Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Monday 19 April 1971, page 14


Mrs Court sweeps

to S. African

title

JOHANNESBURG, Sunday (AAP-Reuter). — Mar-garet Court yesterday firmly underlined her position as the queen of women's tennis with a 6-3, 6-1 drubbing of fellow Australian Evonne Goolagong to retain her South African Open Tennis Championships ladies singles title.

Mrs Court, the No 1 seed, took less than 45 minutes to avenge an upset defeat by the third-seeded Miss Goolagong in Australia earlier

this year.

Mrs Court stormed through the championships without dropping a set and was never in trouble yester-day against her younger op-ponent.

The 19-year-old Miss Goolagong fell victim to centre court nerves, slash-ing her usually consistent backhand volleys into the net far too often to have any hope of victory.

But the most dramatic incident occurred after the match was finished. South African Minister for Sport Frank Waring stepped on to the court to present the prizes and was loudly booed for several minutes by the large crowd.

The game went with ser-vice until the seventh game of the first set, when Miss Goolagong dropped her

serve.

From then on Mrs Court gained in power and autho-rity, dictating virtually every rally. Miss Goolagong was failing all too frequently with her overheads and volleys and her first service was not as consistent as that of her more experi-enced opponent.

After dropping her serve again in the fourth game of the second set to trail 3-1, Miss Goolagong rallied to

stave off defeat.

But some excellent cross-court backhands did not make up for the earlier mis-takes and Mrs Court was too well entrenched to be shaken.

Slowing the pace, Mrs Court served for the match at 5-1. Miss Goolagong got to the big serve better than

at any time earlier in the game and had a break point at 30-40. But she came out at the losing end of some long rallies and Mrs Court survived two break-points to slam home a power-driven forehand on her second match point.

Australians Ken Rosewall

and Fred Stolle beat South Africa's Bob Hewitt and Frew McMillan to win the men's doubles final of the championships.

The top-seeded Austra-lians beat the No 2 seeds 5-7, 6-2, 6-1, 6-2. Rosewall and Stolle won 1,000 rand ($ A 1,250).

Miss Goolagong on her way to defeat by Mrs

Court.