Evonne Goolagong was born in 1951 in the Riverina district of New South Wales, a Wiradjuri woman and the third of eight children of Kenneth and Linda Goolagong. She grew up in Barellan, where hers was the only Aboriginal family, and she learned to hit a ball against a wall with a board from a fruit crate. At seven she was allowed to join the town's War Memorial Tennis Club, three years below the usual age. The coach Vic Edwards came up from Sydney to see her play and persuaded her to move to the city to train and study; she lived with his family from her early teens (the sources say 13 or 14), and there she faced racial abuse.
She first played Wimbledon in 1970, the year she joined Australia's Federation Cup team. In 1971, still 19, she won the French Open and then, a month later, beat her girlhood idol Margaret Court 6–4, 6–1 in the Wimbledon final. She was named Australian of the Year and nicknamed the "Sunshine Super Girl". In 1972 she became the first non-white player to compete in a tournament in apartheid South Africa.
Through the 1970s she reached 17 major singles finals. She won the Australian Open four years in a row, from 1974 to 1977, and was the runner-up at the US Open four years in succession. She married Roger Cawley in 1975 and was ranked world No. 1 in 1976 (some sources also place her at No. 1 in 1971). In 1980, with a three-year-old daughter, she won Wimbledon again, beating Chris Evert 6–1, 7–6 in the only women's Wimbledon final decided by a tiebreak, and became the first mother to win the title since 1914.
She retired in 1983 because of injury, with seven major singles titles, five major doubles titles and one mixed title, and three Federation Cup wins with Australia. She has since worked to support Indigenous young people through the Evonne Goolagong Foundation and the Goolagong National Development Camps. When Ash Barty won Wimbledon in 2021, she wore a dress in tribute to her.