Did someone forget Pat?

Sy Lerman

In a bid to rekindle the morale of women’s tennis in South Africa, currently at its lowest level, Tennis South Africa has honoured five of the most notable players of the past – but a little surprisingly, perhaps, left out Pat Pretorius, who guided the country to its most finest women’s tennis triumph while beating a powerful Great Britain team that included Virginia Wade at Ellis Park in 1972 and annexing a solitary Fed Cup title.

The five players of special note mentioned by TSA are Sandra Reynolds, Sheila Summers, Renee Schuurman, Annette du Plooy and Amanda Coetzer, while another valid contender apart from Pretorius is her doubles partner against the British side, Brenda Kirk.

Reynolds was a Wimbledon singles finalist, losing only to Brazil’s magnetic Maria Bueno and winning four Grand Slam women’s doubles titles and one mixed doubles title.

The diminutive Coetzer, nicknamed the “Little Assassin” for her penchant of upsetting the world’s most renowned players, scaled the heights of world No 3, reached three Grand Slam singles semifinals and won the Hopman Cup in partnership with Wayne Ferreira.

Summers annexed three Grand Slam mixed doubles titles, including two at Wimbledon, in partnership with Eric Sturgess, and was a two-time Grand Slam singles semifinalist.

Schuurman won five women’s Grand Slam doubles titles and one mixed doubles title.

Du Plooy reached a world ranking of sixth in singles, reached two Grand Slam singles semifinals and won one Grand Slam mixed doubles title.

As the hit song reminds one, “those were the days, my friend,” with only one South African women tennis player curently among the top 300, others struggling to make the top 1 000 and the country relegated to the lower regions of the Fed Cup.