Top 5 British Tennis players of all time
Great Britain has been hosting Wimbledon, the oldest Grand Slam in existence, from the beginning. There’s no doubt that Britain has produced a fabulous tennis tradition that has stood the test of time.
Looking over from the past to the present, there are numerous great tennis players from Britain who have made both their country and the sport proud. Here’s a list of the five greatest British players of all time.
5. Christine Truman
Christine Truman had a strong presence in the tennis world from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. In 1959, she reached her highest ranking of World No. 2.
Truman came from a well-knit family who were supportive of her interest in the sport. Her professional tennis career took off when she became the British Junior Champion consecutively for two years – 1956 and 1957.
At the age of 16 Truman made her Wimbledon debut, in which she surprisingly beat the then 3rd seed and French Open Champion Shirley Bloomer, with whom she later partnered to play in the doubles category. In an era where not many women ventured into professional tennis, Truman took the court by storm as she won the French Open in 1959.
She finished as runner-up at the 1959 US Open and 1961 Wimbledon. She also won the doubles title in the Australian Open of 1960, and was the runner-up at Wimbledon 1959, in the doubles category again.
Truman won the Wightman Cup in 1958 after 21 consecutive wins by the US, and went on to become a 3-time champion at the event. She was later discovered to have partial blindness in her left eye, which wasn’t known during her successful stint in tennis.
After this condition was identified in 1962, she played gracefully for 12 more years, at the end of which she retired. She made Britain and the tennis world proud with her tennis and her determination to overcome all obstacles.