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Ann Jones (tennis)

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Ann Jones (tennis)

Ann Shirley Jones (born Adrianne Haydon; 17 October 1938), also known as Ann Haydon-Jones, is an English former tennis and table tennis champion. She won eight Grand Slam tennis championships in her career: three in singles, three in women's doubles and two in mixed doubles. In 2023, she served as a vice president of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

Jones was born in Kings Heath, Birmingham, England. Her parents were prominent table tennis players, her father, Adrian Haydon, having been English number 1 and a competitor at world championships between 1928 and 1953. Ann, as a young girl, also took up the game, participating in five world championships in the 1950s, the best result being losing finalist in singles, doubles and mixed doubles all in Stockholm 1957. Soon after this she wrote the book Tackle Table Tennis This Way.

Jones also won two English Open titles in women's doubles as Haydon.

Jones was also a powerful lawn tennis player, winning the 1954 and 1955 British junior championships. In 1956, she won the Wimbledon girls' singles championship.

Jones played lawn tennis in a highly competitive era that included some of the greatest female tennis players of all time, such as Billie Jean King, Margaret Court, and Maria Bueno. Despite the fierce competition, she won the 1961 French Championships, beating Margaret Smith, former champion Zsuzsa Körmöczy and Yola Ramírez and reached the final of the 1961 U.S. Championships, beating Wimbledon champion Angela Mortimer, losing to the defending champion Darlene Hard. In 1962, she married Philip F. Jones and played as Ann Haydon-Jones. A debilitating back and neck injury hampered her career in 1964/1965, yet she recovered sufficiently to reach the quarterfinals of the French championships in 1965, yet was controversially unseeded for that year's Wimbledon singles. This led to a fourth-round clash with the top-seeded defending champion Maria Bueno, which many thought was an imbalanced draw. Jones won the French title for a second time in 1966, beating Maria Bueno and Nancy Richey. She also won the Italian championships that year, beating Françoise Dürr and Annette Van Zyl.

At both the Wimbledon Championships and the U.S. Championships in 1967, Jones lost in the final to King. Two years later, however, the two again met in the Wimbledon final. This time, Jones took the most coveted title in the sport, making her the first left-handed female player to do so. She rounded off that year's Wimbledon by winning the mixed doubles championship with Australia's Fred Stolle. Her performances resulted in her being voted the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Jones made Wimbledon 1969 her last Grand Slam singles event. She was seeded number one for the 1969 US Open but withdrew before the tournament began. She radically reduced her playing schedule for 1970, playing in South Africa where she won the Orange Free State Championships and the Western Province Championships. She then largely played only events in the United Kingdom for the remainder of the year. She returned to the international scene to play the Federation Cup event in Australia, where she partnered Virginia Wade on the British team. In 1971, Jones played on the Virginia Slims circuit, winning the U.S.$10,000 first prize for the event staged in Las Vegas, beating King in the final. Jones more or less retired after this event as she was expecting her first child. However, she continued to play the occasional UK event and was part of the 1975 Wightman Cup team for Great Britain. In 1977, Jones teamed with Winnie Wooldridge to play doubles at Wimbledon.

According to Lance Tingay and Bud Collins, Jones was ranked in the world top 10 from 1957 through 1963 and from 1965 through 1970, reaching a career high of world No. 2 in these rankings in 1967 and 1969.

According to Mark Lewisohn in The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, on 4 July 1969, The Beatles paused the dubbing session for their song "Golden Slumbers" to listen to Jones beat King for the Wimbledon title when live on radio.

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