Sally Jones (born 1954) is a British journalist, television news and sports presenter. She is three-times a world champion at real tennis; once in the singles and twice in the doubles. [1]
Sally Jones was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, and educated at King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham. [2] She read English at St Hugh's College, Oxford, where she won five blues and half blues for different sports including tennis, squash, netball, cricket and modern pentathlon.[ citation needed ] In 1976, she was Oxford University rock n'roll champion (Oxford Rock Soc) and began tap-dancing with the Oxcentrics jazz band as well as gaining notoriety via a student prank, successfully dressing up as a man to stand for membership of the all-male Gridiron Club.[ citation needed ]
Jones was Warwickshire county and British schoolgirls tennis champion (Lawn Tennis Association) [3] and a finalist in the British Under 21 doubles championship (LTA). [4] She played county tennis, squash (Warwickshire, Devon and South Wales squash associations), and netball (Birmingham Schools and Midlands First teams), captaining the Warwickshire senior tennis team for ten years, leading them to the County Championship in July 1997.[ citation needed ] She won the Sunday Telegraph Travel Writing Prize for an account of a tennis tour of Ireland and two Catherine Pakenham awards for women journalists. [5]
During her career, Jones has been a BBC news trainee, a TV reporter at Westward TV, and a TV presenter/reporter for HTV (Wales) where she also made several documentaries, and Central TV in Birmingham where she co-presented Central News and reported on the politics show Central Lobby. [6] She has also reported for ITN and Channel 4 News and has written columns for the Daily Telegraph , Daily Mirror and Today newspapers. In 1986, she became the BBC's first woman sports presenter on BBC Breakfast News and presented for BBC Sport during the Seoul summer Olympic Games in 1988 and for BBC World during the 1992 Summer Olympics.[ citation needed ]
She has presented other TV and radio programmes, including several series of On the Line, the daytime show The Garden Party, real tennis documentaries for Channel 4, coverage of women's British Open golf, international tennis, women's rugby and NBA basketball (BBC TV), Transworld Sport (Channel 4) and international gymnastics (ITV). She regularly presented Woman's Hour from Birmingham (BBC Radio 4) and was a member of the BBC Radio 5 Live Wimbledon tennis commentary team during the 1990s. In 2010, she set up Sally Jones Features Ltd, a media consultancy.
In 1986, Jones took up real tennis and won the 1993 World Championship at Bordeaux, as well as two British Open and two US Open championships. [1] She won the world doubles championships [7] with Alex Garside in 1989 and 1991 [3] and was British Open doubles finalist with Jo Iddles in 2008.
Jones married civil engineer John Grant in 1989 and has two children, [8] management consultant Roland Grant and Daily Telegraph columnist Madeline Grant. She has written four books on West-country legends and several on sport, including the Ladybird Book of Riding. In 2006, she co-wrote and edited a prize-winning local history book on Georgian Warwickshire. She works for several charities including Birmingham Children's Hospital and Twycross Zoo She is a board member of Modern Pentathlon GB and a trustee of the Oxford and Cambridge Rowing Foundation.
A quiz enthusiast, she won Sale of the Century aged 18 and has since appeared on celebrity editions of Fifteen to One and The Krypton Factor . She has appeared five times on Mastermind and reached the semi-finals in 2008.
Kenilworth is a market town and civil parish in the Warwick District of Warwickshire, England, 6 miles (10 km) south-west of Coventry and 5 miles (8 km) north of Warwick. The town lies on Finham Brook, a tributary of the River Sowe, which joins the River Avon 2 miles (3 km) north-east of the town. At the 2021 Census, its population was 22,538. The town is home to the ruins of Kenilworth Castle and Kenilworth Abbey.
Susan Barker is a British former television presenter and professional tennis player. During her playing career, Barker won 15 WTA Tour singles titles, including a major singles title at the 1976 French Open. She reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 3.
Ann Shirley Jones, is a British former table tennis and lawn tennis champion. She won eight Grand Slam tennis championships in her career: three in singles, three in women's doubles, and two in mixed doubles. As of 2023, she serves as a vice president of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.
The Queen's Club is a private sporting club in Barons Court, West Kensington, London, England. The club hosts the annual Queen's Club Championships men's grass court lawn tennis tournament. It has 28 outdoor courts and ten indoor. With two courts, it is also the national headquarters of real tennis, hosting the British Open every year excepting 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Queen's Club also has rackets and squash courts; it became the headquarters for both sports after the closure of the Prince's Club in 1940.
The Coventry and North Warwickshire Sports Club (CNWSC) is an amateur sports club in Coventry, England. Its 1st and 2nd cricket XIs were, as of 2014, in the Birmingham and District Premier League 2nd and 1st Divisions respectively. The cricket teams play their home games at the club's ground in Binley Road, Coventry. Collins Obuya played for the club in 2003. The England cricketer Ian Bell at one time played for the club.
Daniel Evans is a British professional tennis player from England. He has been ranked as high as world No. 21 in singles by the ATP, which he achieved on 7 August 2023. He reached a career-high ranking of No. 52 in doubles on 26 April 2021. In 2015, he formed part of the winning British Davis Cup team.
The Great Britain Davis Cup team has represented the United Kingdom internationally since 1900 in the Davis Cup. Organised by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), it is one of the 50 members of International Tennis Federation's European association.
Judith Earline Veronica Simpson is a British former heptathlete who competed at two Olympic Games. She went on to appear as Nightshade in the TV show Gladiators between 1993 and 1996.
Naomi Broady is a British former tennis player.
The Edgbaston Priory Club is a private members' tennis, squash and leisure club in Birmingham, England. The club is the host of the annual WTA Tour stop, the Rothesay Classic. The 'Ann Jones Court' stadium has a capacity of 2,500 people.
Heather Miriam Watson is a British professional tennis player. A former British No. 1, Watson has won nine titles over her career, including the mixed-doubles title at the 2016 Wimbledon Championships, partnering Henri Kontinen, making her the first British woman to win a major title since Jo Durie in 1991, and the first to win a Wimbledon title since Durie in 1987. In October 2012, Watson won her first WTA Tour singles title at the Japan Women's Open, becoming the first British woman to win a WTA tournament singles title since Sara Gomer in 1988.
Chris Bailey is a former professional tennis player (1987–1994), British No. 1 and ATP world No. 126 (1989), now a television sports commentator on tennis and football, and a real estate property consultant in Australia.
Jordanne Joyce Whiley MBE is a British retired wheelchair tennis player. Aged 14, she became Britain's youngest ever national women's singles champion in wheelchair tennis. She has osteogenesis imperfecta as does her father, Keith, who was also a Paralympian and won a bronze medal in 1984 in New York. As well as the 2015 US Open in wheelchair singles, Whiley has won 9 Grand Slam doubles titles, and she & Japanese Yui Kamiji are the fourth team in women's wheelchair doubles to complete the Calendar Year Grand Slam. Whiley was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2015 Queens Birthday Honours list for services to wheelchair tennis.
Lewis Steven E. Burton is a British model and former professional tennis player.
Harriet Dart is a British professional tennis player. She achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 70 and a career-high doubles ranking of No. 59, on 14 October 2024. She reached the final of the 2021 Wimbledon Championships in mixed doubles with Joe Salisbury.
Gabriella Patricia Taylor is a British former tennis player.
The Midland Counties Championships also known as the Midland International was a grass court tennis tournament held at Edgbaston Cricket and Lawn Tennis Club, Edgbaston, Great Britain from 1882 to 1977.
The venues for the 2022 Commonwealth Games were based in Birmingham, Cannock Chase, Coventry, Royal Leamington Spa, Sandwell, Solihull, Warwick, Wolverhampton, and London.
The Warwickshire Championships, also known as the Warwickshire County Championships, was a men's and women's grass court tennis tournament held at Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England. It was founded on 1 August 1882 and held until 1931 as part of the pre-open era tennis tour. As of 2023, the tournament is staged as a local county championship.