Court Winning Life

Two Bestsellers in One Volume!
1. Auflage 2000
ISBN: 978-1-4835-5281-1
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 104 Seiten

Winners don't entertain thoughts or words of defeat. If we want to be winners in life we need to start to speak the way winners speak. The only way we can do that is to find out what God wants us to speak, and to concentrate on doing everything he wants us to do. This book has been written to show why the things we say are so powerful and why we need to change the way we speak. We all need to grow, but if we want change it will only come as we resolve to change our words.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Court, Margaret

Leseproben

CHAPTER 2

The Amazing Aussie Amazon

Winning the Australian Open for the second successive year in 1961 assured Margaret of a place in the Australian team to tour Europe, England and the United States. The vision of Wimbledon was so much closer and she was still only a teenager. However, nothing could have prepared her for the nightmare tour she would endure under the authority of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia’s team manageress, Mrs Nel Hopman.

Even before she left Australia’s shores for the first time, Margaret was a little apprehensive about Mrs Hopman’s statement that she would bring the team home showing a profit on the budget sheet. Tennis in Australia, as in the rest of the world, was still an amateur sport, and appearance money for top players was about the only way a team could profit from touring certain countries. Margaret was aware that, of the five women players in the team, she was the only one who held a Grand Slam title. So where was the profit going to come from?

Their first stop in Monte Carlo at a luxurious castle with servants was like a fairytale world to Margaret. She had never lived in such luxury. It did not hinder her game, however, and she went on to win the Monte Carlo Open.

But in France, the second scheduled city of their tour, the Cinderella-to-riches bubble burst. The team was accommodated in third class hotels in Nice, Aix-en-Provence and Paris. A continental breakfast of croissants and coffee was all they were allowed; it was part of the cheap package deal. Margaret, who was used to a huge breakfast of a grill and eggs, toast, juice and cereal, did not relish the meagre menu.

One night in Paris the team finally revolted and ordered steak and eggs for dinner instead of the usual hotel special. A stiff reprimand followed, and the meal expenses were taken from the players’ own pockets. Margaret couldn’t believe the treatment the players were receiving. She felt Mrs Hopman was going too far by not providing suitable food for active athletes.

In London it grew worse. More cheap accommodation followed, miles from the courts. There was no allowance for the players to attend doctors, physiotherapists or masseurs for muscle soreness. Practice session after practice session was ordered. This was no pleasure trip they had come away on: it was all hard work and there was no leisure time.

Margaret was tired and grew ill. She became dreadfully homesick. She had no-one on the tour to relate to; her best friend and doubles partner, Mary Rectano, had badly injured her foot and been sent back to Australia. It was considered too expensive to keep her with the team. No wonder this tour was going to return a profit!

Margaret’s first Wimbledon was fast approaching, but so were the tired and listless symptoms that she had first noticed in Paris. Her nervous debut was made as the very first match on centre court. She managed to win that day and played well enough to go right through to the quarter finals. But the English press was out in force to find the Achilles heel of the one they dubbed the ‘Aussie Amazon’, and her extreme attack of nerves had not escaped their notice.

Margaret took to her bed. She was depressed and despondent. The tour had been such a horrid experience and now she was actually physically ill. She competed in the doubles with her long-time junior rival, Jan Lehane, only to lose to the Americans. Again she took to her bed. This time a doctor was called and she was diagnosed as suffering from glandular fever.

She spent the night of the Wimbledon Ball—the night she had dreamed about—in the University College hospital. She cried to think of her beautiful black and white dress, specially purchased for the occasion, still packed in her suitcase. She also cried because she felt so alone. Her family and friends were thousands of miles away. She had dropped six kilos in weight and was a shadow of her former self.

A lonely nineteenth birthday was spent in the hospital despite the staff making her a birthday cake and Neale Fraser and Rod Laver stopping by to cheer her up. She had lots of time during this period to think, and she decided that she would never again tour with the Australian team while Mrs Hopman was the manageress.

She only played one more doubles tournament, and that was in Germany, under pressure to make the budget more profitable by money guaranteed for her appearance. She loved the United States and enjoyed the crowds because they were so friendly and enthusiastic. It was also the last part of the tour; this was the homeward run and she knew her days of being treated badly as a player were about to end. She reached the semi-finals of the US Open—a magnificent effort after all she had been through, and one which made her one of the world’s top four players.

Great controversy surrounded Margaret when she returned to Australia. The press had already caught hold of the friction and strike action of the Australian team on tour, and Margaret’s declaration never to go away again under these conditions was fuel for their pens.

The headlines boomed: TEENAGE TENNIS STAR DEFIES TENNIS BRASS. The commotion died down, but the full impact came months later when Margaret faced a full LTAA inquiry on her own, the other players refusing to lend their support. However, she was determined to hold her ground and refused to compromise her position.

As expected, after her third consecutive win in the Australian title she was named to tour in 1962. She accepted, believing Mrs Hopman would not be named as team manageress. However, a month later she was appointed. Margaret felt cheated and deceived by the false assurances given to her. Now, for the sake of her principles, she had to make a decision which could affect her personal tennis career. If she refused to tour, her amateur status may be affected because she would then be considered a professional. It was her against the establishment as she decided to go it alone.

A Melbourne businessman, Robert Mitchell, came to her aid, offering to finance this ‘rebel with a cause’ on a private tour. However, the LTAA was not about to let their number one player slip away without public censure. It expressed confidence in Mrs Hopman and deplored the embarrassment the controversy had caused her. One official publicly stated that he wished Margaret all the ill-luck in the world and hoped she would lose every tournament she played in.

Despite all the furore, Margaret coped quite well. She had a maturity well beyond her years, perhaps the result of leaving home at fifteen. She was confident she had done the right thing. She and Mrs Bill Edwards, the wife of the president of the Queensland Tennis Association, left for their own private tour one day before the official team left in April 1962.

However, the pettiness of the LTAA went further. On her first attempt to arrange a practice match with one of the Australian girls she was told that there was a ban on anyone practising with her. She was ostracised and cut off from them all. Margaret’s determination grew with this rejection, but it still hurt her. She cocooned herself in an isolated world—her racquet alone would show them.

And show them it did. With a valiant Alf Chave, the Australian men’s manager, by her side to help and support her, she won the Italian Open against her old rival, Maria Bueno from Brazil. She was the first Australian to do so. Mr Chave received a ‘please explain’ letter as to why he had supported her in light of the team ban. His simple but poignant reply—‘Because we are both Australians’—received no answer. Not surprisingly, he was never appointed manager again.

From here she went on to take the French Open from Lesley Turner, the official team’s number one player. The road to Wimbledon was wide open. She had won ten tournaments in a row. Could she now win this much-coveted crown?

She went into the event as the number one seed, having already won the Australian and French titles. The press was merciless in its approach to her. CAN SMITH WIN WIMBLEDON? one headline questioned. SMITH’S CENTRE COURT NERVES screamed another, remembering her last nervous showing at Wimbledon. Every headline she read reinforced her own fear of failure.

In 1962 the Wimbledon draw only seeded eight players. Margaret’s worst fears came to pass when she saw her draw for the first time. She had to play the number three ranked American, Billie Jean Moffit (later Mrs King), in the very first round. Again the press pounced. They played on the bombastic openness of the American, and she was more than happy to admit that Margaret had all the pressure and that she had nothing to lose and everything to gain. And indeed she was right.

Further doubts crept into Margaret’s heart as the press hounded her with constant questions about whether she was nervous playing Billie Jean. She was, but of course she couldn’t say so; their hint that an upset was brewing had already marked her mind. It got so bad that Margaret felt physically ill. The nerves were back and she knew she would not play well. True to her fears, she created history by being the first number one seed at Wimbledon to be ousted in the first round. This was the darkest and deepest despondency she had ever felt; it was even worse than the previous year’s horror tour.

The next morning, after she had spent a sleepless night reliving every stroke she had played, the newspaper headlines boomed her failure to the world: SMITH LOSES.WILL SMITH EVER WIN WIMBLEDON? She knew how disappointed her family and friends would be at home, and that only made her feel...