Birthday quote 10th July

Virginia Wade
Sarah Virginia Wade, OBE is a former professional tennis player from Great Britain. She won three Grand Slam singles championships and four Grand Slam doubles championships, and is the only British woman in history to have won titles at all four Grand Slam tournaments. She was ranked as high as No. 2 in the world in singles, and No. 1 in the world in doubles.

Three times a Grand Slam singles champion, her most famous success was winning Wimbledon on 1 July 1977, the tournament's centenary year, and the year of the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Wade was the last British tennis player to have won a Grand Slam singles tournament until Andy Murray won the US Open in 2012. She remains the last British female to have won a Grand Slam singles title. After retiring from competitive tennis, she coached for four years and has also worked as a tennis commentator and game analyst.

She turned began playing professional tennis in 1968 and won the women's singles championship at the first US Open. Her second Grand Slam singles championship came in 1972 at the Australian Open and then Wade won at Wimbledon, in 1977. It was the 16th year in which Wade had played at Wimbledon beat the defending champion Chris Evert in a semifinal, and Betty Stöve in the final. Not only was 1977 the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Wimbledon Championships, but it was also the the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. The queen attended the Wimbledon championships for the first time in 25 years to watch the final. Wade beat Stöve in three sets to claim the championship. The 26 times that Wade played at Wimbledon is an all-time record, 24 of those times being in the women's singles.

Wade also won four Grand Slam women's doubles championships with Margaret Smith Court – two of them at the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, one at the Australian Open, and one at the French Open.

Over her career, Wade won 55 professional singles championships and amassed $1,542,278 dollars 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.

Born on 10th July 1945 in Bournemouth, Dorset, England

Tennis is a fine balance between determination and tiredness.

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