Wendy Turnbull,
MBE, (born 26 November 1952 in
Brisbane, Australia) is a retired
Australian professional tennis player. During her career, she won 9 Grand Slam titles, 4 of them in women's doubles and 5 of them in mixed doubles. She also was a 3-time Grand Slam singles runner-up and won 13 singles titles and 55 doubles titles.
Career
Turnbull turned professional in 1975. Her career high rankings were third in singles and fifth in doubles. She was ranked in the year-end world top 20 for ten consecutive years (1977 through 1986) and in the year-end world top 10 for eight consecutive years from 1977 to 1984. She was nicknamed "Rabbit" by her peers because of her foot speed around the court.
Turnbull was a singles runner-up at the
1977 US Open, the
1979 French Open, and the
1980 Australian Open. She won four women's doubles titles and five mixed doubles titles at Grand Slam events.
She was a 12-time runner-up in Grand Slam doubles events: eleven times in women's doubles and one time in mixed doubles. Nine of her eleven women's doubles losses were to teams that included
Martina Navratilova.
Turnbull teamed with
Elizabeth Smylie to win the bronze medal in women's doubles at the
1988 Summer Olympics in
Seoul. She is one of very few players to have a winning record against
Steffi Graf and leads 2–1 in head-to-head matches.
Turnbull was a member of Australia's Fed Cup team from 1977 through 1988, compiling a 46–16 overall win–loss record (17–8 in singles and 29–8 in...
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