Hi - I met Virginia at this years French Open when I worked for the BBC website there. It was approcahing the 25th anniversary of her Wimbledon win, so they asked me to interview her... Link below...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/wimbledon/2036120.stm
I must admit, I found her bery charming and full of lots of tit bits of information which I gladly took in as I love hearing stories about tennis in the 1970's when they were forming the Tour. She was very candid and honest about herself and a lot of the players, so could have wrote a great in-depth feature about her, however the BBC wanted a standard Jubilee feature, so most of my info went to waste...
She talked very candidly about winning Wimbledon and how much of a dream it was for her, but that she knew she was going to win that year around spring time - she just had the feeling... Evonne was out pregnant, Billie-Jean was just coming back, Virginia still had an edge over Martina and she knew she could take out Chrissie at Wimbledon.
She did say that Sue Barker having such a great year in 1977 took the pressure off of her as Barker was in the bottom half of the draw away from Evert, so everyone was expecting her to reach the final. She said that she doesn't remember much from the Evert mathc as she was in 'the zone' and was so concentrated that she wasn't paying attention to anyone of the score... she knew she was going to win and that was just that!!!
When she beat Chrissie, she knew she would win the event as she had played Stove over 3 sets in the last few matches and had dug deep to win each time - so she had done that hard work as she said - she had that mental edge over Betty.
After she won, she said that she couldn't hear a single word of what the Queen said, she asked her to repeat once, but it wouldn't be polite to ask again,. so she just smiled - she didnt care as she was in 7th heaven - she says that whenever she feels a bit sad, she can instantly get out of it by remembering the emotions after the match.
She admitted to me that she was very aloof and kept her distance from the other players... she says she regrets that a little now, as she missed some of the camaradorie, but that she was always told to keep her distance so that she didnt get too close and then lose the menatl edge when playing somone.
She saod that she didnt like Billie-Jean until later in their careers, and that Billie-Jean used to spook her out as she was the leader of the players clique - BJK, Casals, Martina etc, but That Billie-Jean gave her advice later in her career and she appreciated it.
She said that although she played with Court, she was also very aloof and hasnt spoken to her in years... She said that Goolagong was the nicest of the players...
We spoke for about 2 hours, but cant say everything on here, plus cant remember a lot of it now. I was sitting watching the women's quarter's at Roland Garros on Court Suzanne Lenglen and she came to find me to sit with me to watch the matche sin the press box which was nice... Must admit, she kept commenting and half-commentating after each point, which drove some of the other journalists around us nuts!!!
I did like her when we met, which I didn't expect to in advance - simply because of things I had heard when working at the BBC and at Eurosport beforehand. She doesn't get on with the British players like Sue Barker, Jo Durie, Anne Jones, Annabel Croft. She hates Sue Barker as she is now the darling of the BBC Tennis Team and Sue has so much power in that team. Virginia also had a fit 2/3 years ago now when she was dropped from the BBC Commentary of the Wimbledon singles final in favour of Shriver and Navratilova. But at almost 60, she is one of the older brigrade of commentators and the BBC needed a fresher image.
As much as I like her, I am not her biggest fan as a commentator, I find myself constantly screaming at the TV as she makes so many factual errors - according to a few of the other commentators I know, that also drives them nuts...
Apparantly Pam Shriver was pissed off at her at Wimbledon (I think it was last year) when they were teamed togther by the lucky ballot in the senior doubles. Pam reckoned Vriginia was too old to play in the event and had no control anymore.. They lost one match 6-0,6-0 when Pam was also injured, Pam left the court in tears and they had a fight in the locker room - this is all confidential of course... he he
So there you go, what I know about the good and bad sides of our Ginny!!!