Australian Women’s Tennis Star Becomes No. 1
December 27th, 2007 by Lucas DwyerAustralian women’s tennis star Evonne Goolagong knew she was playing a high level of tennis in 1976. However, until 2007, she had no idea just how well she was playing.
Two weeks ago, the now 56-year old Goolagong was given a trophy by the WTA bestowed upon her for being the world’s No. 1 ranked women’s tennis player for two weeks in 1976. Goolagong was told by the WTA that an error in transferring some tournament records to a computer resulted in an inaccurate count of the points she accumulated during that season. The WTA recently noticed a gap in paper records between April and May 1976.
Former Australian women’s tennis star Evonne Goolagong was recently awarded the No. 1 world ranking from 1976 which had not been noticed until 2007 due to a computing error.
When the missing paper records were recovered, it was discovered that Goolagong overtook American tennis star Chris Evert by 0.8 points after Goolagong won the Virginia Slims tournament in late April 1976. Evert officially regained the ranking on May 10th, though until 1976 she was listed as the No. 1 player througout that period.
“I’m very proud of the achievement,” Goolagong told The Associated Press. “I was on a roll for that stretch in 1976. It was a great surprise to hear after all these years.”
The WTA has corrected its records and now lists Goolagong as the 16th player in women’s tennis history to achieve the world #1 ranking since the introduction of tour rankings in 1975.
