Good to see Tracy isn't forgotten <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> Big Linds, Mary Linda, and louloubelle(where's the name from loulou?") ) have covered her well.
I think it's fair to say Austin's injuries helped the slam totals of Navratilova and Evert, just as Graf's totals were higher due to Seles' stabbing in 1993. She gave both women fits, and was younger as well. I think she would have always had problems on grass like Seles, because if Austin had one weakness it was her serve. Evert had a better serve by far.
Louloubelle noted Tracy's one big advantage, her brain. She was a shark mentally. Jack Kramer said of her, "All that stuff about cute adorable little Tracy, with her pigtails and braces. Watch her face, she's ready to go for the jugular". A killer in pigtails. I can't recall a match she lost afterholding match point. She won many a match she should have lost, like the 1981 US Open final.
Tracy was never popular in the locker room, being aloof by nature(much like Venus Williams). Besides, she was a "threat" even at 14. Shriver hated Austin's guts, throwing 4 letter words at "the twerp"(one of Pam's few printable names for Tracy)<br />after a really hard fought match in the 1981 Canadian Open. Tracy broke down in tears at the net, claiming she had never heard such language. <br />Yeah <img src="graemlins/angel.gif" border="0" alt="[Angel]" />
Evert saw Austin as a threat, and made fun of her for being such a goody-goody(Chris joked about the fact that Tracy had never smoked a cigarette, let alone marijuana, a habit Chris indulged in). It was Tracy who ended Evert's incredible 126 straight clay court streak in 1979. Too bad Austin never played the French Open in her prime(1979-1981) because she went to high school. Her first French was in 1982, when she was badly injured.
One thing I admired about Tracy was her relationship to Billie Jean King. Tracy learned a lot from being on King's Fred cup teams, and litle conservative Tracy defended Billie Jean in several letters to the press after the infamous lesbian King-Navratilova scandal in 1981.