Christine Truman was a member of a tight-knit, supportive tennis-playing family. She often entered the Wimbledon mixed doubles with her brother
Humphrey. She formed a successful doubles partnership with her younger sister Nell Truman. She was the British junior champion in 1956 and 1957. Truman made her debut at
Wimbledon in 1957 at age 16, beating the then French Open champion
Shirley Bloomer and
Betty Rosenquest, and eventually losing to eventual champion
Althea Gibson in the semifinals. She also beat
Dorothy Knode and won her doubles with Shirley Bloomer. In doubles at Wimbledon, Truman partnered
Beverly Baker to reach the women's doubles final (where they lost to
Darlene Hard and Jeanne Arth). In 1960, she was the third seed at Wimbledon, where she lost the semifinals to Maria Bueno in three sets. She also lost to Bueno in the semifinals of the U.S. Open. She teamed with Bueno to win the women's doubles title at the
Australian Championships that year. She won the British Hard Courts championships by beating
Angela Mortimer in three sets and Ann Haydon in two. She also won Queen's, beating future Wimbledon winner
Karen Hantze. In 1961, she defeated the second seed
Margaret Smith in the quarterfinals after trailing 4–1 in the final set and saving two match points. She then beat
Renée Schuurman in the semifinals in straight sets but lost to fellow Briton Angela Mortimer in the final. In July 1962, it was revealed that Truman is partially blind in her left eye. After a poor year in 1962, she came back in 1963 to reach the semifinals of the French and quarterfinals of the U.S. Open, losing in three sets to Margaret Smith. She also won Monte Carlo in 1964 beating top ten players Helga Schultze,
Vera Suková, and
Jan Lehane and the South African championships in 1965, beating
Françoise Dürr and
Annette Van Zyl. She also won the doubles with
Margaret Hunt Price. Truman had another comparatively successful Wimbledon run in 1965, when unseeded, she defeated sixth-seeded
Carole Caldwell Graebner,
Judy Tegart,
Julie Heldman, and fourth-seeded
Nancy Richey. Her run to the semifinals held some irony as it was the first time in Wimbledon history that no British player had been seeded in the women's championship. She was defeated by no. 2 seed (and eventual champion)
Margaret Smith in the semifinals. She had been affected by injury and illness in 1961, 1964, and 1965. In 1965, during practice for the Wightman Cup, Truman severely hurt her Achilles tendon for the second time, and this injury led to an 18-month gap in her career. After this injury, she was not ranked in the world's top 10 again. In April 1968, she and her sister Nell Truman became the first winners of an
open tennis event by winning the women's doubles title at the
British Hard Court Championships in Bournemouth. Her tennis was primarily offencive, reaching the net at the earliest possibility. She had a flat forehand of superb power, balanced with a sliced backhand, outstanding volleys and smash and hard serve. During her career, Truman had wins over most of the other leading players of her day, including Althea Gibson (Wightman Cup 1958); Maria Bueno (Pacific Coast 1958 and Caribbean 1959); Darlene Hard several times, notably in the Wightman Cup in 1959; British rivals Angela Mortimer, Ann Haydon, Shirley Bloomer Brasher, all on several occasions; Zsuszi Körmöczy, Margaret Smith,
Billie Jean Moffitt, Sandra Reynolds, Karen Hantze, and
Lesley Turner. In December 1967, she married former
Wasps player
Gerry Janes and they have four children, including former pro tennis player
Amanda Keen and six grand children. The couple remain married, but Gerry Janes has been living in managed care since being diagnosed with dementia. She retired from tennis in 1975 and became a commentator for
BBC Radio in the same year. In the
2001 Birthday Honours, she was appointed a
Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to lawn tennis. Since 2011 she has published several children's books. As of 2023, Truman is known as Doctor Christine Janes. ==Grand Slam finals==