Angela Mortimer was born on 21 April 1932 in
Plymouth, England. Mortimer reached the quarterfinals of the US National Championships, then lost to second seed
Doris Hart. At Wimbledon in 1953, seeded no. 5, she reached the quarterfinals, losing to
Dorothy Knode. She also reached the quarterfinals in 1954, 1956 (losing to countrywoman Pat Ward Hales), 1959 (when she was seeded no. 2 but lost to
Sandra Reynolds), and 1960 (losing to champion
Maria Bueno). At Wimbledon in 1958, unseeded, she beat former champion
Margaret Osborne duPont in the quarterfinals, then French champion
Zsuzsa Körmöczy in the semifinals, and lost the final against the defending champion
Althea Gibson in straight sets. In 1961, she won the title, defeating top-seeded Sandra Reynolds in the semifinals and then
Christine Truman in the final in three sets, making her the first British winner of the women's title since Dorothy Round in 1937. Not fully fit in 1962, she lost to eventual finalist
Vera Suková in the fourth round. In 1955, she was the first British woman since 1937 to win a major tournament when she defeated Dorothy Knode in the final of the
French Championships. During the long final set, she has said that she was given new heart when she heard her opponent asking for a brandy on court. Defending her title the following year, she reached the final, losing to Althea Gibson in two sets. During 1956 she contracted
amoebic dysentery in Egypt and did not return to full form until 1958. Her game was played mainly from the baseline, as described in her tennis autobiography
My Waiting Game. She always played in shorts, Addressing how her deafness affected her play, as the ability to hear the ball coming off the racket strings is an aid to most, she told the International Tennis Hall of Fame website "It helped me concentrate, shutting out distractions." She was inducted into the
International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1993, joined by her husband John Barrett in 2014. The only other married couple in the Hall is Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi. In 2004 Mortimer was one of five British Wimbledon women's singles champions honoured by a bust unveiled outside
Centre Court. The busts were sculpted in bronze by
Ian Rank-Broadley. On 27 July 2014, she received the
Freedom of the Borough of
Merton. ==Death==