Margaret Court: the autobiography

313 pages. In 1970 Court became the first woman in the open e ra to win the singles Grand Slam (all four major tournaments in a calendar year). The youngest player in history to win the Austra lian Open at 17, the Aussie Amazon then won 24 singles, 19 double s and 21 mixed doubles titles, for an extraordinary career record of 64 major titles overall. Yet Margaret Court is a controversia l figure today for often hard line religious views. This long-awa ited autobiography explains what lit a fire in the poor girl from Albury and made her the greatest champion tennis has seen and th e fierce woman she is. Court was born in 1942 to a hard-living fa ther and acutely agoraphobic mother. Her first 'racquet' was an o ld fence paling, but after winning French, US and Wimbledon champ ionships as a teenager, she held the world #1 ranking for seven o f her 17 years on the professional circuit, touring with her two of her four children during her long reign. But having risen so h igh Margaret fell hard in retirement. After a period of depressio n and seclusion, she was reborn in 1991 as an ordained minister a nd founder of Victory Life Churches. Today, 'Pastor Marg' preache s to 1500+ every Sunday and feeds thousands of Perth's lost, home less and hungry via her charities.