WHEN Winnie Wooldridge, the former Winnie Shaw, died at the age of 45 in March 1992, Scottish tennis mourned the loss of one of its greatest champions.
Glasgow-born Winnie, a champion in her teenage years, reached the quarter-finals of the ladies’ singles at Wimbledon in 1970 and 1971, and the fourth round in 1972 and 1975. In the ladies’ doubles she and her partners often powered through to the quarter finals, and in 1972 she and her fellow Scot, Joyce Williams, were beaten in the semis by Billie Jean King and Betty Stove, the eventual winners.
When Winnie was posthumously inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2002, her citation noted that she had also played twice in the Australian Open semi-finals and had reached the finals of both the ladies doubles and the mixed doubles of the French Championships. She was, the citation said, “Scotland’s most successful tennis player of her era.”
In addition to her many other accomplishments, Winnie - whose mother, Winnie, had also been a formidable tennis player - was a plus-two golfer who played internationally for Scotland.
On her death, Bill Moss, who had coached her from an early age, said: "She was one of our finest talents, a hard worker, and a great competitor and yet she didn’t consider herself to be special. She just thought she was very very lucky.’’
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