Editing Sue Barker (section)

==Tennis career==
Aged 16, and ranked 21st in the WTA rankings, Barker was advised by Roberts to move to the United States for her development.<ref name=Indp1082723 /> Signed by [[Mark McCormack]]'s [[IMG (company)|International Management Group (IMG)]] on her 17th birthday, she moved to an IMG-provided townhouse in Newport Beach, California, where her neighbours included the newly retired [[Rod Laver]], and was coached at the [[John Wayne Tennis Club]].<ref name=Indp1082723 />

In 1973 and 1974 she won the [[Exmouth Open]] at [[Exmouth, Devon]], on both occasions against [[Annette Coe]]. In 1975, Barker won her first top-level singles title and three additional titles. Barker reached her first Grand Slam semi-final in 1975 at the Australian Open. She won the [[Qatar Telecom German Open|German Open]] in 1976, beating [[Renáta Tomanová]] of Czechoslovakia in the final 6–3, 6–1.

Later in 1976, Barker had the biggest victory of her career by winning the French Open at the age of 20, again defeating Tomanová in the final.<ref name="French">{{cite news |title=Barker recalls her golden moment |work=BBC Sport |date=21 May 2004 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/3735281.stm |access-date=18 May 2007}}</ref> After her French Open victory against Tomanová, Barker felt that it would be the first of a number of Grand Slam titles that she would win, but she would not reach another Grand Slam final in her career.<ref name="French" />

In 1977 Barker won two singles titles in San Francisco and Dallas. She beat [[Martina Navratilova]] to reach the [[WTA Tour Championships|Virginia Slims Tour Championships]] final, where she lost in three sets to [[Chris Evert]]. Barker reached the Australian Open semi-final for the second time in 1977 and reached the [[The Championships, Wimbledon|Wimbledon]] semi-final that year. She looked set to meet [[Virginia Wade]] in the Wimbledon final in 1977, but unexpectedly lost her semi-final against [[Betty Stöve]] of the Netherlands.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/discovering/famous/sue_barker.shtml |title=Devon – Discover Devon |publisher=BBC |date=30 January 2008 |access-date=29 December 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130715145406/http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/discovering/famous/sue_barker.shtml |archive-date=15 July 2013 |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

Years later, Barker said that losing to Stöve was the biggest disappointment of her career and admitted that she was so upset at losing in the 1977 Wimbledon semi-final that she could not bear to watch the final, which was won by Wade.<ref>{{cite news |first=Jon |last=Henderson |url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2007/jul/08/tennis.wimbledon5 |title=Tennis: Say it's not so Sue |work=The Guardian |date=8 July 2007 |access-date=29 December 2012 |location=London}}</ref>

After an injury-plagued 1978 during which her ranking dropped to World No. 24, she won three singles titles and reached three other finals in 1979. She was named the tour's "Comeback Player of the Year" by her fellow professionals.<ref name="WTA1">{{cite web |title=Sue Barker (GBR) |publisher=Sony Ericsson WTA Tour |url=http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/2/players/playerprofiles/PlayerBio2.asp?PlayerID=20172 |access-date=18 May 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930102103/http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/2/players/playerprofiles/PlayerBio2.asp?PlayerID=20172 <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=30 September 2007}}</ref> Barker reached one final in 1980 and won the last singles title of her career at the [[Brighton International]] in 1981, finishing the year ranked World No. 16. She won her last doubles title in 1982 at Cincinnati and played her last professional match in 1984.

Barker won 15 singles titles and 12 doubles titles, with wins over [[Chris Evert]], [[Martina Navratilova]], [[Billie Jean King]], [[Evonne Goolagong]], [[Tracy Austin]], [[Virginia Wade]], [[Maria Bueno]], [[Rosemary Casals]], [[Andrea Jaeger]] and [[Pam Shriver]]. In 2004, recalling her French Open win of 1976, Barker said "I'm still incredibly proud of what I achieved."<ref name="French" />