The International Tennis Hall of Fame, which originated in 1955 and began inducting players the same year, has recognized 79 women who played and five in the contributor category, including members of the “Original 9”.
May Sutton (Bundy) was the first woman honored in 1956, and her daughter Dodo Bundy Cheney was the 49th when she was feted in 2004.
Gladys Heldman, World Tennis Magazine founder and the “Houston 9” (a.k.a. Original 9) organizer, was the first women’s contributor enshrined in 1979. Mary Carillo became the sixth woman added to the illustrious list on Saturday, August 29th.
Incidentally, Mary is the most popular first name of women’s inductees. Mary Browne, the 5’2” dynamo who won 13 major singles, doubles and mixed doubles championships between 1912 and ’26… and invented the backboard, was the first of the Mary’s saluted in 1957. Adding to her story, she grew up in Santa Monica, California and often practiced with Sutton.
Mary Pierce, the Montreal born, US raised French performer is as well known for overcoming the abusive coaching relationship with her father Jim, than winning the Australian Open Women’s Singles in 1995, and the Roland-Garros Women’s Singles and Doubles with Martina Hingis in 2000. In 2005, she won The Championships Mixed Doubles with Mahesh Bhupathi. A four-time Major Singles finalist, she was inducted in 2019.
Mary Carillo rounded out the “Mary Trio…” this year.
After they won the 1977 Roland-Garros Mixed Doubles, I became fascinated by the “Douglaston Duo…” Carillo and John McEnroe. She was 20, he was 18. They had grown up in the Douglas Manor section of Queens, New York, and trained at The Douglaston Club. Both were lefthanded and she was 6’0” while he was 5’11”.
McEnroe was named Tennis Magazine’s “Rookie of the Year” in 1977. Along with winning the mixed doubles, he qualified for the Roland Garros Men’s Singles and lost in the second round to Phil Dent… won the Roland-Garros Junior Boys’ title… qualified for the Gentlemen’s Singles at The Championships and reached the semifinals… and lost to Manuel Orantes in the fourth round at the US Open – where I first had dealings with him because he came to the Converse trailer where the company’s contract players like Chris Evert, Brian Gottfried and Roscoe Tanner received shoes for the tournament play, but he wanted to be “gifted” a pair of the popular Converse Dr. J basketball shoes. That fall he enrolled at Stanford University.
Carillo and McEnroe were Mixed Doubles quarterfinalists at The Championships in 1977. The same year she teamed with Wendy Overton to reach the US Clay Court Women’s Doubles final where Linky Boshoff and Ilana Kloss were 5-7, 7-5, 6-3 better.
Mention of Carillo’s name always makes me smile… Her hyper-active mind is enhanced by measured, telling comments. The time I have spent around her has always been energized. She makes situations memorable with her electric/eclectic personality. She captivates and it has regularly been disappointing when our exchanges ended.
I am not sure of the year, but I remember finding her in one of the center court stadium tunnels sitting crossed legged on an overturned trashcan at the National Tennis Center waiting to talk with Tony Trabert and Pat Summerall after they finished a US Open CBS evening television broadcast. That same night I spent time with Barry MacKay who was broadcasting from a cramped booth in the corner of the Grandstand Court.
In “Tuning in to Mary Carillo”, a March 31, 2021, story by Mark Preston that appeared at usta.com, she discussed her career influences, telling Preston, “Well, I was lucky, because I had listened for many, many years to Tony Trabert and Pat Summerall [of CBS]. To me, those were the voices of tennis – and they were minimalists. They just sort of let the match come to them. So, when I got to sit next to those guys, that was something special. And I learned that if you open your mouth, it better be worth something.”
Carillo’s match commentary isn’t “Platitude filled”. Neither is it hit the mute button or change the channel boring. She is smooth and incisive.
Her analysis of the 2022 second round US Open match between Madison Keys and Camila Giorgi is an example of her adeptness…
“She (Giorgi) is a free-range chicken. Her shots just go all over the barnyard”. To which she added, “Every swing of Giorgi’s racquet is a different adventure…”
The contest lasted two hours, 22 minutes and Keys who was down 2-5 in the third set came back to with 6-4, 5-7, 7-6.
The International Tennis Hall of Fame induction transcript indicates how much Billie Jean King and Carillo care for one another…
In her introductory remarks to those gathered for the ceremony, King said of her “dear and cherished lifelong friend… I first met Mary in April, I think, 1977 – don’t quote me – at Port Washington Tennis Academy. An invitation soon followed to have a home-cooked meal and meet her family and, from around the corner, a young tennis player named John McEnroe.
“That June the two lefties, Mary and John, won the mixed doubles championship at Roland Garros. It was Mary’s greatest on-court tennis achievement, but sadly, her playing career was cut short due to bad knees.
“But like all champions, Mary adapted and found a new way to express her love of tennis. Instead of the racquet and ball, she turned to articulating the sport as a writer and also in the broadcast booth and as a producer. Mary is a purist. Oh, she’s such a purist and the queen of preparation, and she has a house full of notebooks to prove it. Very much like this one.”
King continued, “With a whip-smart mind and a strong voice and a confident presence, Mary has a remarkable ability to string together words that draw you into a narrative. Mary has become the storyteller of Olympic dreams, of provocative sports features, and even a dog show or two.
“Mary especially understands the moment. She understands the moment of being sparse and letting the action speak to us directly.
“Mary was the very first woman to break through as a full-time color commentator in tennis…
“Her star shined with HBO sports coverage of The Championships at Wimbledon, working on documentary films and 27 years of features on ‘Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.’
“For several years Mary was our roommate at Wimbledon. One of the highlights at each fortnight was looking forward to who Mary was going to bring through the door for a visit every day. It was always a treat, and the conversations were engaging and memorable.”
King pointed out, “Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel’s Jim Sarni once wrote of Mary, ‘Carillo collects friends like lint.’
“During the telecast, a viewer gets the impression she is sitting in the next chair…
“She has a wonderful sense of humor and is full of gratitude, and she knows the audience is everything…
“She enlightens and inspires us, is thoughtful, curious, and fearless. Being around her makes us feel better. Mary notices things most people don’t. The subtleties, the nuances. It’s what sets her apart and what fills those notebooks. Always original, always authentic, always leaving you anticipating what she will say next.
“She calls it and tells it as she sees it, even when she understands there might be pushback. She once said, ‘I am responsible for everything that pass these teeth.’ She has earned her spot in sports journalism history, and she has earned her spot here in Newport.”
Following the thoughtful introduction, Carillo took the stage and offered, “I have known Billie Jean for about 50 years. She is the most singularly American person I’ve ever known, and I mean that in the best way. I’ve had Billie honestly in my life for about 50 years, and every time I see her it still hits me like a hammer that she’s my friend.
“She shaped the sensibilities of so many of us here today, how she occupies space, how she moves through life, how she treats the people she meets with her cardinal virtues of curiosity and kindness.
“I’d never be here without Billie Jean King, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
Carillo, always skilled at segueing, did it talking about fellow inductee Roger Federer, saying, “And what an honor to honor Roger, this funny-looking guy over here. A man so personally and professionally elegant whose mastery has been worn so lightly, who is the same person with royalty or little kids, whether he’s moving or just sitting still… Whether he’s moving or just sitting still, Roger operates on a level few of us can access or even contemplate, but everywhere I look, I see legends and legacies.”
Then she returned to telling her story admitting, “I cannot properly express to all you people what it means to be a drop in this chalice.
“Here’s how I started playing, okay? I grew up about half a block from Little Neck Bay in Douglaston, Queens, in New York. From the time I was little, I learned how the tides work because when you want to swim or fish or sail, you do that at high tide. You plan your whole day around it.”
Having known Alex Olmedo and enjoyed his sense of humor, Carillo’s revelation was delightful. She explained, “The tide was high on the day of the annual Douglaston fishing contest down at the dock. It was there that a curly little girl pulled in the biggest flounder in the ferociously competitive 6-and-under age group. I got to choose my first prize. I could either get one of those crappy plastic green tackle boxes or a Sears – maybe it was Kmart – Alex Olmedo autographed racquet. Yes.
“After much deliberation and without knowing that Alex Olmedo had won the Australian and U.S. National Championships in 1959, that the esteemed sportswriter Lance Tingay named him the No. 2 player that year. That Lance Tingay, he would become a member of the International Tennis Hall one day, just as Alex Olmedo did – all I knew is that I could use Alex Olmedo to scoop up crabs along the shoreline.
“So, I fished and I swam, and I crabbed, and I played around at other sports just like you people, right? And I liked all of them, but then I found tennis, and for a kid like me, it was nothing less than the clap of creation. I didn’t want to keep noodling around with other sports, with other stuff, with schoolwork. Of my siblings who are here today, I was the third best student. There are three of us.
“Tennis is all I wanted to do. Tennis is all I wanted to be good at. A tennis player is who I wanted to be. My mom never had to wonder where I was or what I was getting into, because she knew I was up at the Douglaston club. I was picking up balls for our club pro, Dan Dwyer. Great guy. I was putting them into his shopping cart so I could listen in on the lessons he was giving. Or I was bugging kids for a game or hitting against the wall behind Court 5, right?
“I had a far less sanguine dream than these greats here, especially John McEnroe, my childhood friend, who, though younger than me, was so damn good even when he was so damn short that I knew at a tender age just how good I wasn’t.
“Which was good actually, because I’d play sets against this guy, and I knew – I promise you, I knew even then that history was brushing against my cheek, and it made me love the magic of the game even more.
“It has been an uncommon kick to watch John McEnroe go.
“But, first, and crucially, I needed to beat my father. When I was about, I don’t know, 9 or 10, I took a set from Tony Carillo for the first time, fair and square. I know what you’re thinking, Tracy (Austin). You think he handed it to me. You think he tanked. No, he didn’t throw it. I’d finally taken the big man down.
“We walked home from the club that day, and I told the big news to my mom. As I was going upstairs, I could hear her whisper to my dad, “Did she really beat you?”
“My dad whispered back, ‘She really did.’
“I walked a little taller to dinner that night, my friends. The sun stayed out longer. And the only good thing about summer’s end was that it was the beginning of the US Open, and you’d score tickets from Mr. Roach up the street, and you’d bum rides to Forest Hills, and then you’d head back to the club and you’d hit a little bit cleaner and you moved a little bit harder because that’s how the pros did it, and you wanted to be just like the big kids.
“After that, all I wanted was to get a few innings in the big leagues. I mean, that was my dream to maybe make it to Wimbledon, to walk through her gates. But to walk through the gates here in the company of you people, that was beyond my imagining.
“I’ve made it to Wimbledon far more times with a TV badge than a player’s badge, and not once did I take it for granted. What a deep privilege it was to have that credential around my neck. I wanted to be a professional, a real journalist, knowing that what counts is to be accurate and to be fair. And there were way too many times when I was neither.
“But that’s what I strove for, anyway, to love our sport with clear eyes and, when necessary, to tell hard truths. While it is an occupational hazard to piss off people in power, especially your bosses…
“I’ll tell you a story. We had this crazy alchemy and a looseness that I treasured. At his celebration of life last year, I told Al Trautwig’s son, Alex, this story, and I’ll tell it to you because true stories are the best stories.
“Early on we called women’s matches for USA Network, and then USA decided to fly us to Stuttgart, Germany, for the last couple of days of that tournament. I was thrilled. Billie makes fun of me, but it’s absolutely true. It was my first-ever overseas gig.
“I studied like a mad woman. Pages and pages of notes, quotes, articles, local lore, half-baked opinions. They were all there. As luck would have it, neither one of those matches was too good, so not terribly compelling. So, I filled the time telling stories. From the players’ childhoods, stories like that, to the city of Stuttgart itself.
“It was originally named Stuttgarten, which means a Garden for Horses. Stutts, you didn’t know that. You who knew that? Nobody. It’s what we call a work-around, okay? I tried so hard to keep the telecast interesting.
“At night our producer, Mark Stolberger, the man who first plucked me out of abject obscurity to this job, met us outside the production truck, and boy, he lit into us. He straight-up told us that the show stunk and that things had better change and fast or we were through. I really thought I was through. This was about 45 years ago.
“So, Al and I walked off into the cold, moonless night. I’m all jammed up. I am beyond consolation. Then Al says to me, ‘Mare’, when something like this happens, there’s only one thing to do. We have to leave the country.
“Now, keep in mind Al, true story, knew a lot more about television than I did, so I asked no questions, right? I followed him first to a liquor store and then to the Stuttgart Train Station where he bought us a few tickets, and off we went.
“On the train ride he told me terrific stories, funny stories, ridiculous stories about TV, about sports, about everything. I started to feel better about my life, as Germany zipped past the window. About three hours later we landed in Zurich, Switzerland. Nice city. Anyway, we stayed up all night because my cockamamie career was over…
“We took the train back to the Garden of Horses and the women’s final, and thank Christ it was good, because when the tennis is good, any of you people doing it, it’s a bit of a skate, right? The match tells you what it needs, and this one didn’t need much, which is good because I did not have much. The tennis did the talking.
“When we were off the air, we met again at the truck, the production truck, and Mark, who is still a dear friend of mine said, ‘You see? That’s what I’m talking about. Whatever you did, do the exact same thing from now on.’
“And that’s what I’ve done ever since.”
Carillo’s primary home is Naples, Florida but she spends time in her Greenwich Village apartment in New York City.
The renowned tennis photographer Art Seitz passed away August 25, 2025. Fellow photographer Fred Mullane remembered, “During this year’s Miami Open, while I was working for Tennis Channel, I was able to drive up to Pompano Beach and visit Art in his assisted living place. He had not been particularly well, and I felt that if I was going to see Art, now would be the time. So, I picked an evening to drive up there. To their credit, Mary Carillo and Chris Evert also made solo trips to see him.
“As we know, Art could be a bit ‘crusty’ and yet the person lying in the bed was a totally reimagined person than many of us remembered. Still sharp as a box of tacks, Art was at peace with his fate, thanked me profusely for visiting, and kept telling me that he ‘had a great life and accomplished everything he set out to do’. That night and Art’s sense of happiness and tranquility is how I will remember him. I wish the rest of the tennis world could have seen what actually lay inside the man towards the end.”
Seitz’s photos captured Carillo’s essence…
As did her tennis rivalry poem she read during the induction:
Bjorn and John. Martina and Chris;
Andre and Pete was a matchup of bliss.
Billie Jean versus inequality;
John and Jimmy: no frivolity.
John and Ivan was nothing trivial.
And as with Jimmy: not convivial.
Monica and Stephanie: two as tough as two can be;
Boris playing Stefan was a serve-and-volley symphony.
Maria and clay – and Maria won the day.
Venus and Serena, in every arena, they reign supreme-a.
They change things for good, as pathfinders should.
Rafa and Roger, and Novak the dislodger.
And he’s still out there! That old codger.
Aryna and Iga and Coco and Elena.
There’s way too many women; I really can’t explain-a.
Carlos and Jannik: stereophonic.
Their level grows so comical, I need a gin and tonical… oh boy, that sucks. I really gotta…
Describing my relationships with Carillo, I offer…
A lanky lefty…
Whom I’ve known for a while…
She played to form…
With unusually style…
While collecting friends…
Audiences too…
Using meaningful words…
That always seem new…
She spiced the combinations with relevance and humor…
Which kept everyone entertained with nary a rumor…
Mary Carillo stands alone…
Tennis is fortunate the game is her home…
Title photo by Art Seitz