Born to poor parents in New South Wales, Australia, Margaret Court, now 68, grew up with an inferiority complex. Her family didn’t have a television or a car, and her first tennis racket was fashioned from the stakes of an old wooden fence. She eventually turned it into gold. Court upped the ante in on-court power and off-court training, giving her an edge over rivals like Billie Jean King and Maria Bueno throughout the 1960s. In 1970 she completed the Grand Slam, becoming only the second woman (after Maureen Connolly) to do so, and she continued to play throughout the ’70s after she had given birth to three children (she actually contested the 1971 Wimbledon final while pregnant with her first son). She ultimately won 62 Grand Slam titles — including 24 in singles — a record that no other woman is likely to match. She’s now a Pentecostal pastor in Perth.
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Rebel, survivor, pinup, sweetheart, pit bull, rock chick, ice queen: female tennis players sure seem to get labeled a lot. And while that kind of media sizzle makes tournaments like Wimbledon a hot ticket, it doesn't begin to sum up the resilience and power of the sport's biggest stars. Find out what drives the greatest players of the past 40 years, from Billie Jean King to Li Na
Margaret Court
Full List
Wimbledon Women
- Li Na
- Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
- Andrea Petkovic
- Petra Kvitova
- Caroline Wozniacki
- Yanina Wickmayer
- Victoria Azarenka
- Agnieszka Radwanska
- Bethanie Mattek-Sands
- Ana Ivanovic
- Samantha Stosur
- Vera Zvonareva
- Maria Sharapova
- Kim Clijsters
- Justine Henin
- Serena Williams
- Venus Williams
- Martina Hingis
- Monica Seles
- Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario
- Gabriela Sabatini
- Steffi Graf
- Tracy Austin
- Martina Navratilova
- Chris Evert
- Evonne Goolagong
- Virginia Wade
- Rosie Casals
- Margaret Court
- Billie Jean King