Joanna Mary Durie (born 27 July 1960) is a British former tennis player. Her highest singles ranking was world number five; in doubles she reached number nine, and won two Grand Slam titles, both in the mixed doubles with Jeremy Bates.
Born in Bristol, England, Jo Durie was the last British woman to reach the semifinal of a Grand Slam tournament until Johanna Konta reached the semifinal of the 2016 Australian Open, and the last British woman to win a major title in any discipline, until Heather Watson won the 2016 Wimbledon mixed doubles title with Henri Kontinen.
Singles career
After a successful junior career which included winning junior British titles on all three surfaces (grass, hard court and indoor) in 1976; Jo Durie turned professional in 1977, and played her first match at Wimbledon that year against the eventual champion Virginia Wade. In 1980 Durie suffered a major back injury which kept her out of the game for eight months. However, she made a successful return to the woman's tennis circuit in 1981, reaching the fourth round of the singles at Wimbledon and the US Open and climbing to her highest singles ranking so far of 31.
Her most successful year as a singles player was 1983, ending the season at No. 6 in the world rankings and on the prize money leader board. As an unseeded player Durie reached the semifinals of the French Open, beating both Pam Shriver and Tracy Austin along the way. the first British doubles team to win the title for fifty-one years. In 1991 they became the first British doubles team ever to win the Australian Open mixed doubles title. As of 2013 both of these records still stand. As a team Bates and Durie reached an additional three mixed doubles quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 1986, 1990 and 1993. They also reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open in 1992 as defending champions.
Durie would go on to win five woman's doubles titles from eighteen finals during her career. Her most successful year as a doubles player, aside from the Grand Slams in 1987 and 1991 was in 1983, when she reached six finals, winning three titles. Durie also reached the semifinals of the women's doubles at the French Open and Wimbledon. By virtue of this success she gained a place at the 1984 WTA Tour Championship in doubles, and reached the final partnering Ann Kiyomura.
Durie won the British National Doubles title a record nine times.
Team tennis
Durie was a stalwart member of the British Wightman Cup (1979, 1981–89), British Federation Cup (1981–95) and British European Cup teams (1989–92). Durie was the youngest member of the British Federation Cup team, alongside Virginia Wade and Sue Barker, which reached the team final in 1981. Durie led the British team to victory in the European Championship in Prague in 1992.
Retirement
Durie retired from competitive tennis at the Wimbledon Championships in 1995, (her 18th appearance at the Championships), and marked it with a memorable performance. After three successive operations on her left knee, Durie went into the Championships ranked No. 326 in the world, yet reached the second round of the ladies' singles. She beat France's Alexia Dechaume-Balleret, ranked No. 85 in the world, in straight sets in the first round. Her second round, and last singles match at Wimbledon, was against Jana Novotná. Her last match at Wimbledon was a mixed doubles match on Centre Court, where she played alongside her long-standing partner Jeremy Bates.
She is among the players with a winning record against Steffi Graff, leading 4–3 in head-to-heads.
After retiring from the professional tour, Durie had heart surgery to rectify a problem for which she had originally been prescribed Beta blockers early in her career. She did not take the prescribed medication, as she didn't feel well after taking them. She revealed this fact in March 2016 in an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, after the revelation that Maria Sharapova had been found taking a similar heart-issue drug, which later had been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Since retirement, Durie has worked as a TV tennis commentator for both the BBC and British Eurosport. She used to coach British number one Elena Baltacha alongside her own former coach Alan Jones.