大象传媒

Sue Barker has enjoyed two successful careers – as tennis player and broadcaster.

As a presenter, she has hosted everything from Grandstand to A Question of Sport, the Commonwealth Games to the Olympics, but she is best known and loved for her central role in the 大象传媒’s Wimbledon coverage. In 2022 she announced her retirement after 30 years, and there wasn’t a dry eye on Centre Court as spectators – and the greats of the game – bid her an emotional goodbye. As John McEnroe put it – “She just is Wimbledon”.

Her very first trip to the home of British tennis was as an aspiring player aged just 13, fresh off the minibus from Devon. She would go on to become the world number three, a Wimbledon semi-finalist, and the winner of the French Open. Here’s what we learned from her Desert Island Discs…

1. She was an unexpected youngest child

Sue was born in 1956 to Bob and Betty in Paignton, Devon but as she recounts, she wasn’t the longed-for third child as her parents had planned to stop at two.

"My dad particularly,” says Sue. “He worked really hard, but they just budgeted for two kids, and they didn't have a lot of money left over. And then a few months after my brother was born suddenly Mum was pregnant again.”

Laughing, Sue adds: “She always said, ‘I really, I didn't, I didn't want you, I feel so bad about it’. But my mum and I had the most wonderful relationship. They [had to] cut corners, which is why I really salute them in giving me my tennis career as well because they couldn't afford even to buy me a tennis racquet. It was a huge thing because if you have three children, you can't favour one.”

2. Her father enjoyed an active lifestyle. Her mother less so...

There was a 16-year gap in Sue’s parents’ ages and her dad was in his 50s when she was born.

“I never ever thought he was an older dad,” says Sue. “He was fit and healthy. I mean even while he was in his 60s, we were climbing Haytor on Dartmoor together, waving to Mum... and he was a wonderful, wonderful dad.”

Betty, Sue’s mum, lived to the age of 100, although a healthy lifestyle was never a priority for her:

“Not at all,” says Sue. “She wasn't known as Betty Six Gins for nothing! Every time the clock ticked up to 6 o'clock, the gin and tonic would come out.”

“But also, everything she’d eat was wrong. I keep looking at food and trying different diets and how to be healthy. My mum – everything was white bread, processed meats, no water, never drank water, and she lived to 100, so maybe we're all getting it wrong,” Sue laughs.

3. A PE teacher provided vital early encouragement on the tennis court

Sue recalls that she fell in love with tennis at the age of six or seven: “My sister Jane had started playing, and I said, ‘Can I come and play?’ and she goes: ‘No, but you can get down the other end and just send the balls back to me.’ So I used to try and get down the other and try and hit the balls back over to her.”

“It wasn't until I met my PE teacher at my junior school, Mrs Chadwick – who was wonderful – and she used to stay behind at school and do little tests for me because via the Lawn Tennis Association, young kids, if you hit 20 balls over the net without a mistake, or if you got seven serves in without missing one, you'd get a little certificate. And she made me take all of these tests and it just made me want more because I wanted the next certificate, I wanted to keep improving.”

4. Some of her most vocal early fans were nuns

Sue moved to a convent school, where the nuns would attend her matches to lend their support. “They weren't afraid to give it some, they were shouting and screaming and then they would say: ‘We're praying for you, Sue.’”

“It didn't do my street cred a huge amount [of good],” says Sue, “when I arrived in the minibus getting out with all these nuns around me. But they were wonderful... they used to give me afternoons off and even weeks off. Even my O-Levels I took in November, not in the summer, so I could go off and play tennis. I wouldn't have had a career if those nuns hadn't given me that time off.”

5. The legendary coach Arthur Roberts changed her life – but Sue wasn’t his first choice

When the local tennis coach Arthur Roberts came to Sue’s school scouting for the next generation of star players, he was already renowned for guiding Devon youngsters to great success – including Plymouth-born Angela Mortimer, who won Wimbledon in 1961.

“I remember it like it was yesterday. I can remember what the weather was like,” says Sue. “It was just such a moment because he was a hero in Torbay. He had already taken local kids and made them superstars. Every year he would take two players from the new batch of kids that came in. Just two.”

“And he very quickly selected Judy, Judy Reeve, a friend of mine,” continues Sue. “And so, there was one spot, seven of us, competing for one spot. I just so, so wanted this and I was trying – I probably tried too hard – and running around all over the place. In the end, he said ‘I'll have her’, pointing to me, and he said: ‘She's not the best here... but she looks like she could be.’ He could see something in me.”

6. One of her musical choices for the island is inspired by a move she made aged 17

Sue recalls that when she was 17, Arthur Roberts told her that she had outgrown the UK. He advised her to move to the USA to join the growing women’s tennis circuit there.

“I had just passed my driving test two months before and I'm on a plane to Los Angeles and I got to LAX and went to rent my car. I was so excited I upgraded myself to a convertible!”

“And I'm driving down the freeway as a 17-year-old, down the 405 Highway to Newport Beach thinking this is the life. And on the radio comes this song and I thought: ‘Yep, that's me. I've arrived.’”

The song is California Girls by The Beach Boys.

7. She still has vivid memories of winning the French Open in 1976

“[I was] absolutely terrified,” says Sue, “Because this was the dream – to win a Slam. Rankings are important, but legacy is the Grand Slams and I wanted to be a Grand Slam champion, so it just meant so much to me.” Her opponent that day was the Czech player Renáta Tomanová. “I'd beaten her easily twice before on the clay, but I was mentally having this real problem,” recalls Sue.

Sue won the first set 6-2 but lost the second set 6-0.

“In the second set, the panic sets in and then it's like an avalanche. You just can't stop,” says Sue. “I just was playing so badly, but they had this rule before the final set. You could have a 10-to-15-minute break and I managed to regroup, think what Arthur would say and went out and won it and that just means everything to me.”

“Having said that, I was only young, 20, and I thought this would be the first of many. If I'd have known it was going to be my only one, I would have danced around the court, I would have kissed the umpire. But it was magical.”

8. An unexpected phone message opened the door to her second career

At the age of 28, Sue decided to retire from professional tennis, and immediately received a deluge of interview requests. She ignored them all except one: a message asking her to call “Gordon Bennett”. She was intrigued because she assumed it was a friend playing a practical joke. Imagining the phone being answered with the words “Gordon Bennett! You retired!”, she called the number.

Instead of a pal playing a prank, it was the head of Channel 7 in Australia offering her job on air – the first step on a new career in sports broadcasting. In 1993 she joined the 大象传媒 and has since then fronted Wimbledon, the Olympics and A Question of Sport, as well as the show whose theme music is one of her musical choices:

“It's the one that I think I was most proud to do because it was what I used to watch every Saturday… sitting with my dad and my mum. It's a magical piece of music and it means everything to anyone who loves sport.”

The music is the theme tune from Grandstand, the long-running 大象传媒 Sport show.