Biography
Linda Tuero was born in Metairie, Louisiana. She started playing tennis at the age of 11 and was taught by Emmett Paré throughout her career. At age 13, she won the US National Girl's 14 Singles Championship and by the time she had graduated from high school, she had won six national titles: the 1964 US National Girl's 14 Singles Championship, the 1966 US National Girl's 16 Singles Championship, the 1966 US National Girl's 16 Doubles Championship, the 1967 US National Girl's 18 Clay Court Singles Championship, the 1968 US National Girl's 18 Clay Court Singles Championship, and the 1968 National Interscholastic Championship. [2] [3] [4]
Tuero was the first woman to be awarded an athletic scholarship to Tulane University, the first woman to play on a Tulane varsity team and the first woman to win a varsity Green Wave letter. [5] [6] When she joined, Tulane didn't have a women's tennis team, so she played for the men's team. [7] Many men's teams from opposing universities, including Georgia Tech and Northwestern, refused to play against her, so over three seasons, she only played nine matches, winning eight of them. [7]
While a member of the Tulane tennis team, she played on the women's professional tennis circuit but kept her amateur status. During this time, she won the singles and doubles titles at Cincinnati in 1968 and three more national titles: the 1969 US Amateur Championship, [8] 1970 US Amateur Championship [8] and the 1970 US Open Clay Court Championship.
In 1971, she was runner-up in the US Open Clay Courts, losing to Billie Jean King in the finals, reached the quarterfinals of the French Open, and was a finalist in Cincinnati.
In 1972, playing her first year as a professional, Linda won the Italian Open. [7] She also won the first International Tournament of Madrid (Madrid Open) and was a semifinalist in the US Open Clay Courts, Canadian Open, WTA German Open, and Cincinnati with losses to Chris Evert, Evonne Goolagong, and Margaret Court. In 1973, she had a win over Martina Navratilova in the Fort Lauderdale Classic.
Tuero represented the US in the Wightman Cup and Federation Cup teams in 1972 and 1973, serving as the Federation Cup captain in 1973 [9]
Her top career world rankings included No 1 in Women-Under-21 and No 10 in World (Women). She has been inducted into the Halls of Fame of Tulane University, [10] Louisiana Tennis Tennis Hall of Fame, [11] and USTA Southern Tennis Hall of Fame. [12]
Personal life
In 1968, she graduated from St. Martin's Episcopal School in Metairie, Louisiana. In 1971, she graduated cum laude from Tulane with a major in psychology. [13]
In 1973, while working as an extra in The Exorcist , she met the author William Peter Blatty. They were married in July 1975 and had two children, restaurant entrepreneur Billy and photojournalist J.T. Blatty. [14] She also appeared in The Ninth Configuration , which he wrote.
After her divorce from Blatty, she married William Paul. [13] She had another son during this marriage. She is now married to Dr. William Lindsley who is a former business consultant and former dean and professor at Boston College, Vanderbilt University Owen School of Management, and Belmont University Graduate School of Business. [13]
In 2000, Tuero enrolled in the Tulane Graduate School, and in 2004, she graduated with a master's degree in anthropology, specializing in the field of paleoanthropology. In 2005, she was part of an excavation in the Lake Turkana region of northern Kenya. [13]
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