Born in Bristol, England, Jo Durie was the last British woman to reach the semifinal of a Grand Slam tournament until Johanna Konta reached the semifinal of the 2016 Australian Open,[2] and the last British woman to win a major title in any discipline, until Heather Watson won the 2016 Wimbledon mixed doubles title with Henri Kontinen.

As an unseeded player Durie reached the semifinals of the French Open, beating both Pam Shriver and Tracy Austin along the way.

[4] Later that year she made another Grand Slam singles semifinal appearance at the US Open, where she eventually lost to Chris Evert in straight sets.

Durie's success as a singles player during 1983 gained her a coveted place at the 1984 WTA Tour Championship as the fifth seed.

Her most successful year at Wimbledon as a singles player came in 1984 when she reached the quarterfinals, beating a 15-year-old Steffi Graf in a memorable fourth-round match.

She won two top-level WTA singles titles (both in 1983) at Mahwah, New Jersey and Sydney, and had career wins over Steffi Graf, Zina Garrison, Pam Shriver, Hana Mandlíková, and Tracy Austin.

Durie made her last appearance in a WTA tour singles final at the Virginia Slims of Newport tournament in 1990.

By virtue of this success she gained a place at the 1984 WTA Tour Championship in doubles, and reached the final partnering Ann Kiyomura.

After retiring from the professional tour, Durie had heart surgery to rectify a problem for which she had originally been prescribed Beta blockers early in her career.

She revealed this fact in March 2016 in an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, after the revelation that Maria Sharapova had been found taking a similar heart-issue drug, which later had been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.