Sarah Virginia Wade (born 10 July 1945) is a British former professionaltennis player. She won threemajor tennis singles championships and four major doubles championships, and is the only British woman in history to have won titles at all four majors. She was ranked as high as No. 2 in the world in singles, and No. 1 in the world in doubles.
Wade was the most recent British tennis player to win a major singles tournament untilAndy Murray won the2012 US Open,[3][4] and was the most recent British woman to have won a major singles title untilEmma Raducanu won the2021 US Open.[5] After retiring from competitive tennis, she coached for four years,[6] and has also worked as a tennis commentator and game analyst for theBBC andEurosport, and (in the US) forCBS.
Wade was born inBournemouth, England, UK, on 10 July 1945. Her father was the archdeacon ofDurban.[7]
At one year old, Wade moved toSouth Africa with her parents. There, she learned how to play tennis. When she was aged 15, the family moved back to England, and she went toTunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School andTalbot Heath School, Bournemouth.[8] In 1961, she was on the tennis team of Wimbledon County Girls' Grammar School. She studied mathematics and physics at theUniversity of Sussex, graduating in 1966.[9]
Wade's tennis career spanned the end of the amateur era and the start of theOpen Era. In April 1968, as an amateur, she won the inaugural open tennis competition – theBritish Hard Court Championships at Bournemouth. She turned down the £300 first prize, choosing to play for expenses only.[10] Five months later, after turning professional, she won the women's singles championship at the firstUS Open (and prize-money of $6,000 - $54,253 today), defeatingBillie Jean King in the final. Her second Major tennis singles championship came in 1972 at theAustralian Open when she defeated AustralianEvonne Goolagong in the final in two sets. She was appointed a member of theOrder of the British Empire (MBE) in the1973 Birthday Honours for services to lawn tennis.[11]
Wade wonWimbledon in 1977. It was the 16th year in which she had played at Wimbledon, and she secured her first appearance in the final by beating the defending champion and top-seedChris Evert in the semifinal in three sets. In the final, she beat seventh-seededBetty Stöve in three sets to claim the championship, nine days before her 32nd birthday.[12] 1977 was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Wimbledon Championships as well as theSilver Jubilee year ofElizabeth II, who attended the final for the first time since 1962.[13][14]
Wade also won four Major women's doubles championships withMargaret Smith Court – two of them at the US Open tennis tournament, one at theAustralian Open, and one at theFrench Open. In 1983, at the age of 37, she won theItalian Open women's doubles championship withVirginia Ruzici of Romania.
Over her career, Wade won 55 professional singles championships and amassed $1,542,278 in career prize money. She was ranked in the world's top 10 continuously from 1967 to 1979. Her career spanned a total of 26 years. She retired from singles competition at the end of the 1985 tennis season, and then from doubles at the end of 1986. She played at Wimbledon on 26 occasions, an all-time record;[15] 24 of those times were in the women's singles.[16]
Since 1981, while she was still playing, Wade has been a reporter on tennis events for theBBC.[17] In 1982, she became the first woman to be elected to the Wimbledon Committee.[18]
Wade was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the1986 Birthday Honours for services to lawn tennis[17][19] and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the2025 Birthday Honours for services to tennis and to charity.[20]
Wade has no children and has never married. She has said "If I'd done better earlier, and my career had been at its peak earlier and I'd faded, I would probably have had a totally different life." She lives mostly in New York and in Chelsea, London.[23]
She posed for sculptorDavid Wynne for the 17-foot-high fountainGirl with a Dolphin, installed atTower Bridge in 1973.[24]
United Kingdom
Billie Jean King
Evonne Goolagong
Betty Stöve
Françoise Dürr
Olga Morozova
Linky Boshoff
Martina Navratilova.JPG)
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