When was sue barker born

Barker reached her first Grand Slam semi-final in at the Australian Open. In , Barker won two singles titles in San Francisco and Dallas. Barker reached the Australian Open semi-final for the second time in and also reached the Wimbledon semi-final that year. After an injury-plagued during which her ranking dropped to World No. She was named the tour's "Comeback Player of the Year" by her fellow professionals.

She won her last doubles title in at Cincinnati , and played her last professional match in Barker's forehand was her strongest weapon, with her coach Arthur Roberts describing it as "especially potent". When she left England to play in tournaments on the Continent, Roberts handed her a one-way ticket only, insisting that she had to earn the fare home.

In , recalling her French Open win of , Barker said: "I'm still incredibly proud of what I achieved. Ann Kiyomura. Marijve Jansen. Helga Niessen Masthoff.

Pam Teeguarden. Evonne Goolagong. French Open. San Francisco. Terry Holladay. Virginia Slims Championships. Dianne Fromholtz.

Kerry Melville Reid. Evonne Goolagong Cawley. After she broke off her engagement with Cliff in , she had a brief relationship with tennis player Stephen Shaw. In , Sue broke off her engagement to Australian tennis player Syd Ball and was thereafter involved with an Australian golfer, Greg Norman. She was educated at a convent school. Moreover in , when Sue was 10 years old, she was selected by tennis coach Arthur Roberts as one of the two girls to be coached by him.

By the time Sue was 16, she was already ranked 21st in the WTA rankings. She was only 17 when she won her first top-level singles title and three additional titles followed by three additional titles in Sue played her first Grand Slam semi-finals in at the Australian Open.

She beat me fair and square and I was just thinking, 'What am I going to do? I'm going to get thumped tomorrow'. Barker looked to have suppressed her doubts by taking the first set before "getting absolutely tonked" in the second, which she lost In those days players got a minute break before a deciding set, which proved vital for Barker.

She got a quick pep talk from national coach Tony Mottram, who happened to be at Roland Garros for a different player. I do wonder if I hadn't had that 10 minutes to regroup whether I would have panicked," she says. When Tomanova double-faulted on match point, Barker ran to the net to shake hands. There were no wild celebrations, no running up to the players box to kiss everyone in the entourage - players were on their own in those days. The match was not televised and so Barker's parents had no idea whether their daughter had won until after the trophy presentation, when she headed straight to the tournament office to ask: "Can I make a phone call to England, please?

They had to wait even longer to celebrate with her. I was going to drive home to see my parents but I felt so rotten I ended up going to one of the airport hotels and sleeping there because I just thought I can't drive, I feel completely drunk! She thinks that hotel may also be where she ended up leaving the medal. Years later she received a photo of herself from a Frenchman who had been at the final, and also a video tape from a man in the United States who had recorded a news item about her win, so she does at least now have a couple of mementos.

Even longer after that, when champion Ashleigh Barty was checking the names on the trophy it emerged Barker's nationality had been engraved wrong - listing her as Australian. There weren't that many British players on the clay," she says. With that victory, Barker's career was seemingly on the up, but bitter disappointment was just around the corner.

Barker had continued her fine form that year in front of home fans at Wimbledon, reaching the quarter-finals where she faced a year-old Martina Navratilova, yet to win the first of her 18 Grand Slam singles titles. My coach was watching on TV and went mad on the phone," Barker says.

It was a golden opportunity as I was having such a good summer, I was playing so well, I was so confident and it sort of came to a grinding halt. It's a match that rankles with me as much as the semi-final loss the next year. Ah, that semi-final. Of course Wimbledon , in the Queen's silver jubilee year, is best remembered for Virginia Wade's home victory.

But it could so easily have been another Briton. It was all about pressure and expectation for me that day. I think I just took my mind off the semi-final, thinking too much that I was going to play Virginia. And I was bitterly, bitterly disappointed not to have been a part of that final, which would have been an amazing day with the jubilee and two Brits.

I let the whole side down. Barker could not even bear to watch the final. I think Virginia made an absolute fortune and I lost a whole lot. I don't think I've even got the jewellery, I've probably lost that as well! After that defeat she made one more Grand Slam semi-final at the Australian Open before injuries began to take hold. Those injuries I had - these days I'd probably be one week in the physio and back out there. Ultimately, they cut short her career at The decision to retire left her "crying like a baby" and she had no plan B.

Every day I'd had planned - practice, gym, physio, booking travel, booking hotels, watching videos of a player, everything was all geared around a tennis tournament and then suddenly it's nothing. Retirement prompted lots of messages from friends and journalists, which Barker couldn't bring herself to reply to.

But then there was one from someone calling themselves 'Gordon Bennett'. Convinced it was a wind-up by someone simply expressing astonishment at her announcement, she called him back.

That call changed her life. It turned out that Gordon Bennett was a real person - the boss of Australian television station Channel 7 no less - with a real job offer. Once they returned home to England, the two co-incidentally met each other while out for dinner and soon after their relationship became romantic. Sue and her partner Lance have been living together as a happy couple ever since their marriage in Before she married Lance, Sue was in a relationship with the singer Cliff Richard during the s.

Cliff has said he came close to proposing but decided against it. Although she never won Wimbledon, Sue did manage to reach the semi-finals of the tournament in Sue loves dogs and she currently has two. Charlie and Baiatu. She adopted Baiatu at eight years old from a Romanian dog shelter.