Evonne Goolagong

Evonne Goolagong

Nobody moved like Evonne Goolagong. Billie Jean King said playing her was like facing a panther; Martina Navratilova joked that she did not serve-and-volley so much as saunter-and-volley. A Wiradjuri woman from Barellan in rural New South Wales, the third of eight children, she hit her first balls with a racquet her father carved from a wooden packing case, and the townspeople raised the money that sent her to Sydney to train. At 19 she won Roland Garros and Wimbledon back to back in 1971, taking the Wimbledon final from Margaret Court.

Her 7 majors include four Australian Opens between 1974 and 1977, part of 93 career titles, and she lost eleven more major finals, most to King and Chris Evert. She held world No. 1 for two weeks in 1976, though a rankings error hid it until 2007. The finish was the best of it: Wimbledon 1980, a 6-1, 7-6 win over Evert that made her the first mother to lift the title since 1914.