“I never saw it coming”: Carillo on entering Hall of Fame alongside Federer

Tennis has played a principal role in Mary Carillo’s life, and she is forever grateful for that.

The sportscaster, journalist and former player later this year will be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, in the Contributor Category.

On this week’s episode of The Sit-Down podcast, Carillo reflected on this honour and how she will enter alongside 20-time major champion Roger Federer.

“I genuinely never saw it coming. I really didn’t,” Carillo said.

“There have been tremendous contributors in this category before. The late great Bud Collins is in there, Richard Evans, still one of my favourite writers, is in there, Gladys Heldman, and on and on.

“To be a contributor and to be going in the same summer Roger Federer’s going in, it’s silly, but I'm going,” she added with a laugh.

“It is a remarkable place. It's so full of history and so full of charm. I’ve covered tournaments there and have been able to visit there as well. The year that Nick Bollettieri went in I introduced him and that was an awful lot of fun. In fact, Lindsay Davenport got in that same summer.

“Roger is the first of the big three or big four if you want to get in, so I think it’s going to be spectacular.”

“It was during the World Team Tennis days, so a lot of the professional players weren’t allowed to play the French Open. It allowed us to get in. There was a sign-up sheet for mixed doubles.

John looked at the list of the players who had already signed up for the mixed and went, yeah, we should win this thing,” she recalled.

“Then we picked our way through and ended up winning the thing. It was John’s first major. It was my last major. John was a remarkable doubles player even then. He had such a good sense of the court. He saw rallies and angles that nobody else could see when he was just a little kid.

“A couple weeks later, he got himself to the semis of Wimbledon. His name wasn’t made when he made the mixed with me, let’s put it that way.”

Her next career move would come about by pure chance.

“I was in between knee operations and I taught tennis for Mr [Harry] Hopman. I was spending a lot of time in Florida and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do,” she said.

“Luckily, some guy who’s still a friend of mine heard me do some pick up commentary at Madison Square Garden at the Avon Championships. He happened to hear me call a match and it was just a pickup. I had talked about the upcoming match, Tracy Austin against Evonne Goolagong. All the people he wanted to interview in between matches had already left. It was late at night. I was still around. I started talking about what a great match it was going to be and why, so I got invited into the booth.”

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“That was first time I ever did it. It was fun, but it was not a career. I was still playing. After I lost in the first round of Wimbledon that next summer, a guy who was producing women’s tennis for the first time remembered hearing me that one night and he asked me if I wanted to try it.

“That was about 47 years ago.”

Carillo has earned six Emmy Awards and three Peabody Awards, but her contributions to tennis go beyond her accolades.

An advocate for women's sport and challenger of gender norms in the broadcast industry, her impact will be felt for generations to come.

“Tennis has given me everything. It has shaped and formed my entire life. I have no doubt about it,” the 2026 International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee said.

“I did exactly what I wanted to do with the people I wanted to do it with. It meant the world to me that tennis became my identity in so many important ways.”

Listen to the full episode of The Sit-Down, a weekly podcast released each Monday featuring an in-depth interview with a notable tennis identity. Subscribe in your favourite podcast player so you never miss an episode.

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