Elizabeth Smylie (née Sayers, born 11 April 1963), sometimes known as Liz Smylie, is a retired Australian tennis player. During her career, she won four Grand Slam titles, one of them in women's doubles and three in mixed doubles. She also won three singles titles and 36 doubles titles on the tour.

Career

Smylie turned professional in 1982. She won the women's doubles title at Wimbledon in 1985 with

Kathy Jordan Kathryn "Kathy" Jordan (born December 3, 1959) is a former American tennis player. During her career, she won seven Grand Slam titles, five of them in women's doubles and two in mixed doubles. She also was the 1983 Australian Open women's single ...

. In mixed doubles, she teamed with John Fitzgerald to win the 1983 US Open and 1991 Wimbledon titles and with

Todd Woodbridge Todd Andrew Woodbridge, OAM (born 2 April 1971) is an Australian former professional tennis player and current sports broadcaster with the Nine Network. Woodbridge is best known for his successful Doubles partnerships with Mark Woodforde (n ...

to win the 1990 US Open. She won the

Virginia Slims Championships Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States, Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United Stat ...

with Jordan in 1990. Her best Grand Slam performance in singles came at the Australian Open in 1987, when she reached the quarterfinals. Her highest ever singles ranking was World No. 20 and her highest in doubles was World No. 5. She played Federation Cup from 1984 to 1994, and won a bronze medal in women's doubles with

Wendy Turnbull Wendy Turnbull, , (born 26 November 1952) is a retired tennis player from Australia. During her career, she won nine Grand Slam titles, four of them in women's doubles and five of them in mixed doubles. She also was a three-time Grand Slam runn ...

at the

1988 Summer Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and commonly known as Seoul 1988 ( ko, 서울 1988, Seoul Cheon gubaek palsip-pal), was an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October ...

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the Capital city, capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the North Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea ...

. Over her career, Smylie won three singles titles and 36 doubles titles. She won the

Western Australian Sports Star of the Year The Western Australian Sports Star Award, currently known as ''The West Australian'RACSports Star Award, is an annual award for sportspeople from the Australian state of Western Australia and/or playing for teams based in Western Australia. It has ...

award in 1985 and the Comeback Player of the Year award in 1990 and 1993.

Personal life

She is married to player-manager

Peter Smylie Peter Smylie (born 11 October 1958) is an Australian former professional tennis player. Biography Born in Sydney, Smylie began playing on the circuit in the late 1970s and featured in three grand slam main draws during his career, all as a doubl ...

and they have three children, Laura, Jordan and Elvis. She was the long-time tournament director of the Australian Women's Hardcourts and also works as a sports television commentator. Her brother

Mervyn Sayers Mervyn is a masculine given name and occasionally a surname which is of Old Welsh origin, with elements ''mer'', probably meaning "marrow", and ''myn'', meaning "eminent". Despite the misconception of the letter 'V' being an English spelling, thr ...

played one

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

game for

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to ...

in 1979.

Major finals

Grand Slam tournaments

Doubles: 5 (1 title, 4 runner-ups)

Mixed doubles: 8 (3 titles, 5 runner-ups)

Olympics

Doubles: 1 (bronze medal)

Smylie and Turnbull lost their semifinal match to

Zina Garrison Zina Lynna Garrison (born November 16, 1963) is an American former professional tennis player. Garrison was the runner-up in singles at the 1990 Wimbledon Championships, a three-time major mixed doubles champion, and an Olympic gold and bronze m ...

and

Pam Shriver Pamela Howard Shriver (born July 4, 1962) is an American former professional tennis player and current tennis broadcaster and pundit. During the 1980s and 1990s, Shriver won 133 titles, including 21 singles titles, 111 women's doubles titles, an ...

6–7⁽⁵⁾, 4–6. In 1988, there was no bronze medal play-off match, both beaten semifinal pairs received bronze medals.

Year-end championships

Doubles: 1 (1 title)

WTA career finals

Singles: 6 (3–3)

Doubles: 69 (36–33)

Grand Slam performance timelines

Singles

Doubles

*NR = not ranked

Mixed doubles

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Smylie, Elizabeth 1963 births Living people Australian female tennis players Hopman Cup competitors Olympic bronze medalists for Australia Olympic medalists in tennis Olympic tennis players of Australia Sportswomen from Western Australia Tennis players from Perth, Western Australia Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics US Open (tennis) champions Wimbledon champions Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles Grand Slam (tennis) champions in mixed doubles Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics