Is Nancy Richey the most underrated player of all time?

[buscemi]

Nancy Richey was a member of the “Original Nine,” the group of nine women who signed pro contracts with Gladys Heldman and competed in the first Virginia Slims tournament at Houston in September 1970. In both 1968 and 1972, she was recognized by leading authorities as the #2 player in the world. She made four Major finals, winning two of them: the 1967 Australian Open and the 1968 French Open (the first Major of the Open Era). In doubles, she made six Major finals, winning four of them.

Richey was kind of a proto-Chris Evert, who excelled on clay courts, but with a one handed backhand. When she was 17, the New York Times described her as “a girl who will run after a ball even into the next court.”

So, why do I say she's so underrated? Let's look at the top 10 list of women with the most singles titles all-time:

1. Margaret Court: 192​

2. Martina Navratlilova: 167​

3. Chris Evert: 157​

4. Billie Jean King: 129​

5. Steffi Graf: 107​

6. Evonne Goolagong: 86​

7. Suzanne Lenglen: 81​

8. Nancy Richey: 73​

8. Serena Williams: 73​

10. Maria Bueno Evonne Goolagong: 72​

That's right. Richey is tied at #8 with Serena behind seven absolute legends of the game, even though her name is rarely mentioned nowadays. And, as noted, she was an excellent doubles player as well, winning four Majors. In addition, while clay was her best surface, with a 83.7% winning percentage, she won a ton of titles on all surfaces, finishing with a winning percentage of 79.5% on hard courts and 77.9% on grass.

How about H2Hs? She was a solid 14-18 against Billie Jean King, even leading the H2H 13-12 before their final seven matches in 1973-1974. 15-8 against Rosie Casals. 12-8 against Kerry Reid. 5-15 against Margaret Court is her only really "bad" H2H, but it still feels pretty respectable. 8-7 against Virginia Wade, who gets a lot more ink. 5-5 against Evert (winning the first five when she was young, losing the last five when she was old).

Clearly, the biggest thing holding her back is having only 2 Majors, but it's likely she left some on the table. She made the Australian Open final in 1966, won it in 1967, then never played again. She made the French Open final in 1966 and won it in 1968, but didn't play it in 1967 or 1970. And she made the U.S. Open final in 1966 and 1969, but didn't play it in 1967 or 1968.

Anyway, it's just astounding to me that a trailblazing female player with the 8th most singles titles of all time and a great doubles resume barely gets mentioned at all. Heck, I don't even know a huge amount about her game. Any thoughts on her would be welcome.

 

[King_olaf_the_hairy]

First thing, with regard to your numbers...

So, why do I say she's so underrated? Let's look at the top 10 list of women with the most singles titles all-time:

1. Margaret Court: 192​

2. Martina Navratlilova: 167​

3. Chris Evert: 157​

4. Billie Jean King: 129​

5. Steffi Graf: 107​

6. Evonne Goolagong: 86​

7. Suzanne Lenglen: 81​

8. Nancy Richey: 73​

8. Serena Williams: 73​

10. Evonne Goolagong: 72​

Also, while I agree Nancy's maybe underrated in terms of her peak level of play — Jeff Sackmann's Tennis 128 list has her at #69, ahead of Virginia Wade and Maria Bueno for starters — I think it's legitimate to mark her down for failing to translate that level to more success at the slams. I mean, using your 'titles won' list above puts her ahead of Helen Wills Moody, Alice Marble, Pauline Betz, Mo Connolly, Althea Gibson, Arantxa Sanchez, Lindsay Davenport, Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, and Venus Williams. Clearly it has major flaws as a deciding metric.

And while you can argue that maybe she missed opportunities to win more singles slams, you can equally argue that the Aussie title she did win is hardly the last word in prestige, given that seven-time defending champ Court had retired, and neither Bueno, King, or Jones made the journey Down Under.

I'd say overall I'm ok with her status. She does get overlooked nowadays, but I think you can say the same for other pre-Open players like Darlene Hard, Louise Brough, or Ann Jones as well. Or Karen Susman; she's another one who had a winning record over BJK, and she can boast a Wimbledon title to her name alongside her three doubles slams. But poor Karen's not even in the Hall of Fame; at least Nancy has that recognition.

 

[RS]

Helen Wills Moody

 

[martinezownsclay]

She is underrated since she crossed over into 2 eras full of so many legends, both on and off the court- Maria Bueno, Billie Jean King, Margaret Court, Chris Evert, briefly Martina Navratilova, Evonne Goolagong. She also played during the time of Billie Jean King's activism campaign and King-Riggs/Riggs-Court, the starting of the Open Era on both the mens and womens side, the start of the first ever womens professional tour, the rise of World Team Tennis and all the politics surrounding it. So someone like her, and Ann Jones possibly another one, are lost in the shuffle as far as public recognition. Lesley Turner isn't as good as Richey, but is another who is underrated as far as public recognition, given what a great clay courter she was in that era, basically there are a lot of players in that time capsule that get overshadowed, as much by the off court pursuits that added to that whole time, as all the great players around then, if they played just about anytime else. Add to that winning only 2 majors, which would have made her underrated even when people had the mindset slam wins weren't everything, but as that thinking has taken hold more, even moreso today.

She played before I was born but seen quite a few videos of her. She had an extremely powerful forehand, especialy for the time. That is what I notice most. She seemed a very smart and steady player. She was mainly a baseliner but liked to venture to the net and test herself, and was competent up there too. She should have won more than 2 majors, it was some bad luck (injuries in some semis or finals she reached, she even had to WD from an Australian Open final vs Court) and not playing more as you said. She was much more respectable an opponent to Court, young Evert, and King than say Virginia Wade was, who wound up winning 1 more major than her. Wade also had the huge luck of 3 of 4 majors being on her best surface of grass, while Richey's best surfaces were clay and slow to medium hard courts, first and foremost clay, which had a total of only 1 major per year, and as you said she often didn't even play that one.

 

[Hard Court]

Those are some good points. for various reason, she seems to have got lost in the shuffle. You hardly hear much about her. Given her record, she does seem to be one of the most underrated players of all time. Think I read somewhere that there was some bad blood between her and King. I noticed that King didn't talk much about her in her recent book. Anyway, certainly had an outstanding career, and it's nice to see people talking about her.

 

[BTURNER]

with respect to your numbers. There is a disparity between your 5-5 against Evert and the Evert official site that says 6-5 in Evert's favor. The bold L means Richey won.
1970 Lighthouse Point, FL SF L 6-3, 4-6, 6-2
1970 Charlotte, NC F L 6-3, 6-4
1972 Bethesda, MD F L 7-6, 6-2
1972 San Juan, PR F L 6-1, 6-3
1972 St. Petersburg, FL F L 6-3, 6-4
1973 Boca Raton, FL F W 6-3, 6-3
1975 Philadelphia, PA QF W 7-6, 6-1
1975 Indianapolis, IN SF W 6-7, 7-5, 4-2 ret.
1976 San Francisco, CA QF W 6-3, 6-1
1976 Colgate Series finals QF W 6-4, 6-1
1977 U.S. Open 4R W 6-3, 6-0

.As for your main point, she is definitely underrated considering some of those head to heads, , but there are problems with her resume. She reached the semis of a major 13 times out of 40 entries. That is not impressive. She lost in Rds 1,2 or 3 16 times. That's not impressive either. Her Wimbledon record is bad. Only one time in 11 tries did she even make it to the semifinals

 

[buscemi]

First thing, with regard to your numbers...






Also, while I agree Nancy's maybe underrated in terms of her peak level of play — Jeff Sackmann's Tennis 128 list has her at #69, ahead of Virginia Wade and Maria Bueno for starters — I think it's legitimate to mark her down for failing to translate that level to more success at the slams. I mean, using your 'titles won' list above puts her ahead of Helen Wills Moody, Alice Marble, Pauline Betz, Mo Connolly, Althea Gibson, Arantxa Sanchez, Lindsay Davenport, Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, and Venus Williams. Clearly it has major flaws as a deciding metric.

And while you can argue that maybe she missed opportunities to win more singles slams, you can equally argue that the Aussie title she did win is hardly the last word in prestige, given that seven-time defending champ Court had retired, and neither Bueno, King, or Jones made the journey Down Under.

I'd say overall I'm ok with her status. She does get overlooked nowadays, but I think you can say the same for other pre-Open players like Darlene Hard, Louise Brough, or Ann Jones as well. Or Karen Susman; she's another one who had a winning record over BJK, and she can boast a Wimbledon title to her name alongside her three doubles slams. But poor Karen's not even in the Hall of Fame; at least Nancy has that recognition.

Thanks. Should be Bueno at #10. I just corrected it.

 

[Gizo]

With her groundstrokes, it seemd to me that she had the ability to win more than 1 title at RG, especially considering that there wasn't exactly a huge amount of depth in talent on clay at the time, even though she didn't enter RG that often during her career.

In 1966, she pulled out of the Italian Open after the draw was made, with Jones going to win that title. Jones then beat her pretty convincingly in the final at RG, and coming out on top in long rallies, although that final did seem closer than the scoreline suggested with numerous long games with multiple deuces (Jones had also recently beaten King in the Federation Cup in Turin in King's first foray on clay in Europe). In her 1969 SF vs. Court, she was leading 5-2 in the final set, before Court reeled off 5 games in a row to win it (it sounded like Court produced some tremendous play when she fought back there). In her 1971 SF against Helen Gourlay, she was the clear favourite to win, but it sounds like Gourlay out-foxed her and mixed up the pace nicely. Early on Gourlay was down 0-2 and 15-40 on serve in the opening set, before taking charge.

King said that one of the most painful defeats of her career, was her SF at Madison Square Gardens in 1968 vs. Richey, when she was leading 6-4 5-1, before Richey won 12 straight games to take it.

 

[martinezownsclay]

I would actually say that was a fairly tough clay era for the time, far tougher than the clay era Evert was super dominant in, even if there wasn't a single player quite up to Evert's level on dlqy, the depth was far better than the clay period Evert was uber dominant (part of the reason Evert was able to amass a 125 match win streak on clay was besides Goolagong there were really no really super strong clay courters at all that period, that includes Navratilova who wasn't a good clay courter at all until 1982). There were atleast 4 excellent clay courters in Court, Richey, Turner, Jones, in addition to many other decently good ones. That would be a reason Richey shockingly won only 1 French Open, in addition to clearly underperforming at the French, the biggest of all probably of missing so many French Opens, and possibly some bad luck.

It was so strange she played pretty lackluster in the final vs Jones that year after playing so brilliantly in crushing Court in the semis. Although Court had wandering motivation at the time, that would lead to being spanked by King at Wimbledon, and a temporary retirement from the sport, so perhaps that wasn't as great a performance as it seemed. 69 and 71 were big missed opportunities.

IMO on an unrelated note it does indicate Court is an underrated clay courter in that she won 5 French Opens despite playing in an era with Richey, Jones, Turner, and later of course beating young Evert in the 73 French Open final at 31 years old. You never hear her talked amongst the greatest clay courters, only hearing Evert, Graf, Henin, Lenglen, and sometimes Seles, but Court should for sure be included in that group. Some even say Navratilova is better since she lost 3 French Open finals to Evert (one in 75 in a year almost nobody played, otherwise she isn't even in the final) and 1 to Graf. I strongly disagree with that. At her peak I think Navratilova was possibly slightly better, but over their entire careers Court's level on clay would be better on average by a long ways I believe. And I don't see any era Navratilova wins 5 or 6 French Opens honestly.

 

[atatu]

I'm impressed that she and her brother came out of San Angelo, Texas and were able to play against the best players in the world. Here is an interesting article about the family.

https://vault.si.com/vault/1965/07/05/the-highest-ranking-family-in-tennis

 

[martinezownsclay]

Turner is another very underrated clay courter of that era, although unlike Richey and Jones, she was really just a clay courter, not a force on any other courts. She had a match point vs Court in one French Open final, otherwise would have 3 French Open wins. I have seen tapes of her play and am impressed with her clay game, even though she lacks the firepower of Richey.