52 Facts About Evonne Goolagong

Evonne Fay Goolagong Cawley is an Australian former world No 1 tennis player.

Evonne Goolagong won the women's singles tournament at Wimbledon in 1971,.

Evonne Goolagong went on to win 14 Grand Slam tournament titles: seven in singles, six in women's doubles, and one in mixed doubles.

Evonne Goolagong represented Australia in three Fed Cup competitions, winning the title in 1971,1973 and 1974, and was Fed Cup captain for three consecutive years.

Evonne Goolagong was appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1972 and as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1982.

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Evonne Goolagong was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985, the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1988, and the Aboriginal Sporting Hall of Fame in 1989.

Evonne Goolagong leads the Goolagong National Development Camp for Indigenous boys and girls, which encourages Indigenous youth to stay in school.

Evonne Goolagong is the third of eight children from an Australian Aboriginal family.

Evonne Goolagong's father, Ken Goolagong, was an itinerant sheep shearer and her mother, Melinda, was a homemaker.

Evonne Goolagong was born in Griffith, New South Wales, and grew up in the small country town of Barellan.

Evonne Goolagong persuaded her parents to allow her to move to Sydney, where she attended Willoughby Girls High School.

Evonne Goolagong took singles and doubles titles at the Australian Open and Wimbledon and singles and mixed doubles titles at the French Open.

Evonne Goolagong won seven Grand Slam singles titles in her career, reaching a total of 18 Grand Slam singles finals.

In 1971,1975,1976 and 1977, Evonne Goolagong reached the final of every Grand Slam championship in which she competed.

Evonne Goolagong won the women's doubles title at the Australian Open five times and in Roland Garros once, as well as mixed doubles at Roland Garros once.

Evonne Goolagong focused instead on WTT Team Tennis and exhibition events.

Evonne Goolagong realised during the 1976 US Open final that she was pregnant and after one more tournament for the year, she did not play again on the regular tour until the summer of 1977, continuing through to Wimbledon 1978.

At the Virginia Slims of Boston in March 1978, Evonne Goolagong beat both Navratilova and Evert back-to-back to win the title.

From being un-ranked at the beginning of her return, Evonne Goolagong's ranking rose to No 3 in the world, but during Wimbledon 1978, a career-threatening ankle injury forced her to miss the remainder of 1978, other than the exhibition Emeron Cup event played in December, where she played with her ankle heavily strapped and lost to both Navratilova and Virginia Wade in straight sets.

Evonne Goolagong did not return to competitive play until March 1979, when she won four tournaments and ended the year ranked No 4 in the world.

Evonne Goolagong beat two former Grand Slam finalists in earlier rounds, Sharon Walsh and Betty Stove, becoming the first champion to have dropped three sets in the championship.

Evonne Goolagong withdrew from the US Open, where she had been seeded fourth, due to a recurring back injury and the early stages of her second pregnancy, although she did play the Lion's Cup and the Australian Open championships at the end of the year, despite being four and five months pregnant respectively.

Evonne Goolagong defended the decision to accept the fees to compete in her later autobiography.

Evonne Goolagong was then absent for almost all of 1981, returning to tournament play in Australia towards the end of the year and after losing in the first round in Perth, she reached the quarterfinals of the only other two tournaments she played for the year, losing to Evert in Sydney, and at the Australian Open to Navratilova.

Evonne Goolagong then lost her first matches of all her next three tournaments; pulling out in the final set of the Family Circle Cup to Joanne Russell; losing to Pam Teeguarden at the Dow Classic and at Wimbledon 1982, where she was given a protected seeding of 16th by the All England Club, losing her only match to Zina Garrison.

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Evonne Goolagong followed this with a three-set loss to Candy Reynolds in the last 32 of the Australian Open.

Brief return to competitive play came in 1985, when in May 1985, Evonne Goolagong accepted an invitation to compete at the Australian Indoor Championship, played on carpet.

Evonne Goolagong lost her only match to another Australian veteran, Amanda Tobin Evans.

Evonne Goolagong is the only mother to have won the Wimbledon title since Dorothea Lambert Chambers in 1914.

Evonne Goolagong reached four consecutive US Open singles finals, from 1973 to 1976, but lost them all.

Evonne Goolagong is the only player in US Championships history to have lost four consecutive finals.

Evonne Goolagong made seven consecutive finals at the Australian Open, winning three titles in a row.

Evonne Goolagong boycotted the event even after the ban was lifted, but returned in 1983 for her final Grand Slam singles appearance.

Evonne Goolagong lost in the last thirty-two to Chris Evert and did not compete in any further Grand Slam singles events.

Evonne Goolagong was ranked No 1 in the world in women's tennis for two weeks in 1976, but it was not reported at the time because incomplete data was used to calculate the rankings.

Evonne Goolagong was the second woman to hold the top spot, but the 16th at the time she was finally recognised.

In 1990, Evonne Goolagong began to play in senior invitational competitions, returning to Wimbledon to compete in the inaugural ladies senior invitational doubles, alongside compatriot Kerry Melville Reid.

Evonne Goolagong spent some time as a touring professional at the Hilton Head Racquet Club in South Carolina before returning to Australia.

Evonne Goolagong was a member of the Board of the Australian Sports Commission from 1995 to 1997 and since 1997 has held the position of Sports Ambassador to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities.

Evonne Goolagong was appointed captain of the Australian Fed Cup team in 2002.

Evonne Goolagong was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1972 and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1982.

In 1988, Evonne Goolagong was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

In 2001, Evonne Goolagong was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women for her achievements as a tennis player.

Evonne Goolagong unveiled the exact scale model of the wooden Dunlop racquet during Barellan's centenary celebrations on 3 October 2009.

Evonne Goolagong is generally regarded as one of the all-time greats of women's tennis.

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Evonne Goolagong became her legal guardian as well as her coach and manager.

Evonne Goolagong severed all contact with Edwards at that point, although he remained her official coach for Wimbledon 1975.

Evonne Goolagong's daughter Kelly was born on 1977 and helps run her tennis camps, and her son Morgan Kiema Cawley was born on 1981 and was a National Soccer League player.

Evonne Goolagong is the maternal great aunt of National Rugby League player Latrell Mitchell, born Latrell Evonne Goolagong.

Play based on the life of Evonne Goolagong Cawley called Sunshine Super Girl, written and directed by Andrea James, was to have premiered with the Melbourne Theatre Company in 2020, but the event was cancelled owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia.

Evonne Goolagong was seeded fourth for the 1980 US Open Championships, but withdrew from the tournament before play began.

Evonne Goolagong Cawley is occasionally credited incorrectly with winning the 1977 Ladies Doubles event at Wimbledon, due to the confusion regarding the married name of her compatriot Helen Gourlay who in fact took the trophy.