According to tennis.com, the WTA went back and looked at its records again, and found that they'd incorrectly entered some info into the new-fangled computers back in the day, and for two weeks in 1976, Evonne Goolagong was actually the #1 player in the world!

She was #1 in the world previously, during 1971 when she burst onto the scene to win the French & Wimbledon, but that was before the WTA came into existence. It means that Chrissie's streak of 140 straight weeks at #1 (third longest in WTA history) will be broken up; that Martina will now be considered the third #1 in WTA history, and that Venus will no longer be the player with the fewest total weeks at #1 (only 11 - hard to imagine!).

Anyway, a cool honor to a great champion!

I think the WTA should be congratulated on the discovery! Goolagong was a very graceful, and talented player! She was like a balerina on the court! I actually remember a "SI" article, perhaps even Cover titled: "Does Evonne have Chrissie's Number?" 30 years later she is awarded the honor!

You mean this?


If anyone can post the article, I'd love to read it! April 26, 1976.

How random...and...like...out of the blue? Does anyone know off the top of their head what Chrissie and Evonne's head to head was?

So, did she request a recount?

I don't think I realized how competitive she was in the early 70's:

Goolagong reached the finals of 16 of 24 Grand Slam singles tournaments from 1971 to 1976, winning five of them. She won Wimbledon titles nine years apart -- in 1971 and 1980 -- equaling Bill Tilden's mark for having the longest gaps between championships at the All-England Club, and has seven Grand Slam singles titles overall.

Here's the link to the WTA's rundown of what happened. It doesn't mention the fact that Goolagong was the consensus #1 pick for 1971 by most tennis writers, other than Rino Tomassi and Bud Collins.

Here's the Goolagong-Evert H2H. Chrissie leads 26-12, and interestingly, during that period starting with the '75 U.S. Open and going into the '76 Slims Championships, Evert had won 7 of the 8 meetings (all finals). Evonne won that in 3, and then went off to have a baby. I have to think that her win in the 1980 Wimbledon championships might be her most impressive achievement.

But yeah, her accomplishments really are underrated. She unfortunately had a lot of three-set losses in major finals (5 of the 11 losses), and her major rivals - Billie Jean King and Chris Evert - were sort of lopsided in her opponents' favors (at least in matches they track at the WTA - there were other events like World Team Tennis - big at the time - and perhaps some significant European tournaments that aren't tracked).

Evert was my favorite female player during that time and I always rooted for her no matter who she played. But whenever she lost to Goolagong, I was less bummed than when Martina, Billie Jean, Virginia, Tracy or any of ther other rivals beat her. She had such grace on the court-just a lovely game to watch. If she'd had Evert's mental fortitude and waited to start popping out kids, we could easily be talking about her as one of the best of all time.

George, I could have written that. Always, always wanted Chris to win (did I say always, cuz I meant it). But hated to see Evonne lose. More than any other player (felt the same way about Gaby). Over her career Evonne comported herself with such class and grace. And moved so well. Just loved to watch her flow across the court. Glad she gets the recognition...that #1 thing is a bit misleading anyway since it didn't begin until mid-70s. Seriously, though, George, if she had had Chris' mental fortitude, she wouldn't have been "one" of the best of all time. Her talent and Chris' mental focus? She might even still be dominating. lol

It's been a while since I've been on. Took a break a long while ago when I got tired of reading so many put downs of players (not that there's anything wrong with that). But, of course, I missed very much the great comments by so many posters here. I'll try not to be like the Romulans, who said they were back and made things much more difficult.