Salem Press

American Heroes
Chris Evert

‟If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that's a big accomplishment. . . .”

Tennis player

Chris Evert burst upon the American tennis scene in the summer of 1971 at the U.S. Open as the first of the modern teenage stars. During the two decades that followed, she became one of the great champions of the sport and one of the most popular players that tennis has ever known.

Born: December 21, 1954; Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Also Known As: Christine Marie Evert (birth name); Chris Evert Lloyd;
Chrissie; Ice Maiden (nickname); Ice Princess (nickname)
Area of Achievement: Sports

Early Life
Christine Marie Evert (EH-vurt) was born on December 21, 1954, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to James Evert, the manager of a tennis center, and Colette Evert. Chris was the second of their five children. All the Evert children learned to play tennis, but Chris displayed a special aptitude for the game. Her parents, however, did not direct her toward a professional career in the sport. Jimmy Evert did teach his daughter the two-handed backhand stroke that became her trademark because young Chris lacked the strength to execute a backhand with only one hand. From an early age, Chris stressed discipline and practicing to perfect her game. Her father was a major influence on her professional life and approach to tennis.

She began to attract the attention of top tennis players when she was fifteen. In the autumn of 1970, at a small tournament in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Carolinas International Tennis Classic, Evert beat two top-ranked players. Her most notable triumph was over Margaret Smith Court, the number one woman player in the world, who had just won the Grand Slam the preceding year. The score was 7-6, 7-6. Evert lost to Nancy Richey in the final, but she was now a rising young star on the circuit.

During 1971, Evert continued to beat some top players in the tournaments that she entered. She won the Virginia Slims Masters in St. Petersburg, Florida, in April and then was selected for the American Wightman Cup team to compete against Great Britain. She won two matches and was named the most valuable player in the competition.

Her true emergence as an international star occurred on the large public stage at the United States Open at Forest Hills in late August. Though still just sixteen, she won her first-round match easily. Facing defeat and elimination in a second-round match against Mary Ann Eisel of the United States, Evert rallied from a match point against her in the second set to win in three exciting sets, 4-6, 7-6, 6-1. Evert captivated the savvy New York crowd of avid tennis fans. She defeated two more players to reach the semifinals against the reigning queen of American women's tennis, Billie Jean King. King defeated her 6-3, 6-2 and went on to win the tournament. For the spectators there and for the national television audience, Evert was the story of the United States Open in 1971. The New York Times called her a ‟Cinderella in sneakers." She became a celebrity player and remained popular during the two decades of her career that followed.

Life's Work
Evert's career as a tennis star included so many victories and records that they cannot be easily summarized in a brief space. She entered thirty-four Grand Slam tournaments between 1971 and 1983 and made the semifinals in every one of them. From 1974 through 1986, she won at least one Grand Slam tournament every year. She was invincible on clay from August of 1973 through May of 1979, when she won 125 consecutive matches on her favorite surface. She was never ranked lower than fourth in the world throughout her career. She won 1,309 singles matches as against only 146 losses. In doubles, her record was 119 wins and 39 losses. Her career earnings totaled nearly $9 million.

Evert was especially dominant in the Grand Slam matches at the height of her career. She won the United States Open four years in a row between 1974 and 1978 and won additional titles there in 1980 and 1982. She won 101 matches at the Open, a record for both men and women. Her appeal to the New York crowds never faded, and it was appropriate that she played her last major professional match at that tournament in 1989.

The Australian Open was a tournament that Evert entered only five times. Yet she was a finalist in each of the tournaments, winning in 1982 and 1984. One of her victories came in 1982 against her friend and traditional rival Martina Navratilova, in a match that went three sets, 6-3, 2-6, 6-3. She outlasted Helena Sukova in the 1984 final, 6-7, 6-1, 6-3.

The red clay courts at Roland Garros Stadium for the French Open were a friendly surface for Evert throughout her career. She won the tournament seven times, in 1974, 1975, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1985, and 1986. Her last two victories were at the expense of Navratilova, and each one went the full three sets. In 1985, Evert triumphed 6-3, 6-7, 7-5, and a year later the score was 2-6, 6-3, 6-3. These were two of the most exciting encounters in the storied rivalry of these excellent tennis players. They reestablished Evert as a credible challenger to Navratilova and helped her end her playing career on a high note.

Although Evert won Wimbledon three times, she did not excel in this prestigious tournament to the extent that she did in the French Open or U.S. Open. The fast grass court surface was less suited to her baseline game. The sensational British tabloids dubbed her ‟the Ice Maiden" and emphasized person gossip in their intensive and often intrusive coverage of her annual appearances. The British fans, for their part, did not always appreciate the intense concentration that characterized her playing style. Despite these handicaps, she won her first Wimbledon title in 1974, two years after her first appearance in the tournament, with a victory over the Russian player Olga Morozova, 6-0, 6-4. Two years later, she triumphed again, defeating Evonne Goolagong Cawley, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1. Navratilova defeated Evert twice in Wimbledon finals, in 1978 and 1979, and Cawley also beat Evert in 1980. Evert won her third and last Wimbledon in 1981. She then lost three more finals to Navratilova, in 1982, 1984, and 1985.

Two rivalries with top players marked Evert's long career. During the 1970's, she often met the great champion of women's tennis, Billie Jean King, in key matches of top tournaments. The rivalry that most affected Evert during the 1980's, however, was the contest she waged with Navratilova for the top ranking in the women's game. In the cases of both King and Navratilova, the difference in approach to the game gave these matches great charm. Both King and Navratilova played an attacking style of serve-and-volley tennis. Evert's game, however, was built on her devastatingly accurate ground strokes hit from the baseline. Her most lethal weapon was her two-handed backhand, but her forehand, drop-shots, and lob were equally important in keeping her opponents off balance. Along with the excellent technical execution of her strokes, which good footwork and racquet preparation set up, she added tremendous concentration, discipline, anticipation, and tactical control of points to her game.

The challenge that Navratilova brought helped prolong Evert's tennis career. Navratilova's dominance pushed Evert to add new dimensions, such as a greater use of net play, to her game. The matches between these two great players attracted large television audiences and became legendary in the sport. Despite their strong desire to beat the other, the two women forged an unlikely friendship out of their confrontations. That sense of mutual respect enhanced the moments when they faced each other across the net. When their professional rivalry ended in 1988, Navratilova had won forty-three matches while Evert had prevailed in thirty-seven. As Evert noted, the two women had been by themselves in the locker room on championship Sundays over a period of sixteen years. They had dealt with that responsibility in a mature and understanding manner.

When Evert retired at the end of the 1989 season, her career of almost two decades was one of the longest and most memorable in the history of women's tennis. Evert brought a personal charisma to tennis that has also been reflected in her life off the court. In 1974, she was engaged to the popular men's player Jimmy Connors. Their twin victory at Wimbledon made headlines as the ‟Love Double," but they ended their engagement later that year. In April of 1979, Evert married John Lloyd, a British tennis player whose talent did not match that of his wife. The strains of life on the professional tennis circuit took their toll. Lloyd lacked the drive and commitment to excellence that motivated Evert. As a result, their marriage ended in divorce in 1986. In 1988, Evert married Andy Mill, a former Olympic skier in Boca Raton, Florida in a civil ceremony with Navratilova and other women tennis players in attendance. The couple had three children: Alexander James, born in 1991, Nicholas Joseph, born in 1994, and Colton Jack, born in 1996. In 2005, she said of her husband that he was a keeper. To a reporter writing a book about her famous matches with Navratilova, she confided her hopes that she and Mill could grow old together with their three boys. In December, 2006, however, she and Mill were divorced in Florida because of what were called in the newspapers ‟irreconcilable differences." Evert's friendship with the Australian golfer Greg Norman was mentioned as an element in the divorce.

Since her retirement in 1989, Evert has continued to have an active involvement with tennis. She sponsors an annual pro-celebrity charity tournament and participates in other fund-raising tennis programs. She has served as an expert and well-informed television commentator for the French Open, Wimbledon, and the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. She has collaborated on two autobiographical books, and she is a contributing editor to a tennis magazine, writing articles on various aspects of how to play the game. She continues to be a leader in the Women's Tennis Association. With her brother John, she also operates the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton. She is involved in charitable work to help at-risk children and to combat the epidemics of HIV and AIDS. She told an interviewer in 2004 that she is involved in these varied activities with a single underlying purpose—to get to know herself as a human being. Twenty years after her retirement from competition, she remains one of the icons of women's tennis and is instantly recognizable by fans around the world.

Significance
Evert's impact on the game of women's tennis has been as significant as that of any other player in the history of her sport in the twentieth century. She became the most popular figure in women's tennis at the time of her rise to prominence in 1971, and she has sustained that level of acclaim ever since. Her disciplined, precise style of tennis attested to her commitment and her determination on the court. As she wrote in her autobiography Chrissie (1982), ‟I love tennis, I love the competition, the sheer challenge of playing to perfection." At the same time, she was always dignified and sporting in her demeanor toward opponents. As a result, she was regarded as being feminine and athletic simultaneously. Chris's professionalism and dedication have made her a leader in the development of women's tennis since the 1970's. She has done much for the Women's Tennis Association as an officer, but as a star player and celebrity she has helped to lift the game to heights of popularity in the United States it would not otherwise have attained. The Women's Sports Foundation named her the Greatest Woman Athlete of the preceding twenty-five years in 1985. Though now retired, she still remains the most recognizable women's tennis player in the United States. According to a poll taken by American Sports Data in 1991, she was the most widely known athlete in the nation. Her distinguished place in the history of American sports is secure.

Karen Gould

Further Reading
Brown, Gene, ed. The Complete Book of Tennis. New York: Arno Press, 1980. A history of tennis based on accounts from The New York Times, this book offers a good survey newspaper coverage of Evert's major matches as she rose to international stardom during the 1970's.

Collins, Bud. My Life with the Pros. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1990. A very lively memoir by a reporter and broadcaster who covered Evert throughout her career and who later worked with her as a commentator on televised tennis matches. A valuable source for the inside perspective on her impact as a tennis star.

Feinstein, John. Hard Courts: Real Life on the Professional Tennis Tours. New York: Villard Books, 1991. Though the subject of his book is the 1990 tennis year, Feinstein has much to say about Evert's impact on the women's game.

Howard, Johnette. The Rivals: Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova, Their Epic Duels and Extraordinary Friendship. New York: Broadway Books, 2005. An in-depth analysis of this famous tennis rivalry with much new information about Evert's career and personality.

King, Billie Jean, and Cynthia Starr. We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Women's Tennis. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988. An engaging history of the women's game written by one of Evert's most famous rivals. King makes some perceptive remarks about the popular response to Evert and the reaction of her fellow women tennis players to Evert's stardom.

Lloyd, Chris Evert, with Neil Amdur. Chrissie: My Own Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. A forthright memoir of her tennis career up to 1982, with comments about the place of tennis in her family, her approach to the game, and how she dealt with her celebrity status.

Lloyd, Chris Evert, and John Lloyd, with Carol Thatcher. Lloyd on Lloyd. London: Willow Books, 1985. Written in England with her first husband, this book gives a vivid picture of Evert's life during the mid-1980's and shows how the marriage of two professional players affected their careers and ultimately led to their divorce.

Lumpkin, Angela. Women's Tennis: A Historical Documentary of the Players and Their Game. Troy, N.Y.: Whitston, 1981. This overview of the role of women in tennis considers Evert's effect on the game and provides references to many of the articles written about her during the 1970's.

Schwbacher, Martin. Superstars of Women's Tennis. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000. Evert's career receives a chapter in this look at the major figures of women's tennis.

Wade, Virginia, with Jean Rafferty. Ladies of the Court: A Century of Women at Wimbledon. New York: Atheneum, 1984. This survey of women at Wimbledon has a very good chapter on Evert's victories in this prestigious championship.