INDIAN WELLS — A woman with a lone Grand Slam mixed doubles title (with John McEnroe at 1977 Roland Garros), will be welcomed into the International Tennis Hall of Fame late this summer — alongside the great Roger Federer, he of 20 Grand Slam singles titles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you think of Rog \u2026 \u201c Mary Carillo began, making a goofy face.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think of Mary Carillo,\u201d her interviewer responded, drawing a series of world-class signature cackles from the future enshrinee.<\/p>\n
Her career-high ranking in singles was No. 33, but as an astute, breezy analyst for numerous outlets, including ESPN, Tennis Channel and NBC, Carillo made the game more accessible. Also, an award-winning writer and reporter, particularly at the Olympics, Carillo, 68, will go in under the contributor category.<\/p>\n
She made a point of naming most of the Hall\u2019s female contributors, as well as some of the male sportswriters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very happy to be among these people,\u201d \u00a0Carillo said.<\/p>\n
The occasion at the BNP Paribas Open was the Hall of Fame\u2019s \u201cLetters of Greatness\u201d celebration, an initiative that began last year when Maria Sharapova and Bob and Mike Brian were enshrined in Newport, Rhode Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fans here at Indian Wells write notes to their incoming HOF heroes. They\u2019ll be compiled and displayed as part of the enshrinement ceremonies in August.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of the tools we use to bring fans and the next generation closer to our legends,\u201d explained Dan Faber, CEO of the International Tennis Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
One read: \u201cMary, great announcing and hosting those tennis tournaments. And your Olympic reporting was interesting and fun. — Crazy Shelly.<\/p>\n
In addition to Hall of Famers Tracy Austin and the Bryan Brothers, Patrick McEnroe — the institution\u2019s president since 2023 — was on hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Carillo said, \u201cthey\u2019ll be crawling with Douglastonians in Newport!\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, Carillo and the McEnroe brothers all hail from Douglaston, Queens, New York. John McEnroe, a seven-time major singles champion, was enshrined in 1999. The Douglaston Club was where they all learned to play tennis.<\/p>\n
\u201cFive tennis courts, a swimming pool — and three bowling lanes,\u201d Carillo remembered proudly. \u201cAnd I worked at the snack bar and as a waitress. I was making $1.85 an hour — no tipping.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then Carillo channeled a classic John McEnroe tag line.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not see this coming,\u201d Carillo said. \u201cI mean, who the hell would see this coming? Come on, let\u2019s be serious.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIAN WELLS — A woman with a lone Grand Slam mixed doubles title (with John McEnroe at 1977…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747,83],"class_list":["post-522438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}