Top 10 Facts about Evonne Goolagong

Top 10 Facts about Evonne Goolagong

Evonne Goolagong-Cawley, AO, MBE is an Australian former world No. 1 tennis player renowned for her grace, ethereal touch and fluid speed around the court.

Goolagong was born on July 31, 1951, in the town of Barellan, in New South Wales, Australia. She was introduced to tennis when Bill Kurtzman, a player at Barellan, saw her looking through the fence of the local tennis courts. He asked her if she would like to try playing, and the rest is history.

At the peak of her career, she was regarded as one of the most subtle practitioners of the women’s game it had ever seen.

Below, we discuss the top 10 facts about Evonne Goolagong;

1. Evonne Goolagong was born into an Aborigine heritage

Land of Wiradjuri people – Flickr

Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands.

Evonne Goolagong is the third of eight children from an Australian Aboriginal family. Her father, Ken Goolagong, was an itinerant sheep shearer and her mother, Melinda, was a homemaker. They belong to the Wiradjuri nation.

Fortunately, despite the widespread disadvantage and prejudice the Aboriginal people experienced in Australia, Goolagong was able to play tennis in Barellan from childhood, thanks to an area resident, Bill Kurtzman.

2. Looming threat of being separated from her parents

Evonne Goolagong – Wikipedia

In the fifties, when Evonne was still a child, the Australian government’s policy was to forcibly remove Aborigine children from their families and relocate them to camps where they could be properly educated and integrated into white society.

Many Aboriginal people around Australia faced discrimination; they were treated differently by White Australians.

“Every time there was a shiny car, my mum must have worried if it was the welfare people coming for her kids,” Goolagong has explained in many media interviews when the topic of her Aborigine roots was questioned. “We had no idea. We thought the welfare man was there to take us away.”

3. Evonne Goolagong made no excuses

Evonne Goolagong, 1974 – Flickr

Evonne’s introduction to tennis has perhaps the humblest origins in tennis history, yet she overcame major stumbling blocks to become the No. 1 player in the world.

Her father fashioned a makeshift tennis “paddle” for her out of pieces of wood, it was absent of any strings. She would practice hitting a rubber ball against any flat surface she could find using the “paddle”.

At the age of six, Evonne acquired her first tennis racquet, a gift from her aunt.

4. Chasing your dreams at all cost

Evonne Goolagong – Flickr

To be able to achieve her dreams, Evonne and her family had to make a difficult decision that would entail Evonne scarifying her home life and Aboriginal culture.

In 1965, Vic Edwards, the proprietor of a tennis school in Sydney, was tipped off to the prodigy and made a 400-mile trip west to the wheat-farming country to see what all the fuss was about.

Vic was impressed by Evonne, and he persuaded her parents to let him take the 14-year-old to Sydney for schooling at Willoughby Girl’s School. Her parents agreed and Edwards become her legal guardian, coach, and manager.

Moving into the new lifestyle was not easy, “I cried nearly every night,” she told an Australian newspaper decades later. “I remember being very shy and scared when I first started.” Fortunately, she stayed and trained hard.

5. Evonne’s backup career

Metropolitan Business College – Wikipedia

Edwards encouraged Evonne to attend finishing school. Evonne completed her school certificate from Willoughby Girl’s High School in 1968.

After finishing school, it was on to the Metropolitan Business College, where she learned secretarial skills in the event that her pro career did not pan out. Fortunately, she was able to make a career out of tennis.  

6. The evil known as discrimination

Evonne Goolagong partnering – Wikipedia

Being an Aborigine, Evonne’s faced a lot of discriminating. She recalls an incident while playing with Edwards’ daughter against two older ladies. “One of the older ladies didn’t like the idea of two youngsters beating up on them. We won pretty easily. When it was time to shake hands.”

“And she said; ‘This is the first time I’ve had the pleasure of playing a Nigger’ and I’ve never heard that before, and I started to get really upset.”

Her mentor Edwards tried his best to shield her from such prejudice and instilled confidence within herself. 

7. Breaking down barrier

Roger Cawley with his wife, Goolagong Cawley – Pinterest

Instead of listening to the haters, Goolagong used her successful tennis career to break down barriers. She became the first non-white to play in apartheid South African in a tournament in 1972.

Even today, she is helping indigenous people in Australia with the foundation she has set up with her husband, the former British tennis player Roger Cawley. The program encourages the children to play tennis, but also to stay in school as they do so.

Her motto for it – as it was during her playing days – is “dream, believe, learn, achieve.”

8. Evonne’s awards and recognition

Evonne Goolagong, 1971- Wikipedia

Goolagong has received many awards and recognition of her outstanding performances within the tennis court. Overall, she earned 72 singles, 45 doubles and three mixed doubles tour championships and compiled a 704-165 (81 percent) singles record.

She was awarded Australian of the Year in 1971, appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1972 and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1982. In 1985, she was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame and in 1988, inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

In 2018, she was advanced to a Companion of the Order of Australia “for eminent service to tennis as a player at the national and international level, as an ambassador, supporter and advocate for the health, education and wellbeing of young Indigenous people through participation in sport, and as a role model”.

Goolagong was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women for her achievements as a tennis player in 2001.

9. Retirement from the sport

Evonne Goolagong with her child – Twitter

Goolagong retired from professional tennis in 1983, due to nagging injuries that she acquired over the course of her career.

She moved to South Carolina, where she became the touring professional at the Hilton Head Racquet Club. Since 1997 she has held the position of Sports Ambassador to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities.

10. A Goolagong museum collection

The National Museum of Australia – Wikipedia

The National Museum of Australia holds the Evonne Goolagong Cawley collection of memorabilia. This includes her 1971 and 1980 Wimbledon singles trophies, the trophy from her 1974 doubles win and two racquets used in these tournaments.

The museum’s collection also includes a signed warm-up jacket and a dress with a bolero style top designed by Ted Tinling in the early 1970s.