Evonne Cawley AC MBE

Evonne Cawley was born on 31 July 1951, at Barellan, a small town in New South Wales. Her father was a shearer and she was the third of eight children.

Evonne was a sporty child in a very sporty family and she first developed tennis skills by hitting balls with a broom handle. She started learning tennis properly when the one-week country tennis school visited her area once a year. The president of the local tennis club also encouraged her by buying her a racquet and taking her to country tournaments. At nine years of age she was already showing great potential. During school holidays she began living and training with Vic Edwards, her tennis coach, in Sydney.

By twelve years of age, she was winning junior titles and, at fourteen, she moved to her coach's house permanently. She recalls that most of her childhood was spent playing competitive sport, and a lot of the time it was with boys. She attended Willoughby Girls' High School through to matriculation and also did a six-month secretarial course so that she would have something to fall back on.

In 1970, she was a member of the winning Australian Federation Cup team thereby making her the first Aboriginal woman to represent Australia in world tennis. The following year as a nineteen year old she won Wimbledon, beating fellow Australian Margaret Court. She also won the French Open and was briefly ranked No.1 in the world. She was named female Athlete of the Year and Australian of the Year. She was also awarded a MBE in 1972. She won the Australian Singles title in 1974, 1975 and 1976.

Evonne met Roger Cawley on her first tour to England in 1970 and they married in 1975. She took time off from tennis to start a family in 1977 but returned and won the Australian Open again in 1978. She was runner-up at Wimbledon in 1979, but won Wimbledon for a second time in 1980. In 1981 she gained permanent residency in the United States where she had a second child. She made another comeback in 1982 before a foot injury forced her to retire in 1985.

Evonne took up coaching before returning to Australia to live in 1991.