{"id":98312,"date":"2025-08-26T12:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T12:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/98312\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T12:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T12:59:09","slug":"angela-mortimer-obituary-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/98312\/","title":{"rendered":"Angela Mortimer obituary | Tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Angela Mortimer, who has died aged 93, was one of only four British players to have won Wimbledon<\/a> since the second world war. The odds on this shy young woman emerging from the backwaters of Devon to succeed on the international sporting stage were as remote as the swathes of Dartmoor she used to roam as a child.<\/p>\n

But, having survived trying to dig up an unexploded bomb she found on the moor as an eight-year-old, \u201cMort\u201d as she became known in the tennis world, battled all manner of adversity until she was able to beat Christine Truman<\/a> in the Wimbledon final of 1961.<\/p>\n

On that rainy day, lady luck finally rode with this doggedly persistent performer as she fought back from a set and a break down against Truman after her teenage opponent had taken a heavy fall when leading 6-4, 4-3 and 30-40 on Mortimer\u2019s serve.<\/p>\n

Thrown out of her lanky stride, Truman lost her rhythm and her more experienced opponent was able to close out victory 7-5 in the third set \u2013 a victory that would have seemed laughable when she was sent packing from Arthur Roberts\u2019s coaching session in Torquay at the age of 15.<\/p>\n

Great Britain winning the 1968 Wightman Cup. From left: Christine Truman, Virginia Wade, Angela Mortimer, Nell Truman, Winnie Shaw and Joyce Williams. Photograph: Express\/Getty<\/p>\n

Ignoring the fact that Torquay was a two-hour bus ride from her home in Plymouth<\/a> and that Roberts had been advertising tennis coaching for children of 12 and under, Angela insisted on a trial. After a few shots, Roberts was less than impressed. \u201cYou don\u2019t have a clue how to hit the ball,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re 15, which is too old to learn how to play tennis and you live miles away. Go home and forget about tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not many teenagers would have survived the cruelty of that assessment, but Mortimer\u2019s mind was made up. She was going to become a tennis player. A year later, she went back to Torquay and an amazed Mr Roberts assigned her to a wall. \u201cHit against that,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t do much harm there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually the tough but dedicated coach \u2013 who went on to help Sue Barker win the French Open<\/a> \u2013 saw that Mortimer\u2019s total obsession with the sport might enable her to overcome initial technical deficiencies and he ended up becoming her coach, mentor and number one supporter.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that partial deafness worked in Mortimer\u2019s favour as she pursued her single-minded ambition. Much of the social whirl passed her by and she was happiest following her own private dreams on a tennis court. Inadvertently she made enemies along the way because some took offence at her off-hand manner, often the simple result of not having heard what they said.<\/p>\n

Mortimer was born in Plymouth. Her father, John, worked in property while her mother, Florence (nee Beard), who liked tennis tea parties, looked after Angela and her older sister Jenefer. Once Angela was released from the wall and allowed to practise with other players at Roberts\u2019s school, she progressed rapidly as a solid baseline player and was able to win a round at Wimbledon in 1951.<\/p>\n

Two years later she was selected for Britain\u2019s Wightman Cup team against the US \u2013 the women\u2019s equivalent of the Davis Cup in those days \u2013 and soon became the top ranked player in the country.<\/p>\n

It was not until that point that Mortimer, having been taken ill just before the British Hard Court Championships at Bournemouth, discovered her hearing problem. \u201cOnly then did I understand the reason I had been able to concentrate so intensely on court, shutting out every noise except the sound of the ball on the racket,\u201d she said. \u201cI had not been able to hear any other noise. For years I had been growing gradually deaf.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mortimer fought that adversity in the same manner that she handled other setbacks, including the trip to Egypt that left her feeling weak for months with a stomach virus. She was still far from fit when she battled her way through to the final of the French Championships at Roland Garros in 1955.<\/p>\n

It was a suffocatingly hot day and, as the match neared the two-hour mark, she wondered how long she could continue. Then she heard the umpire call for a brandy for her opponent, the American Dorothy Knode, and the knowledge that her rival was suffering too spurred her on to a memorable 2-6, 7-5, 10-8 victory. Afterwards the French Tennis<\/a> Federation held a champagne party in her honour. But Angela was not there. Exhausted, she had gone to bed.<\/p>\n

Three British Wimbledon winners: Angela Mortimer, left, and Anne Jones, right, standing by a bust of Virginia Wade in 2004. Photograph: Dave Caulkin\/AP<\/p>\n

By then all doubts about her ability to become a top player had vanished and, on her first visit to Australia in 1958, Mortimer added the Australian crown to her growing list of titles. When she won Wimbledon in 1961, only 14 years had elapsed since Roberts had told her not to bother with tennis. A year after her ultimate triumph she retired from full-time competition and, in 1967, married John Barrett, the former British Davis Cup captain, author and long-time BBC commentator at Wimbledon, thereafter using the name Angela Mortimer Barrett.<\/p>\n

The ultimate irony, perhaps, was that Angela spent the remaining years of her life living in Kingston upon Thames in total marital harmony with a member of the fourth estate. Partially because of her shyness, she had always shunned publicity and had spent the day before her Wimbledon final barricaded in a relative\u2019s house, refusing to answer the pleas of the baying reporters camped outside.<\/p>\n

As those admitted into her confidence were quick to realise, Mortimer valued her friends and was deeply appreciative of the wide world that tennis had offered her. But, for a public figure, she was a very private person.<\/p>\n

She was made MBE in 1967.<\/p>\n

Mortimer is survived by John, and their children, Michael and Sarah Jane.<\/p>\n

Florence Angela Margaret Mortimer Barrett, tennis player, born 21 April 1932; died 25 August 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Angela Mortimer, who has died aged 93, was one of only four British players to have won Wimbledon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-98312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}