EXCLUSIVE Raducanu wants a coach who can solve all her problems… we fixed ours ourselves! Oldest living SPOTY winner Ann Jones on Emma’s struggles and blazing a trail with Billie Jean King

• Ann Jones beat Billie Jean King to win the women’s singles at Wimbledon in 1969
• She was first of five tennis stars to claim BBC gong, the last was Emma Raducanu
• Raducanu is nearing long-awaited return after nightmare few years with injuries

It is, Ann Jones wishes to clarify, not a trophy cabinet but a ‘cabinet with trophies in it’. Either way, the old furniture piece in her dining room contains two of her most prized possessions.

One is a replica of the Venus Rosewater Dish, which she received for winning the women’s singles at Wimbledon in July 1969. The other she picked up five months later, when she was crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

Jones was the 16th recipient of the iconic award, which will be handed out for the 70th time in Salford a week tomorrow. The 85-year-old is also, Mail Sport tells her, the oldest living winner.

‘I am not sure that is an accolade I am attracted to,’ smiles Jones, sitting on her sofa at her home in Birmingham, flanked by Rocky, her English Setter, and Alfie, her son’s Papillon.

Jones topped the public vote in 1969 ahead of Open golf champion Tony Jacklin and Manchester United winger George Best. She was presented with the silver four-turret lens camera trophy at the old BBC Television Theatre in London by Princess Alexandra, Queen Elizabeth II’s cousin.

Ann Jones at home in Birmingham with her SPOTY trophy, and dog Rocky

‘I didn’t expect to win it, I was just happy to be there,’ admits Jones. ‘I thought Tony Jacklin would win. When they read my name out, I was quite surprised. I hadn’t prepared a speech. I just had to bumble through. But it was very exciting. It was a big thing in the sporting fraternity.

‘It is an award I value as much as anything else I won because it is a public accolade. It is an acceptance by the British public of what you have achieved.’

Jones was the first of five tennis players to claim the BBC gong. The last was Emma Raducanu, after she became the first British woman in 44 years to lift a Grand Slam singles trophy with her 2021 US Open triumph aged 18.

Raducanu has had a nightmare two years since, struggling with injury and slipping to 296 in the world. ‘It is very sad,’ says Jones. However, the Brummie was riled by recent comments made by Raducanu, who claimed her high turnover of coaches was because they could not ‘keep up’ with her questions.

‘Well, what did she think we all did?’ asks Jones. ‘We had to find our own answers. You have to work at things yourself. To fire a coach after she had just won the US Open was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’

Raducanu, 21, has been out of action since April but will return at the start of next month in Auckland. Jones fears she may never reach the heights of 2021 again and believes Raducanu has caused some of her own injury issues by changing her game.

Jones beat Billie Jean King to win the women’s singles title at Wimbledon in 1969

‘Life is about momentum,’ says Jones. ‘If you’ve got the momentum, you have to take advantage of it and carry on.

‘You’ve got a natural game. What you need to do is to improve what you have got. You don’t have coaches come along and change your game.

‘The results are clear. You get injured, because it’s not natural for you to hit the ball in that way. It was natural to hit it the way you hit it in the first place.

‘How do you recover your natural game after it has been changed? It’s very difficult to find what you had before. I think she’s really enjoyed winning and I don’t think she wants to lose now. It’s a waste and we could do with a champion here.’

Jones won the French Open in 1961 and 1966, then added the Wimbledon crown by beating top seed Margaret Court in the semi-finals and three-time defending champion Billie Jean King in the final. ‘Nobody could say I fluked my way through,’ grins Jones.

She was the first left-handed female to triumph at SW19, as well as the first Brit in the Open era. Her final against King was such big news that, as the story goes, the Beatles paused recording of their song Golden Slumbers to listen on the radio.

Jones, though, did not return to Wimbledon to defend her title, reducing her playing schedule to start a family, then moving into the commentary box. ‘It took me 13 years to win it, I wasn’t going to defend it!’ she laughs.

Jones was the first of five tennis players to claim the BBC gong, the last was Emma Raducanu

On the coffee table in her lounge is the book Trailblazers: The Unmatched Story of Women’s Tennis, written by old friend and rival King. Jones was a trailblazer herself, helping increase the prize money for women at Wimbledon, ‘stimulated’ by her own paltry pay cheque of £1,500 in 1969, half of what men’s champion Rod Laver had received.

‘Billie Jean and I went with David Gray, the secretary of the International Tennis Federation, to see Sir Brian Burnett, who was chairman of the All England Club,’ recalls Jones. ‘We said it wasn’t fair, it was a joint event and we nailed him to the wall. We eventually got women’s prize money from 50 per cent of the men’s to about 80.’

Jones also helped King organise the first professional female touring group, which became the WTA. Last year, the pair were reunited at Wimbledon at a parade of champions to celebrate the centenary of Centre Court.

‘Angela Mortimer and I said we just hoped we were going to get on and off the court without falling over,’ chuckles Jones, who remains a vice-president of the All England Club.

She has, however, decided not to join a similar roll call of past winners at SPOTY’s 70th anniversary show next week.

‘My grandson wanted to go but I didn’t want to go and look after him — I wanted someone to take me and look after me!’ admits Jones, who says her vote would go to England Ashes hero Stuart Broad if he made the shortlist, announced tomorrow.

‘It’s like going to the Wimbledon final, it brings all the emotions back. But it is a long sit. It used to just be a sporting occasion with a trophy at the end. Now it’s a huge thing.

Emma Raducanu is nearing a long-awaited return after a nightmare few years with injuries

Since winning the US Open in 2021, Raducanu has been faced with several major setbacks

‘The atmosphere has changed. The young ones go for a party but I don’t know anybody now. All my lot have died.’

Ten SPOTY winners have died, including Sir Stirling Moss, Bobby Moore and Henry Cooper. Jones, though, is alive and well.

‘I walk the dogs, I go swimming, I look after the house, I look after the garden, I play bridge on an evening,’ she adds. ‘I can’t play tennis now because I can’t move. But I feel fine. I am lucky.

‘Something is going to get you in the end, but I will keep going for as long as I can.’

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