Friday, March 4, 2011

PROFILE: MARGARET COURT.


For the first player profile i would like to feature legendary Margaret Court, her achievement is nothing could be compared to other. winner of 62 Grand Title the mst of all.

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,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)

Career timeline

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 - Temporarily retired.
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 Brinker 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 due to the birth of her second child.
1975 - Played the final Grand Slam singles match of her career, losing to Martina Navrátilová in a quarterfinal of the US Open 6–2, 6–4. 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 - Absent from the game due to the birth of her third child.
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 Durr upon learning that she was pregnant with her fourth child.

Grand Slam titles and world rankings

Court won a record 62 Grand Slam titles, including a record 24 singles titles, 19 women's doubles titles, and a record 19 mixed doubles titles. She won 64 Grand Slam 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 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 calendar year 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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