Maria Bueno receives highest São Paulo medal and diploma

Former world No 1 and tennis legend, Maria Esther Bueno, was honoured on Monday evening with the São Paulo medal and diploma, Medalha Anchieta e o Diploma de Gratidão de São Paulo, the highest accolade the state capital can bestow, in a ceremony held at the City Hall.

She received many tributes, including speeches by long-time friend and playing partner Fernando Gentil and Marcello Bandeira de Mello, the President of Sociedade Harmonia de Tênis, her hometown club.

Gentil told of Maria’s generosity of spirit, always prepared to help family and friends and often found looking after kids at the club, fresh from performing in some capacity or another on the world stage.

Maria was very touched by all the kind words, saying: “It is such a special occasion to receive the biggest honour of the city in front of all my friends, who have helped me through some bad times and turned them into good memories.

“I’m very happy to receive these awards, especially since I am from São Paulo,” the tennis icon continued in her acceptance address.

“I was born here and I started playing here. My family has always lived in the city and I feel I am at home in my own house, in the presence of my friends who have came to witness this honour.

“It makes me very happy,” she concluded.

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Maria Esther won 19 Grand Slam tournaments, seven in singles plus eleven doubles and a further mixed titles. In all, the graceful Brazilian won a total of 589 international titles between the 1950s and 1970s.

The most successful athlete of the sport in the country, Maria Esther avoided comparing her time with the game today and spoke optimistically about the current scenario of the Brazilian tennis, particularly after Brazil’s recent return to the World Group of the Davis Cup.

“The conditions and equipment are always changing so we can’t really compare the different eras properly,” she said.

“Tennis is now being developed well in Brazil and throughout Latin America, especially with a few new tournaments that are coming up, and all this gives the game a scenario of hope.

“I think it was a big step [Brazil’s return to world group]. Spain came here to São Paulo as the big favourite and despite fielding a weakened team, people really didn’t believe in our players, so it was a great victory for our team.

“Nobody imagined that Spain would go down to the second division!” Maria Esther added.

Now a TV Globo and SporTV channel commentator, Mary Esther was keen to stress that she continues to closely follow the sport and, at the age of 75, she still trains daily and makes personal appearances as well as conducting tennis clinics.

“I may not be playing matches anymore but I keep pretty busy covering the major tournaments for TV and I do a lot of interviews with the tennis players of today, like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

“Anyway, I am not a ‘former’ tennis player because I still play every day!” Maria Esther concluded in jest.

After her investiture, Maria Esther delivered several interviews for TV, including the in-house channel as well as TV Globo national news and SporTV.