Beryl Penrose Collier

Playing career

Beryl Penrose was born in Sydney on 22 December 1930. In January 1948 she won the Australian girls' singles title, and she played the Australian Championships every year from 1950 to 1957. In 1952 she travelled to Britain and in July won the singles at the Welsh Championships. At home she formed a doubles partnership with Mary Bevis Hawton: they were runners-up to the Americans Maureen Connolly and Julia Sampson in 1953, then won the title in 1954 and 1955.

Her best year was 1955. At Memorial Drive, Adelaide, she won the Australian singles, beating Thelma Coyne Long 6-4, 6-3 in the final, and kept the doubles with Hawton. Overseas she reached the quarter-finals of the French Championships and Wimbledon, played four finals and won the German Championships against Erika Vollmer. Lance Tingay ranked her fifth in the world. In 1956, at Milton in Brisbane, she won the Australian mixed doubles with Neale Fraser.

She married in 1957 and gave up competitive tennis to start a family. She was inducted into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame in 2017 and died in June 2021, aged 90, at which time she was the oldest living Australian women's singles champion.

On grass

Every grass title: 6

Show every title, tournament by tournament

Australian Championships
1954	Women's doubles	with Mary Bevis Hawton
1955	Women's doubles	with Mary Bevis Hawton
1955	Women's singles
1956	Mixed doubles	with Neale Fraser
Welsh Championships
1952	Women's singles†
New South Wales Championships
1954	Women's singles†

Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. † single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions