Flower of the Wheat Fields

The tiny (pop. 636) town of Barellan swelters in the middle of the hot wheat plains of New South Wales, Australia. The house on the edge of town is a ramshackle old weatherboard structure with peeling paint, broken-down cars in the yard and a scruffy pack of yapping mongrels constantly in earshot. The inside is something else again--a blinding panoply of glittering trophies. The house is the family home of Evonne Goolagong, 19, a shy, attractive aborigine; the trophies are for tennis, and there are unquestionably more to come.

Recently in Melbourne, Miss Goolagong pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the year by defeating the world's premiere woman tennis player, Mrs. Margaret Court, 7-6, 7-6, for the Victorian Women's Singles title. Evonne then went on to whip Betty Stove of The Netherlands 6-1, 6-4, for the New Zealand championship. With Mrs. Court retiring after this season, Evonne has blossomed as the prime pretender to her throne. Mrs. Court herself said, "I think, at last, I have found an Australian to take my place."

On to Wimbledon. It seems as if nearly every Australian child grows up brandishing a tennis racket, but it is not an easy sport for an aborigine to crack. Aborigines are Australia's forgotten people, living mainly in shanty settlements at the edge of inland and outback towns. Still, there was no denying Evonne. She began training with the Barellan tennis club when she was six. Four years later the club president, a retired local farmer named Bill Kurtzmann, entered her in a tournament in nearby Naranndera. It turned out that there was no youth division, so the ten-year-old girl proceeded directly to win the women's singles. A few more like that and she caught the eye of Vic Edwards, one of Australia's ranking tennis coaches. Her father, a sheep-shearer, could hardly afford the cost of summer training sessions with Edwards in Sydney, so the townspeople of Barellan scraped up the money. By the time Evonne was 14, Edwards was so convinced of her future that he asked her parents to let her move in with his family. The Goolagongs agreed.

Edwards and Evonne already have their sights on Wimbledon for 1974. There is no question as to her ability or temperament. She is uncowed by such formidable presences as Mrs. Court; in her recent victory, Evonne attacked furiously on point after point. In her own reserved way, Evonne has plenty of steel. She recently accepted an invitation to play in the South African Open, though several aborigine pressure groups urged her to decline. "I feel more mature about these things now," she says. "As long as I am treated like any tennis player in any part of the world, then South Africa will not worry me."

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