|
Ann Haydon-Jones, born Adrianne Shirley Haydon on October 7, 1938
in Birmingham, England, is a former table tennis and lawn tennis champion.
Her parents were prominent table tennis players and as a
young girl she also took up the game but soon developed into a powerful lawn
tennis player, winning the 1954 British junior championships, repeating again
in 1955. In the following year she became the Wimbledon Girls' Singles champion.
She played lawn tennis in a highly competitive era that involved
a number of the greatest female players to ever play the game including Billie
Jean King, Margaret Smith Court and Maria Bueno. Despite the fierce competition,
Ann Haydon won the 1961 French Open and made the finals at the US Open, losing
to the defending US champion, Darlene Hard. In 1962, she married P. F. Jones
and recorded as Ann Haydon-Jones, she won the French title for a second time
in 1966.
At both the 1967 Wimbledon Championships and the US Open
she made it to the finals but lost to Billie Jean King. However, two years
later the two met in the Wimbledon finals again, this time Haydon-Jones took
the most coveted title in the sport of tennis, making her the first left-handed
female player to do so. She capped off the 1969 Wimbledon competition by
winning the Mixed doubles championship with Australia's Fred Stolle. Her
performances led to her being voted as the BBC Sports Personality of the
Year.
According to Mark Lewisohn in "The Complete Beatles
Recording Sessions", on July 4 1969, The Beatles paused the dubbing
session for their song "Golden Slumbers", to listen to Jones beat
Billie Jean King for the Wimbledon title, live on radio.
With the dawn of the open era in tennis, in 1968, Ann Haydon-Jones
joined with Billie Jean King and others to became the first professional
female touring group. In 1970 she was hired by the BBC as a guest commentator
and today is a summarizer for the network.
In 1985, Ann Haydon-Jones was voted into the International
Tennis Hall of Fame.
|
