Jo Durie

Jo Durie

Country	Great Britain
Residence	London, United Kingdom
Born	27 July 1960 (1960-07-27) Bristol, United Kingdom
Height	1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)
Weight	68.0 kg (150 lb; 10.71 st)
Turned pro	1977
Retired	1995
Plays	Right-handed
Career prize money	$1,224,016
Singles
Career record	321–305
Career titles	2
Highest ranking	No. 5 (29 April 1984)
Grand Slam results
Australian Open	QF (1983)
French Open	SF (1983)
Wimbledon	QF (1984)
US Open	SF (1983)
Doubles
Career record	274–199
Career titles	5
Highest ranking	No. 29 (10 April 1989)
Grand Slam Doubles results
Australian Open	SF (1985)
French Open	SF (1983)
Wimbledon	SF (1983, 1984)
US Open	QF (1987, 1991)
Mixed Doubles
Career titles	2
Grand Slam Mixed Doubles results
Australian Open	W (1991)
Wimbledon	W (1987)
Last updated on: 11 June 2011.

Jo Durie (born 27 July 1960, in Bristol, United Kingdom) is a former world number 5 professional tennis player from the United Kingdom. During her career, she won two Grand Slam titles, both in the mixed doubles.

Singles career

After a successful junior career Durie turned professional in 1977, playing her first match at Wimbledon that year against the eventual champion Virginia Wade. In 1980 Durie suffered a major back injury which kept her out of the game for eight months. However she made a successful return to the woman's tennis circuit in 1981, reaching the 4th round of the singles at Wimbledon and the US Open and climbing to her highest singles ranking of 35.

1983 proved to be her most successful year as a singles player. At the Australian Open she reached her first Grand Slam quarter-final. As an unseeded player Durie then went onto reach the semi-finals of the French Open, beating both Pam Shriver and Tracy Austin along the way. Her dramatic rise up the singles rankings that year ended with another Grand Slam singles semi-final appearance at the US Open, where she eventually lost to Chris Evert in straight sets. Her most successful year at Wimbledon as a singles player came in 1984 when she reached the quarter-finals, beating a 15-year old Steffi Graf in a memorable fourth round match. It was just after Wimbledon in 1984 that she reached a career high singles ranking of World No. 5.

She won two top-level singles titles (both in 1983) at Mahwah, New Jersey and Sydney, and had career wins over Steffi Graf, Zina Garrison, Pam Shriver, Hana Mandlíková, and Tracy Austin. Further back injuries in 1989 led to a remodeling of her service action. Durie made her last appearance in a WTA tour singles final at the Virginia Slims of Newport tournament in 1990. In 1991 at the age of 30, and one of the oldest singles competitors that year, she had another successful run to the 4th round of the US Open.

She was ranked the No. 1 British player for most of her career. She won the British National Singles titles a record seven times. She was the second British woman player after Virginia Wade to win $1 million in prize money.

Doubles career

Partnering her fellow British player Jeremy Bates, Durie won the mixed doubles titles at Wimbledon in 1987, the first British doubles team to win the title for fifty-one years. In 1991 they became the first British doubles team to win the Australian Open mixed doubles title.

Durie would go on to win a further five woman's doubles titles during her career. In 1984 she reached the year ending WTA Tour Championships doubles final partnering Ann Kiyomura. Durie won the British National Doubles title a record nine times.

Team Tennis

Durie was a stalwart member of the British Wightman Cup (1979, 1981–89), British Federation Cup (1981–95) and British European Cup teams (1989–92). Durie led the British team to victory in the European Championship in Prague in 1992.

Retirement

Durie retired from competitive tennis at the Wimbledon Championships in 1995, (her eighteenth appearance at the Championships), and marked it with many memorable performances. After three successive operations on her left knee, Durie went into the Championships ranked 326 in the world; yet reached the second round of the ladies singles. She beat France's Alexia Dechaume-Ballerat, ranked 85 in the world in straight sets in the first round. Her second round, and last singles match at Wimbledon was against Jana Novotná. After losing the match 6–2 6–2 Jo Durie was given a full standing ovation by the crowd on the 'old' No. 1 Court. Her last match at Wimbledon was appropriately a mixed doubles match, where she played along side her long standing partner Jeremy Bates.

She is one of very few players to have a winning record against Steffi Graf and leads 4-3 in head-to-heads. Note, however, that all of her wins against Graf were before or during 1985, when Graf was typically a much lower-ranked played during the initial stages of her career.

After retiring from the professional tour, Durie has worked as a TV tennis commentator for both the BBC and British Eurosport. She used to coach British number one Elena Baltacha alongside her own former coach Alan Jones. She won back to back Wimbledon Ladies Senior Invitation doubles titles in 1996 and 1997.

Major finals

Grand Slam finals

Mixed doubles: 2 finals (2 titles)

Outcome	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponents in the final	Score in the final
Winner	1987	Wimbledon	Grass	Jeremy Bates	Nicole Bradtke Darren Cahill	7–6(10), 6–3
Winner	1991	Australian Open	Hard	Jeremy Bates	Robin White Scott Davis	2–6, 6–4, 6–4

Year-End Championships finals

Doubles: 1 final (0 titles, 1 runner-up)

Outcome	Year	Location	Surface	Partner	Opponents in the final	Score in the final
Runner-up	1984	New York City	Carpet (i)	Ann Kiyomura	Martina Navratilova Pam Shriver	6–3, 6–1

Titles (7)

Singles (2)

Titles by Surface Hard (1) Clay (0) Grass (1) Carpet (0)

No.	Date	Location	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score in the final
1.	22 August 1983	Mahwah, USA	Hard	Hana Mandlíková	2–6, 7–5, 6–4
2.	21 November 1983	Sydney, Australia	Grass	Kathy Jordan	6–3, 7–5

Doubles (5)

• 1982: Birmingham (with Anne Hobbs)
• 1983: Boston (with Ann Kiyomura)
• 1983: Berlin (with Anne Hobbs)

• 1983: Mahwah (with Sharon Walsh)
• 1990: Singapore (with Jill Hetherington)

Grand Slam performance timeline

Singles

Tournament	1977	1978	1979	1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	Career Win-Loss
Australian Open	A	A	A	A	3R	3R	QF	2R	3R	A	4R	2R	3R	2R	2R	2R	A	A	A	18-11
French Open	A	A	A	1R	1R	2R	SF	2R	1R	1R	1R	2R	1R	A	1R	3R	A	A	A	10-12
Wimbledon	1R	1R	2R	1R	4R	1R	3R	QF	4R	3R	3R	2R	A	1R	2R	1R	1R	1R	2R	18-18
US Open	A	A	A	A	4R	3R	SF	1R	1R	3R	2R	1R	1R	1R	4R	1R	1R	A	A	16-13

Doubles

Tournament	1977	1978	1979	1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	Career Win-Loss
Australian Open	A	A	A	A	2R	2R	QF	2R	SF	A	QF	1R	QF	1R	1R	2R	A	A	A
French Open	A	A	A	1R	3R	3R	SF	3R	A	2R	A	A	2R	A	A	A	A	A	A
Wimbledon	1R	A	3R	1R	1R	2R	SF	SF	QF	1R	1R	3R	A	2R	1R	2R	2R	1R	2R
US Open	A	A	2R	A	3R	2R	2R	3R	2R	1R	QF	2R	2R	1R	QF	2R	2R	A	A

External links

• Jo Durie at the Women's Tennis Association
• Jo Durie at the International Tennis Federation
• Jo Durie at the Fed Cup