![\"Holding](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/c3dc52ab96c7e42dc84c7e3d99ba8e7152a34178.jpeg\")
Holding the Wimbledon trophy in 1971 after winning the first all-Australian women\u2019s singles final in straight sets against defending champion Margaret Court.PA Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Who was the first mother to win a Wimbledon singles title in the open era, achieving the feat in 1980, 66 years after Dorothea Lambert Chambers? Evonne Goolagong Cawley.<\/p>\n
Card after card came and there was no escaping her exploits, which is no surprise once you take an even cursory glance at the gravity of her career. Eighty-six titles. Eighteen grand slam singles finals. Female world No.\u20061 in 1976. Australian of the Year in 1971.<\/p>\n
Not only that but she was a transcendent joy within the sport \u2013 a player of legendary lightness, more poetic than prosaic. She did not storm the court, they said, but danced across it, more ballerina than baseliner. Study her closely and Evonne Goolagong Cawley begins to feel like an inexorable sporting truth \u2013 an Australian athletic exemplar and source of immense Aboriginal pride.<\/p>\n
Who is the only tennis player in history to defeat Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert, all in grand slam finals? Evonne Goolagong Cawley.<\/p>\n
Who played in the singles final of the Australian Open seven years in a row throughout the 1970s, winning four titles? Evonne Goolagong Cawley.<\/p>\n
As that Trivial Pursuit game edged closer to the death and the stars above Koh Chang came to life, whenever a question started with \u201cWho\u201d and I didn\u2019t know the answer, I found myself blurting out \u201cEvonne Goolagong Cawley!\u201d (Related note: for questions starting with \u201cWhich\u201d, I recommend answering \u201cBattle of the Bulge\u201d, and for questions starting with \u201cWhat\u201d, always consider \u201cCoca-Cola\u201d.)<\/p>\n
Related Article Scoff if you will, dear reader, but I am here to tell you that I won that game, and handsomely so. And now, many moons later, I am in another beautiful, humid setting, approaching a modest suburban house near Noosa, to interview this tennis icon, cultural heroine and national treasure (not to mention trivia hack) \u2013 to ask new questions and see if she is still the answer.<\/p>\n Who says hello at the front gate wearing a blue linen shirt and colourful sheer skirt, with wavy brown hair framing a face of ineffable vitality? Evonne Goolagong Cawley.<\/p>\n Who takes me into her home and laughs and laughs and laughs \u2013 joyously and uproariously \u2013 47 times (by my count) over the course of three hours? Evonne Goolagong Cawley.<\/p>\n Who is somewhat hobbled by health issues these days, yet unwaveringly pragmatic and unrelentingly positive? Evonne Goolagong Cawley.<\/p>\n And who has something important to say \u2013 something to share about life, and love, and the universe \u2013 after 75 years on this planet, 51 of them married to the same lovely man?<\/p>\n Evonne Goolagong Cawley does.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been raining, and so everything outside has that luscious and alive feeling, but it\u2019s damp, too, so we sit at the dining table off her open-plan kitchen and lounge. Evonne faces away from the window, chunky sunglasses handy, just in case the light becomes too much. We\u2019ll discuss why later, along with the reason the love of her life, Roger Cawley, 76, is in an electric wheelchair, with a pair of walking sticks for getting up and down.<\/p>\n For the moment I want to go back to her mum and dad, Melinda and Kenny, and what Evonne got from them. Her dad, she says, was a very hard worker, which is how he ended up in the Riverina wheat-belt town of Barellan. He was a crack shearer and car- tinkerer \u2013 the great warm sun watching over his family. Her mum, meanwhile, was their placid moon \u2013 the type of person who strummed the guitar and sang her eight children to sleep every night. Every morning, she taught little Evonne perhaps the most important lesson of her life.<\/p>\n \u201cMum would always say, \u2018Bye, have a lovely day!\u2019 And then when I came back she would say, \u2018Did you have a lovely day?\u2019, because that\u2019s what concerned her,\u201d says Evonne. \u201cShe never asked how I\u2019d played, and that followed me throughout my career \u2013 making sure you have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n What stands out in her mind from that place and time isn\u2019t golden fields, but the rivers that snaked through the region, from the Murray to the Murrumbidgee, and the fun her family had swimming and fishing. \u201cIsn\u2019t it funny, the detail that sticks out in your brain?\u201d says Evonne, smiling. \u201cI see the gum leaves touching the water, and sending out ripples.\u201d<\/p>\n She was two years old when she found an old tennis ball, tattered and dirty, somewhere underneath the back seat of a junker her dad was working on in the front yard, but that ball became a treasure and totem \u2013 a magical object she squeezed for comfort. \u201cI wonder if squeezing it strengthened my hand at an early age?\u201d she ponders. \u201cLater on, Dad cut a handle out of a piece of wood from an apple crate, and I used it to hit that ball against the house walls and the water tank.\u201d<\/p>\n Inspiration came next, after a trip to the Barellan General Store, where she picked up a copy of Princess magazine, featuring a fairytale about a young tennis player who wins fame and fortune at a prestigious tournament in England. The place sounded so magical that I thought it must be make-believe, she writes in her new book, Only Ever Evonne (out September 29). When I found out Wimbledon was a real place in London, I was blown away.<\/p>\n The article became a treasured keepsake but also a self-fulfilling prophecy, daring her to learn the formalities and intricacies of the game, then master them. Her resulting playing style was characterised by fluid strokes, ethereal touch and graceful movement. Not for nothing did she earn the nickname \u201cSunshine Supergirl\u201d.<\/p>\n When the ball connected with my racquet, she writes, I felt connected to everything: the court below me, the sky above me and the world around me. It was an almost spiritual experience.<\/p>\n The best way to describe her play? Maybe with one of those five-dollar words that grizzled sports editors hate: insouciance. She had a legendary lightness, rarely seen since, but echoed in the proprioceptive balance of someone like Roger Federer. He was famous for that same poised, one-handed backhand (with heavy topspin). Evonne spotted the resemblance immediately. \u201cWatching him turn his shoulder, and go over and up, I\u2019d think, \u2018Ooooh, that must have felt gooood,\u2019\u2009\u201d she says, laughing, \u201cwith that complete, fluid follow-through.\u201d<\/p>\n She remembers little about specific points, games, matches or sets, but knows exactly what it felt like in that state of flow. \u201cI just remember the ball looked this big,\u201d she says, holding her hands around an imaginary sphere the size of a human head, \u201cand the line seemed so fat and wide,\u201d her hands apart like she\u2019s lifting a toaster. \u201cThere was no noise, and a feeling of complete slow motion. I just had so much time, and then I would hear the noise of the point finishing, with a winner.\u201d<\/p>\n More laughter follows, and then a smiling sigh.<\/p>\n \u201cI never watched myself,\u201d she points out. \u201cThat goes back to what my coach used to say, \u2018Don\u2019t believe in what you read, believe in yourself.\u2019 I carried that with me, too.\u201d<\/p>\n That coach, of course, was Victor Edwards. Anyone who has seen the three-part ABC miniseries Goolagong <\/a>will recognise the pivotal part \u201cMr Edwards\u201d played in her story. Her first impression of him, from when she was nine years old, was of a tall man wearing a white V-neck jumper and cream slacks, who looked and sounded \u201cimmaculate\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe good points about him?\u201d she says. \u201cHe was a very good coach. I really understood his directions.\u201d<\/p>\n But working with him meant leaving home and boarding with his family in Sydney, where Evonne was shy and homesick, yet could at least test herself in serious junior tennis tournaments. She started living there temporarily at 11, and cried every night in those first weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cThe one thing that kept me going was that I just loved playing tennis. I loved it enough never to tell Mum that I cried every night, or any other thing that happened with my coach,\u201d she says, pausing. \u201cBasically, he was a dirty old man. But he didn\u2019t get away with it. I stopped it pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n It started when she was a teenager, with his words \u2013 \u201cIf you want to learn about sex, come to me\u201d \u2013 before progressing to deeds, such as the day he cornered her in the office of the local tennis club. \u201cHe gave me a tongue kiss, and I surprised myself and said, \u2018You do that again, I\u2019ll bite it off!\u2019\u2006\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cI just walked out, and didn\u2019t tell anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n Occasionally, his dark words and deeds coalesced, too, such as the moment in a taxi in London, when she was in her 20s and he turned to her, put his hand on her leg above the knee, and declared his drunken feelings \u2013 part affection, part threat. \u201cYou know I love you so much,\u201d he said, with scotch on his breath, \u201cI could rape you.\u201d<\/p>\n Evonne simply turned and looked out the window, and realised she needed a plan for when they got back to the hotel. That plan was to make so much noise that people would inquire. When he followed her into her bathroom and tried to pull her into the bath, she called out loudly, and it worked. \u201cI got a call in the room from reception \u2013 a noise complaint \u2013 and was able to say, \u2018I\u2019m sorry about that, Mr Edwards is just leaving.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s a consistent figure throughout her story, scolding her both publicly and privately after losses, spreading rumours about her weaknesses as a player, while also exercising restrictive financial control. She wasn\u2019t free of him until the late 1970s.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess I\u2019d been through enough then that I knew how to handle it, and it just ran off my back. But now I think back to everything I\u2019ve done, and I realise I was quite tough,\u201d she says, beaming, \u201cin a quiet sort of way.\u201d<\/p>\n Evonne Goolagong Cawley, perhaps more than anyone I\u2019ve ever met, sees the good over the bad. This is a conscious choice \u2013 a kind of governing philosophy for living. She was given elocution lessons as a young woman in Sydney, for example, and where many might see a transplanted Indigenous girl being forced to walk in a white world, all she saw was preparation for her travels and the adventure of life.<\/p>\n The culture shock was real, but largely a source of fun, not fear. Like the time she was flummoxed on a trip to Newcastle, when it was her turn to make tea. A group of women called out and asked what was taking her so long: \u201cI said, \u2018It takes a long time to get the tea out of these stupid little bags!\u2019\u2006\u201d<\/p>\n Nothing seemed to weigh her down. At Willoughby Girls High School in Sydney\u2019s lower North Shore, she had to write an essay in which she pretended to be an early settler, and described her day in the new colony. \u201cWhat happened during my day was I tended my sheep, smoked my tobacky, and when the Aboriginal people came on my land, I shot \u2019em,\u201d she says. \u201cI got 10 out of 10!\u201d If that strikes you as inherently racist \u2013 that an Aboriginal child be asked to write an imagined account of bloody dispossession and is rewarded for doing so \u2013 it was nothing compared to facing her first overtly racist comment, after playing doubles against two older ladies.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it was time to shake hands, one of them said, \u2018This is the first time I\u2019ve had the pleasure of playing against a n—–.\u2019 And I did get really upset,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t tell Mum until later, and she said, \u2018Don\u2019t worry bub, they\u2019re just ig-or-ant\u2019. Mum never went to school \u2013 ig-or-ant \u2013 but she knew everything. And she knew that\u2019s what racism is about: ig-or-ance.\u201d<\/p>\n Evonne knew that she had a platform for presenting Indigenous Australians in a positive light, but she felt no pressure to do so. \u201cBeing a role model never entered my mind,\u201d she says. \u201cMum always said, \u2018Just be yourself,\u2019 and I just loved playing so much, it was all I ever wanted to do. I loved travelling to different countries, meeting different people.\u201d<\/p>\n That became harder when she toured South Africa. Many felt let down by the decision to go, given the Apartheid policy, but the decision was made by her coach. She does remember, however, the stark dichotomy in the grandstands. \u201cIt did scare me when I first went there, to see all the crowds \u2013 people sitting in the black section and the white section, all in suits and hats.\u201d But she also remembers a black woman approaching her to share a thought. \u201cI don\u2019t know what the fuss is about,\u201d Evonne, laughing now, recalls her saying. \u201cYou\u2019re not even black!\u201d<\/p>\n Tennis great Margaret Court looked after her well on that visit, she recalls, eating with her every night. Court also used to invite her to stay at her home in Perth whenever they were playing against one another in Western Australia. Court, of course, has more than courted controversy in recent years, with her conservative faith<\/a> compelling her to oppose same-sex marriage and compare transgender acceptance<\/a> to \u201cthe work of the devil\u201d. Long before that, she asserted that \u201clesbianism has ruined women\u2019s tennis\u201d.<\/p>\n Evonne doesn\u2019t agree with those sentiments. But equally, she finds it hard to hang someone who showed her such kindness. Her husband, Roger, explains: \u201cMargaret was just someone who had a religious experience,\u201d he says. \u201cGod spoke to her at a time when she was feeling really down. But that point of view she has is so unnecessary, for such a great person.\u201d<\/p>\n Evonne feels sad not just for the hurt caused to the LGBTQI+ community, but to those within their shared tennis community, like her good friend Billie Jean King. \u201cI don\u2019t agree with many of the things Margaret has said, but my main thing is that love is the main thing,\u201d she says. \u201cI believe that God is love for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n On the second day that I interview Evonne Goolagong Cawley, she comes armed with a prop. It\u2019s a deck of \u201cangel cards\u201d \u2013 one of many so-called oracle decks (like tarot cards) enjoyed by people who consider themselves searchers. She bought them in a local crystal store. \u201cEvery few days, I do them before I go to sleep,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd last night after we spoke, this card came up.\u201d<\/p>\n The title says Learning Experience, and it has a picture of a hooded figure holding a lantern, meant to convey inner peace and security, derived from overcoming hardships. Without the challenges that life has presented to you, you wouldn\u2019t be the person that you are today, it reads. This is a time for you to reflect upon the incredible strength you have.<\/p>\n \u2018When I saw her something went \u201cclick\u201d and from that moment on, I was besotted.\u2019<\/p>\n Roger Cawley on meeting Evonne in 1970<\/p>\n \u201cI agree with that,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel that all these hardships in my life have made me a strong person.\u201d<\/p>\n She shuffles the deck, fans them out, and I pluck one from the middle. The card is Holy Love: You are blessed to receive this card today, for it shows that you are being surrounded by loving energy, and the cup of your heart will be filled, until it overflows with goodness.<\/p>\n How nice.<\/p>\n \u201cOooh, I\u2019ve never had that one,\u201d she says. \u201cWell there you go!\u201d<\/p>\n The holy love story of Roger and Evonne begins in 1970 at a wine and cheese party on the outskirts of London, when the young man with long hair and roguish charm spotted the self-conscious tennis star on the fringe of the soir\u00e9e. \u201cI remember you coming in,\u201d says Roger, \u201cand I remember you staring, and I remember me staring, and that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n That night, after a short drive through town, they found themselves dancing on the seventh green of Guildford Golf Course, at one point looking up from their giggling moonlight waltz \u2013 an English boy and an Aboriginal girl \u2013 to find a cow gazing up at them in puzzlement.<\/p>\n \u201cI had read all about her in magazines,\u201d Roger says. \u201cBut when I saw her, something went click, and from that moment on I was besotted, and by the end of the year I was totally in love.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe seemed really nice, this man \u2013 and funny! That\u2019s what got me. He definitely knew how to make me laugh,\u201d Evonne says. \u201cWe\u2019ve been married 50 years now. Actually, 51!\u201d<\/p>\n I wonder what they\u2019ve learnt about love \u2013 or if they have any advice for people hoping to last that long?<\/p>\n Roger: \u201cYou\u2019ve got me!\u201d<\/p>\n Evonne: \u201cI\u2019ve forgotten!\u201d<\/p>\n They devolve momentarily into cackles and guffaws.<\/p>\n Evonne: \u201cYou\u2019ve gotta have a sense of humour \u2013 about everything. That\u2019s what keeps us going through the really bad times.\u201d<\/p>\n Roger: \u201cWe laugh at the silliest things, and the same things, at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n Their daughter, Kelly Inala Cawley, was born in 1977 \u2013 Inala meaning \u201cpeace\u201d or \u201cpeaceful place\u201d. Then son, Morgan Kyeema Cawley, was born in 1981 \u2013 Kyeema being \u201cthe dawn\u201d or \u201cnew beginning\u201d. And that was a beginning, in a way, of a whole new chapter in their mother\u2019s life.<\/p>\n Evonne retired in 1983 and, as with almost any top-tier athlete, she went through a period of mourning \u2013 re-evaluating her reason for being. \u201cIt was so depressing,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was like going into a dark space.\u201d She was given medication but unfortunately has allergic or adverse reactions to many drugs, including antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and yes, anti-depressants. \u201cI think I just sulked. I was miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n Emerging slowly, she found a new way to enjoy life, and spent a lot of time fishing where they lived in South Carolina. \u201cIt\u2019s so relaxing and beautiful. It\u2019s calming. And being Aboriginal, you\u2019re connecting to the land, the water, the trees \u2013 the beauty of the place \u2013 and you\u2019re very much a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Evonne\u2019s father had passed away in 1974 at the absolute peak of her career, but when her mother finally died in 1991, it became the catalyst for a move home from the United States. She had seen and done so much. Had her hair styled by Vidal Sassoon and her photo taken in the Oval Office with Ronald Reagan. She counted Kenny Rogers among her close friends, even travelling to the Bahamas to go scuba diving with the country star. \u201cOne time when Kenny came to stay with us in South Carolina, I called up Mum \u2013 who was a big fan \u2013 and I said \u2018Mum, I\u2019ve got someone here to talk to you.\u2019 It made her so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n Evonne wanted to be back on her mother\u2019s Country, too. Very early in her career, Edwards had disparagingly attributed any lack of focus on court as Evonne going \u201cwalkabout\u201d \u2013 now she wanted to do so properly. She went to mission shacks and rock-art sites, always meeting with elders and gaining their permission to visit sacred places. She camped by rivers and slept under the stars and drove down a dirt track in South Australia, headed for the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, where she was allowed to do sacred women\u2019s business.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was amazing. I can\u2019t talk about it, but they were all laughing at the expressions on my face,\u201d she says, laughing yet again. \u201cThat answered a lot of questions that I had. Very powerful. Good for the soul. I felt stronger and more connected to everything \u2013 to the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n The tale of Roger and Evonne doesn\u2019t end here, in this living room in southern Queensland, but their story is \u2013 at least right now \u2013 confined to this place. Ordinarily an active couple, this is the first year in many that they haven\u2019t been able to travel, due to an array of health concerns.<\/p>\n First, Roger. He had a heart attack in both his 50s and 60s, and a third one only recently, along with a diagnosis of distal dystrophy \u2013 a genetic disorder characterised by the slow weakening and eventual atrophy of his muscles. \u201cI woke up one morning and couldn\u2019t move,\u201d he explains. \u201cEvery muscle in my body was throbbing. I was scared stiff.\u201d<\/p>\n His doctor had no idea what it was, but specialists at the Mayo Clinic eventually identified the problem and suggested vague forms of mitigation and preparation. \u201cThe thing they were putting off saying is that I can\u2019t get rid of it,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s no way it goes away. It just gets worse. That took some adjustment.\u201d<\/p>\n And Evonne?<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s my bag of health issues,\u201d she says, plonking a big plastic folder on the table between us, filled with notes and prescriptions. Her most pressing condition is the fallout from a concussion last year, after catching the toe of her shoe on a step outside her front door. \u201cI just fell flat on my face and body, really hard, and I remember seeing stars. But I got up straight away.\u201d<\/p>\n Fooled into a false sense of security, it wasn\u2019t until a trip to Darwin in support of her charity \u2013 the Evonne Goolagong Foundation \u2013 that she felt the brunt of the blow. She was thirsty, and so tired, too, with vertigo. She shows me a leaflet about concussion in which she\u2019s underlined in biro all the symptoms she experiences.<\/p>\n Trouble focusing. Trouble remembering things. Slow and foggy. Sensitivity to light and noise. Having trouble sleeping. Feeling dizzy. Feeling tired. Feeling anxious or worried. Feeling more frustrated.<\/p>\n I find it hard to picture her frustrated.<\/p>\n \u201cI keep it to myself,\u201d she responds, laughing.<\/p>\n The other issue is giant cell arteritis \u2013 an inflammatory condition causing everything from stiffness to soreness to throbbing headaches. She doesn\u2019t know if it\u2019s progressive or temporary. She knows she\u2019s supposed to take prednisolone for the concussion and tocilizumab for the giant cell arteritis, but she has bad reactions to both drugs, including a bloated face and raised cholesterol. Oh, and she\u2019s recently had a nasty bout of respiratory syncytial virus, and hip surgery to boot.<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bd1b6e165a8d20941f2b02cb0094626ed077d48a765ade631e1a577935758ffb.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Evonne](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/311d9c0ecff03be55889857dc9b7bdb6e7327e4d.jpeg\")
Evonne at her debut in 1969 with her mother, Melinda.Courtesy of Evonne Goolagong Cawley<\/p>\n![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/49bc84eab39695707d54177ff035d78de5f758b3.jpeg\")
In 1999 with a replica of her first tennis \u201cracquet\u201d.AAPIMAGE<\/p>\n![\"With](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/d3b75f98da113ff140c6b32135fec600063c38c5.jpeg\")
With coach Victor Edwards in 1964, a consistent but controversial figure in her early life.Search Foundation\/Mitchell Library<\/p>\n![\"At](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/36705485422857bd1e80076b238f9168324db166.jpeg\")
At her wheat-belt childhood home with her early trophies: \u201cMum made me pose with them in the backyard,\u201d she says.Courtesy of Evonne Goolagong Cawley<\/p>\n![\"Playing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/509d162504387a1aa04eccb1527558a8c8846d60.jpeg\")
Playing doubles with Margaret Court in London in 1971. Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"With](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6d0a282e0f288ad7cc44b228560f4a60a4684994.jpeg\")
With husband Roger Cawley at an Australian Open Inspirational Series event in 2025.Tennis Australia\/Fiona Hamilton<\/p>\n![\"Evonne](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/0d8942ad0d7178152c5bffbfeec521643f2a3a88.jpeg\")
Evonne with son, Morgan Kyeema, daughter Kelly Inala, and husband Roger Cawley.Courtesy of Evonne Goolagong Cawley<\/p>\n![\"With](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/61241a073f3b6fabe25d79441751b7f0a6eb4009.jpeg\")
With close friend, singer Kenny Rogers, in 2015 at the Australian Open.Getty Images<\/p>\n
![\"Alex](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/edeaf982b12fbfcf8cdff15bfedd7d0696e00d1e.jpeg\")
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