Carol Lee Newsom

Diagnoses

Personal

Vocation

Lifestyle

American freelance photographer since 1974, Newsome captured many of the most important tennis matches in the last 30 years on camera and sold photographs to leading publications. In 1991 she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and continued to work despite her illness. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, the cause of her death on March 13, 2003, she scheduled her chemotherapy treatments around the tournaments. After graduation from Boston University in 1968 where she majored in mathematics, Newsom taught math at Milton High School, but, intrigued by tennis, she began in 1974 to contribute photos to Tennis New England. Two years later, she was named tournament photographer at a tennis club in Brookline, MA. In 1980 she became the first female photographer to work Wimbledon’s Centre Court. She became the official photographer of the women’s tour sponsored by Virginia Slims and, since 1980, covered the annual French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.