Every US Open championship run is memorable. After all, the courts of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center are professional tennis’ ultimate proving grounds. To win here, you need the whole package: intelligence, desire, stamina and courage. You need to own every shot in the book, and when that’s not enough, you need to be ready to write a new chapter or two.
But since the dawn of Open tennis in 1968, some of those championship runs have been particularly memorable and especially impressive. Some have been unexpected; some have included particularly large hurdles. Some have taken an extra degree of toughness and a double shot of tenacity.
Throughout the summer, as we make our way toward new memories at the 2021 US Open, tennis historian Steve Flink, himself enshrined in the International Tennis Hall of Fame, will be recounting some of the most notable, improbable, and particularly memorable championship runs in US Open history. In this installment, he looks at Tracy Austin’s determined march to the 1979 US Open women’s title.
Making her eagerly awaited debut at the 1977 US Open, the precocious and diminutive 14-year-old Tracy Austin went all the way to the quarterfinals before losing to the Dutchwoman Betty Stove on the clay at Forest Hills. A year later, the supremely disciplined and determined Austin was once more among the last eight. She was beaten this time by Chris Evert on the hard courts as the Open shifted grounds from the stately West Side Tennis Club to the public facility at Flushing Meadows that would later be known as the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Austin was improving steadily and persuasively as she moved through the middle of her teens, but in 1979, the refinements she made in her magnificent backcourt game—along with her extraordinarily mature outlook—turned this steely competitor into a much more dangerous and accomplished player at the age of 16. During that remarkable season, Austin achieved some milestone triumphs, demonstrating undeniably that she was destined for something substantial at the 1979 US Open.
In the spring, Austin toppled Evert indoors at the fabled Madison Square Garden in New York, displaying a poise and professionalism that went well beyond her years. Not long after that, she rallied from 2-4 in the final set to defeat Evert again in the semifinals of the Italian Open, ending the Floridian’s phenomenal 125-match clay-court winning streak before claiming the title. Moreover, Austin had ousted Martina Navratilova in the final of the Washington indoor event during the winter and again in a title-round duel over the summer in San Diego. Week-in and week-out during that memorable 1979 campaign, Austin was clearly closing the gap between herself and the two wily veterans who had controlled the climate of women’s tennis for so long. Both Evert and Navratilova were well aware that Austin was ready to challenge their authority and fight them ferociously for supremacy in the female game.
Austin was clearly the third-best woman player in the world as she approached the 1979 US Open, but ideally positioned in many ways. Evert had been victorious at the Open for the past four years and remained the favorite in many minds. Navratilova had won Wimbledon for the second year in a row earlier in the summer and was overdue to secure her first US Open title. Many learned observers anticipated either a fifth triumphant run for the popular Evert or a breakthrough victory for the gifted and dynamic Navratilova.
And yet, Austin quietly believed in herself. She had gained so much experience over the course of the season that no one was going to tell her she could not win the US Open if she put all of her resources into it. Austin was not an overconfident individual, but she also would never sell herself short. She had the mentality of a champion, and in her view it was just a matter of putting all of the pieces together and performing on the premier stage in American tennis with the verve and intensity that would be required.
As she told me in an interview a few years ago, “In the back of my mind it was, ‘Sure, why can’t I win this?’ I had beaten Martina and Chrissie on big stages. You look at pictures of me from ‘78 and then ‘79 and I was a completely different person in ‘79. I was more a little girl at 15 and starting to move towards a woman at 16. I was stronger. And I had spent the year in the gym. I was starting to put more muscle mass on in ‘79. So that made the difference. My ball had a little more heft on it. I had more endurance as well for longer matches. I just felt like I was on more on equal footing physically to Chrissie. So at that point it was going to be about who played better on the day rather than the physicality.”
I felt like the final was an opportunity. I felt like I was 16. I did not know how many titles Chrissie had won or that I would be the youngest champion ever. - Tracy Austin
Austin blitzed through her first three matches at Flushing Meadows in 1979 but then had a harrowing clash with the ever-tenacious Kathy Jordan, another American player but one with a contrasting style to Austin’s. Jordan was an outstanding doubles player who excelled on the volley and attacked with unrelenting aggression. Her round-of-16 contest with Austin on the old Grandstand court went down to the wire and could have gone either way.
Austin was perilously close to defeat in the latter stages of this three set encounter. Jordan was pressing forward at all costs and making Austin thread the eye of a needle with her passing shots. A significant upset appeared to be in the making, but Austin’s vaunted mental toughness kept her in the tournament. Jordan had six break points for a 4-2 third set lead but Austin held on steadfastly.
Jordan, however, was undeterred. With Austin serving at 5-6 in that final set, Jordan was two points away from the triumph but Austin made her way into a tie-break with bold ball-striking off the forehand. Austin came through to win the match in a nerve-wracking sequence.
“Kathy was a phenomenal athlete,” says Austin. “She was very quick and cat-like around the net and tough to lob. There are certain days you feel a little bit off and I felt I wasn’t hitting the ball quite as cleanly that day, so it was just going to be about trying to dig in. There wasn’t a lot of rhythm to be had against Kathy Jordan. I dug my way out of that match just by sheer guts and hanging with it and staying positive.”
Relieved and exhilarated, Austin dismissed the German left-hander Sylvia Hanika 6-1, 6-1 to set up a semifinal appointment with the No. 2 seed Navratilova, who had been rolling through the tournament ruthlessly. Austin’s percentage play and composure carried her to a 7-5, 7-5 victory. At 5-5 in the opening set, Austin trailed 0-40 but she went into “lockdown” mode and swept five points in a row as Martina self-destructed. The second set was just as tight but Austin was better on the big points again.
And so Austin was in the final against Evert, who not only was shooting for a fifth US Open title in a row, but she had come from behind to overcome Austin in a three set final on the eve of the Open at the event in Mahwah, N.J.
But Austin was unshakable. With Evert serving for a 4-2 first set lead, Austin broke back and never wavered again. She was victorious, 6-4, 6-3, carving out her first of five consecutive victories over Evert in a span lasting until January of the following year. Not until Evert upended Austin in the 1980 US Open semifinals did the Floridian exact revenge.
Austin had convincingly established herself as the youngest female champion ever at 16. No one could say that her triumph had happened by accident. She had battled back from a daunting position against Jordan. She had knocked out the Wimbledon champion Navratilova. And she had put an end to Evert’s 31-match US Open winning streak, becoming the first player since Evonne Goolagong in the 1974 semifinals to beat Evert on the premier stage in American tennis.
“One of my best assets,” says Austin now, “was my mental toughness and my ability to stay in the moment. I felt like the final was an opportunity. I felt like I was 16. I did not know how many titles Chrissie had won or that I would be the youngest champion ever, beating Maureen Connolly’s record. Those kinds of things are important. But I didn’t feel pressure and I am sure Chrissie did. She was 24 and I was 16, and I am the kid coming up with a very similar style of play and mentality. I just went out there with the thought of how I would try to win this match.”
She won because she was totally oblivious to her surroundings and the situation. Austin simply went out and did her job and blocked out everything else. As she reached the closing stages of the second set, there was no sense of panic. She beat a great player at her own game and was devoid of apprehension. Austin and Evert were mirror images of each other with their percentage baseline tactics, two-handed backhands and singular focus. For Austin to overcome her revered American adversary was the stuff of champions.
Austin won the 1979 US Open as a prodigy. Both Navratilova and Evert knew full well that Austin did not fear them, nor was she afraid to put herself on the line when it mattered the most. The third best player in the world going into the Open, she took a significant step toward the top. Austin climbed to No. 1 in the world the following year. In 1981, she took a second US Open title before back ailments shortened her career substantially and prevented her from sharing the spotlight with Navratilova and Evert for many years to come.
Martina, Chrissie and Tracy would surely have been an era back in the eighties much like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have celebrated for the past 15 years. Austin was very unfortunate that her body let her down because she had the game to play top-flight tennis for a much longer period and to secure major titles in clusters.
Be that as it may, her US Open win in 1979 was a storied moment in the history of women’s tennis. Some found it surprising but not shocking. Others thought it was shocking but not surprising. The bottom line is this: Tracy Austin claimed her first major a year or two ahead of schedule in the eyes of many, but more than a few observers recognized that she was not simply a champion in the making, but a champion of destiny, who was strikingly level-headed and a competitor who understood herself and recognized what was possible.
She never got in her own way. She applied herself assiduously every step of the way, played masterful chess on the tennis court with a wisdom well beyond her years, and stared down the two biggest names in her sport with a fearlessness and fortitude few have ever exhibited at that age.
Tracy Austin was every inch a champion of the highest order.
