Zina Garrison

Playing career

Zina Garrison was born in Houston on 16 November 1963, the youngest of seven children, and began playing at ten at the MacGregor Park programme, where John Wilkerson became her coach. In 1981 she won the Wimbledon and US Open girls' titles and was the world's top junior. She turned professional in 1982, reached the French Open quarter-finals in her first event, and stayed in the world's top 25 into the mid-1990s, with a highest ranking of No. 4 in 1989.

She won 14 singles and 20 doubles titles on the tour, Olympic gold in the doubles with Pam Shriver and bronze in the singles at Seoul in 1988, and three major mixed titles: the 1987 Australian Open, the last played on grass at Kooyong, and Wimbledon 1988, both with Sherwood Stewart, and Wimbledon 1990 with Rick Leach. Her best singles run came at Wimbledon in 1990, when she beat Monica Seles and Steffi Graf to reach the final, the first Black woman in a major singles final since Althea Gibson in 1958; she lost it to Martina Navratilova.

She played her last Wimbledon singles in 1995 and later captained the US Fed Cup team from 2004 to 2008, the first Black player in that role, and coached the US women's team at the Olympics. Early in her career she dealt with the eating disorder bulimia, which she later spoke about publicly. With Wilkerson she founded the Zina Garrison Foundation in 1988, and her academy in Houston has taught tennis to inner-city children since 1992.

On grass

Every grass title: 9

Show every title, tournament by tournament

Wimbledon
1988	Mixed doubles	with Sherwood Stewart
1990	Mixed doubles	with Rick Leach
Birmingham
1990	Women's singles
1994	Women's doubles	with Larisa Neiland
1995	Women's singles
Australian Championships
1987	Mixed doubles Australian Open	with Sherwood Stewart
New South Wales Championships
1987	Women's singles† New South Wales Open
Eastbourne
1989	Women's doubles	with Katrina Adams
Newport, Rhode Island
1989	Women's singles Virginia Slims of Newport

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

"I just guessed right at the right time. And the main thing, I wasn't afraid of her power. A lot of people are afraid of her power when she hits the forehand."