Margaret Court chose tennis over running and rest is history
Margaret Court was forced to make a choice between potentially running at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games or playing tennis.
As a teenager, Margaret Court was forced to make a choice between potentially running at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games or playing tennis.
At 17, decision made, Court won the first of 24 singles grand slams, having reluctantly turned her back on track and field after training with Herb Elliott, Pam Kilborn and Percy Cerutty.
Sliding doors moments don’t come much bigger.
Six decades on, as Tennis Australia prepares to laud her at Melbourne Park, the woman known as “The Arm” because of freakish reach and athleticism is content with distant choices.
Now 77, Court won 11 Australian, five French, three Wimbledon and five US Open singles titles — 11 as a professional, facing almost exactly the same fields she had beaten while claiming 13 crowns as an amateur.
Of all those spoils, the 1960 Australian championship is the most meaningful.
“I was nobody and not expected to win,” Court recalled.
“I was 17 and I was in the junior girls’ final, the senior final and in the doubles and mixed doubles.
“I remember playing Maria Bueno, the world No 1, in the quarter-finals.
“I always remember thinking ‘Oh, she’s not as good as you think’, all I did was serve-volley and I won the first set and I thought ‘Oh, I think I can take her out’.
“Next thing you’ve won against the No 1 in the world in front of a full crowd … then I went on to play Jan Lehane, who I had never beaten, in the final. She hadn’t lost a match in juniors for three years.
“I sort of remember that one more than any because you’re nobody and all of a sudden, you’ve won the Australian.”
Court’s abiding tennis ambition centred on Wimbledon.
“I always had a goal to be the first Australian woman to win Wimbledon, so that goal was always there,” she said, referring to triumphs in 1963, ’65 and ’70.
“I trained in Melbourne, I went to the men’s gym and trained with Stan Nicholes. Frank Sedgman opened the door to me. He would hit with me when he wasn’t on tour. He saw something. He always said he took me on because he thought I was a bit like a thoroughbred.
“Keith Rogers took me to practise on the en tout cas because we didn’t have any clay. He said ‘If you can hit the ball over the net 100 times in a row, you can beat the French girls and the Italians at the French. I’d get to 92 hits over the net and miss and he’d say let’s start again.
“So I went to the French and did all right (winning in 1962, ’64, ’69, 1970 and ’73).”
Court’s premier arch rival was Billie Jean King. The 1970 Wimbledon final was among their fiercest clashes.
Nursing a calf injury and chasing the grand slam, Court rates the match as her greatest. “I would have lost if it had gone to a third set. It was 14-12 11-9,” she said.
“There was no tiebreak in the third set. I somehow felt that that year 1970 was my year to win the grand slam.
“I had an ankle tear at Wimbledon and if I probably hadn’t thought I could have a go at the grand slam, I would have probably pulled out.
“But I had it injected … it was meant to be my year.”
Court would win three of the four majors four times across her career: 1962, ’65, ’69 and ’73.
The notion of emulating Don Budge (1938) Maureen Connolly (’53) and Rod Laver (’62) had never taken hold.
“When I came back after retirement (from 1966-68), somebody said ‘You know, you’ve gone two other times with three out of the four. Have you ever thought of trying for the grand slam’?” she said. “I somehow felt that that year 1970 was my year to win and it worked out well.
“In 1973, I came back and wanted to be No 1 in the world.
“It was probably my best year.
“I won 24 out of 25 tournaments. I had a peak of fitness I had never known.
“After ’73, we could have gone to America and made a lot of money but we loved our nation.
“We wanted to go farming so we decided to come back home and retire. My heart wasn’t really there, I was fighting injury. I was 34.”
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