1969-1971	6	Maureen Connolly, Martina Navratilova
1969 Australian Open — 1971 Australian Open	1969-1971	Winner of 8 of 9 Grand Slams	Steffi Graf
Number of Major first-round losses	1960-1977	0	Fred Perry, Don Budge, Nancye Bolton, Helen Wills, Björn Borg and Chris Evert
Years winning at least three Major singles titles	1962-1973	5	Steffi Graf
* - Court has also won 2 more Grand Slam mixed doubles titles that are shared with opposing finalists due to unplayed final matches. Together with those, she has a grand total of 21 mixed doubles, and thus 64 overall Grand Slam titles.

Grand Slam records per tournament

Time span	Grand Slam tournament records	Players matched
1960 Australian Championships — 1969 Wimbledon	Won every possible Grand Slam title twice (all 3 disciplines at all 4 majors = boxed set)	Stands alone
1963, 1965* and 1969* Australian Championships/Open	Won singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles at the same tournament (Triple Crown)	Daphne Akhurst Cozens, Nancye Bolton
1970 Australian Open — 1970 US Open	Completed the Grand Slam	Maureen Connolly, Steffi Graf
1969 Australian Open — 1973 Australian Open	92.85% (26-2) Open era career match winning	Stands alone
1969 US Open — 1971 Australian Open	Won 6 consecutive Grand Slam singles titles	Maureen Connolly, Martina Navratilova
1969 Australian Open — 1973 US Open	91.66% (11-1) Open era career match winning in Grand Slam finals	Stands alone
1969 US Open — 1973 US Open	90.32% (28-3) Open era career match winning	Stands alone
1969 French Open — 1973 French Open	95.23% (20-1) Open era career match winning	Stands alone
1969 Australian Open — 1975 Australian Open	92.85% (26-2) Open era career match winning	Stands alone
French Open	Winner of French Open singles title as a mother	Stands alone
1973 Australian Open — 1973 US Open	Winner of 3 Grand Slam singles titles as a mother	Kim Clijsters
1970 Australian Open — 1970 US Open	100% (26-0) Open era Grand Slam tournaments single season match winning	Steffi Graf Serena Williams
* - The mixed doubles titles at the 1965 and 1969 tournaments are shared with opposing finalists due to unplayed final matches.

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.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]