Pamela Howard Shriver Lazenby (born
July 4 1962, in
Baltimore, Maryland), is a former professional
tennis player and current sports broadcaster from the
United States. During the
1980s and
1990s, she won 133 top-level titles, including 22 women's doubles titles and 1 mixed doubles title at
Grand Slam tournaments. She also won a women's doubles gold medal at the
1988 Olympic Games in
Seoul, partnering with
Zina Garrison.
Shriver first came to prominence at the
1978 U.S. Open where, as an unseeded 16-year-old amateur, she reached the women's singles final. She defeated the reigning
Wimbledon champion
Martina Navratilova in a semifinal 7-6, 7-6. Shriver then lost to
Chris Evert in the final 7-5, 6-4. Shriver also won the first of her 21 career singles titles in 1978 at
Columbus, Ohio.
The 1978 U.S. Open final was the only Grand Slam singles final of Shriver's career. She lost the next eight Grand Slam singles semifinals she played, four of them to Navratilova, two to
Steffi Graf, and one each to Evert and
Hana Mandlikova.
Shriver's most notable successes after 1978 came in doubles play when future hall of famer Martina Navratilova picked her as a doubles partner in 1981 and subsequently won a total of 111 women's doubles titles. Shriver also bagged a mixed doubles title with partner
Emilio Sanchez. She is one of only five female players in the
open era to have won more than 100 career titles, although, unlike the other women who reached this milestone, a majority of her titles are in doubles.
Navratilova and Shriver formed one of the all-time great women's doubles teams, capturing seven
Australian Open, five
French Open, five Wimbledon, and four U.S. Open titles. In
1984, the pair captured all four Grand Slam women's doubles titles. This was part of a record 109-match winning streak between
1983 and
1985. The pair were named the
WTA Tour's "Doubles Team of the Year" eight consecutive times from
1981 through
1988 and won the
WTA Tour Championships title ten times between 1981 and
1992.
Shriver won another women's doubles Grand Slam title at the U.S. Open in
1991, partnering with
Natasha Zvereva. She was also the
1987 French Open mixed doubles champion with Emilio Sanchez. She swept all three gold medals (singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles at the 1991
Pan American Games in
Havana, Cuba.
Shriver reached the World No. 1 doubles ranking in 1985 and held it briefly before relinquishing it again to her partner, Navratilova. Throughout the 1980s, she was ranked among the World's Top 10 in women's singles, peaking at World No. 3.
Shriver retired from competitive play in
1996 but has since maintained a presence on the professional tour, mentoring
Venus Williams for a while and providing television commentary for
ABC, CBS, and
ESPN in the United States, the
BBC in the
United Kingdom, and
7 Sport in
Australia.
Shriver was elected to serve as president of the WTA Tour Players Association from 1991-94. She also has served as president of the USA Tennis Foundation, and on the board of directors of the
United States Tennis Association.
Shriver was inducted into the
International Tennis Hall of Fame in
2002.
Shriver's first husband, Joe Shapiro, a former Walt Disney company lawyer, died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in
1999.
In
2002, Shriver married the former
James Bond actor
George Lazenby. She gave birth to their first child, George, Jr., in July
2004. On
October 1, 2005, Shriver gave birth to twins, Kate and Sam. She is also a stepmother to George's daughter, Melanie Lazenby, from his previous marriage. The family lives in
Brentwood, California.
Shriver is a graduate of
McDonogh School in
Owings Mills, Maryland. She is also a minority owner of the
Baltimore Orioles and is extremely active in various charitable organizations.
