Calling the Shots: My Autobiography

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The next day, I was flying to Japan. When we arrived at the hotel in Tokyo, there was a telegram from Cliff, wishing me all the best in my matches and hoping to see me again. So I knew he was keen. Barker, Dawson and Tufnell to leave A Question Of Sport in show shake-up". Sky News . Retrieved 31 December 2021. In September 2020, it was announced that Barker would step down from her role as host of BBC game show A Question of Sport after 24 years; she stated that she was "sad to say goodbye". [30] On 9 June 2022, Barker announced she would be stepping down from BBC coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championship after the 2022 finals, which she had covered since 1993. [31] BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs - Eight things we learned from Sue Barker's Desert Island Discs". BBC . Retrieved 24 September 2022. Barker started working for the BBC as a tennis presenter in 1993, and the following year began to present coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championships; she stepped down from this role after the 2022 Wimbledon Championships. [3] Barker is a former presenter of A Question of Sport.

Sue Barker: BBC could have handled my Question of Sport exit better". BBC News. 30 September 2022 . Retrieved 19 February 2023. The former French Open champion had earlier walked off Centre Court for the last time with little fanfare, after 30 years of presenting the BBC’s Wimbledon coverage.Going all in for her once-only autobiography, Sue takes us inside the showbizzy world of 70s and early 80s tennis. She reveals the battles she fought for hard-won success in two careers and gives us a ringside seat on the nation's biggest sporting dramas and a fascinating insider's understanding of competitors under pressure. I was soon receiving treatment on my hamstring but feeling depressed, injured, really down, and kept calling Cliff for a chat. He was, I thought, my boyfriend. Plus as a older teenager I played and coached at The Imperial Hotel in Torquay, and I did play at The Palace Hotel in Paignton. Our relationship had lasted just under a year. We’d bonded over our respective ambitions in sport, and travelled the world to be together whenever the professional tennis and golf schedules allowed. But our relationship started to go wrong when I was playing in Boston, Massachusetts. I knew I had to face my toughest opponent, Chrissie Evert, so I was determined to stay focused and work hard. Barker has branched out since joining the BBC, becoming one of their chief sports presenters. She was one of the presenters of Grandstand and the presenter of the long-running sports quiz show A Question of Sport [5] ( QoS) since 1997, having succeeded David Coleman. She retired as QoS presenter following the BBC's decision to revamp the show, having recorded her last episode in September 2020. [22] She was a host of the annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards ceremony from 1994 to 2012 before stepping down in 2013. [23]

Over the years, we stopped seeing each other much, yet remained friends. The only thing we fell out over was the fact that he kept harping on about me in interviews — ‘I didn’t love her enough to propose,’ and so forth.This is the remarkable life story of a tennis champion, an award-winning broadcaster who has brought sporting history into our living rooms for decades, and a trail-blazing woman who has always called the shots. In 1982, Barker met singer Cliff Richard. Their four-month-long [33] romance attracted considerable media attention after Richard flew to Denmark to watch her play in a tennis match and they were photographed cuddling and holding hands at Wimbledon. [36] [37] In 1988, Richard said of his former romance with Barker: "We were closer than just friends. She's the only person with whom I've had that sort of relationship." He said that one of the things which made up his mind not to marry her was when she got upset because he hadn't told her who he was seeing that day. Richard said: "I suddenly realised that in a marriage you don't live for yourself." [38] Richard said in 2008 that he had come close to asking her to marry him. He said: "I seriously contemplated asking her to marry me, but in the end I realised that I didn't love her quite enough to commit the rest of my life to her." [39] The steward seemed to have the same thought. He looked at me and said: ‘Sue, I’d give up now if I were you.’ And I nearly cried with laughter.

I begged Cliff to have some respect for my marriage and to stop mentioning me. It would have been so easy for him to say to any inquiring journalist: ‘Sue is happily married to Lance now, let’s leave it.’ a b "BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Sue Barker, presenter and tennis player". BBC . Retrieved 24 September 2022. Actually I have to get that comment right, Sue's two careers, a tennis career, and a television career. How you see Sue on the television is the real Sue, and admire so much when she says "You see enough of me on television, you won't see me showing my house off in the Hello Magazine. After retiring as a tennis player, Barker became a commentator and sports reporter for Australia's Channel 7 in 1985 before anchoring tennis coverage for British Sky Broadcasting from 1990 to 1993. In 1993, Barker joined the BBC and hosted its Wimbledon coverage as a regular guest on Today at Wimbledon with Harry Carpenter. She took over as host of Today at Wimbledon in 1994, and from 2000 until 2022, she anchored the two-week-long broadcast for the network. [21] Henderson, Jon (8 July 2007). "Tennis: Say it's not so Sue". The Guardian. London . Retrieved 29 December 2012.

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Sue Barker leaving BBC's A Question of Sport after 24 years". BBC News. 13 September 2020 . Retrieved 8 July 2021. Pearce, Sally (12 January 1986). "Cliff Richard, the pop world's greatest survivor, says..." New Straits Times . Retrieved 7 July 2013.

It felt to me like a friendship that had the potential to develop, rather than a significant romantic relationship, because we hadn’t taken it far — and I’m not just talking about sex. The best (and WORST) Christmas markets 2023 in Bath, Edinburgh, Manchester, London, Birmingham and more OK, I thought. Maybe we could have a laugh about it — because it was that far down the line and I was very happily married. So I agreed to Des’s playful request and went down to the stand. Sue Barker (GBR)". Sony Ericsson WTA Tour. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007 . Retrieved 18 May 2007.

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Sue Barker to step down as Wimbledon presenter after 2022 tournament". BBC Sport. 9 June 2022 . Retrieved 9 June 2022. Another of his comments was: ‘She asked me what I was doing next Saturday . . . and I didn’t like that — it was a bit intrusive or serious.’ Really? I don’t ask my husband what we’re doing next Saturday; I tell him. But Des persisted. ‘Come on, you’ve got to do it for the programme. And we’ll just have a laugh about it.’