Virginia Wade

Virginia Wade is a British former professional tennis player, born in Bournemouth in 1945 and raised partly in South Africa, where her father served as archdeacon of Durban. She won three major singles championships and four major doubles championships and is the only British woman to have won titles at all four majors, reaching number two in the world in singles and number one in doubles. She won the inaugural open British Hard Court Championships in 1968, then the first US Open women's singles title that September by beating Billie Jean King, and the Australian Open in 1972. Her Wimbledon singles title came in 1977, the tournament's centenary and the Silver Jubilee year, when she beat Betty Stove in the final. She was made an MBE in 1973, and after retiring she coached and worked as a commentator for the BBC, Eurosport and CBS.