Rosemary Casals

Rosemary "Rosie" Casals (born September 16, 1948) is a former American professional tennis player.

Rosemary Casals earned her reputation as a rebel in the tennis world when she began competing in the early 1960s. During a tennis career that spanned more than two decades, she won more than 90 tournaments and worked for the betterment of women's tennis. She was a motivating force behind many of the changes that shook the tennis world during the 1960s and 1970s.

Early life

Casals was born in 1948 in San Francisco to poor parents who had immigrated to the United States from El Salvador. Less than a year after Casals was born, her parents decided they could not care for her and her older sister, Victoria. Casals's great-uncle and great-aunt, Manuel and Maria Casals, took the young girls in and raised them as their own. When the children grew older, Manuel Casals took them to the public tennis courts of San Francisco and taught them how to play the game. He became the only coach Casals would ever have. But Nick Carter, former touring pro, father to Denise Carter-Triolo, who was once nationally ranked and made it to the fourth round at Wimbledon, gave her some lessons. He was the teacher of many ranking junior players, including Jeoff Brown, national junior doubles champ, and others at Arden Hills club, Sacramento, California, where Mark Spitz trained. Casals used a continental forehand like he did, with the power in it that all his students had, using the "racket back, step, and hit" method.