Tennis Forum banner

Chris Evert Thread

392K views 3K replies 139 participants last post by  samn 
#1 · (Edited)
Well Steffi, Jana and Martina N all have threads in their names so I started a thread for Chris Evert.




:bounce:
 
See less See more
1
#752 · (Edited)
Apologies in advance if this has been posted before, but I thought some of you might like reading Chris's interview with Sally Jenkins in the May 1992 issue of Sports Illustrated.

"'I've Lived A Charmed Life"
But not all has been easy for Chris Evert, who in a candid interview, discusses her fears and insecurities, her image, Martina and the price she paid to become a champion.
- Sally Jenkins

SJ: Do you think you'll ever play tennis again?

CE (laughing): Oh, I don't think so. I don't mean this to be a put-down of other players, but after being at the top, I don't think I could play senior tournaments, because you know how good you were. I don't know if I would enjoy that, being half of what I was. I could be wrong, but as of now, that's the way I feel.

SJ: Is being a mother enough for you?

CE: Being a mother of one child, and possibly two, having Andy as my husband, living in Aspen and Boca Raton, doing broadcasting and fulfilling my endorsements is definitely enough for me. You know, it's funny, I'm not an overly ambitious person; I don't feel like I have to excel. I don't think I will ever be as intense in anything I do as I was in tennis.

SJ: When you watched Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova play the U.S. Open last year, did a little voice inside say maybe you could have slipped into the semifinals or finals, too?

CE: In the last few years of my career I still had my high moments. The problem was, I had more low moments. When you get to the last few years, it's still very possible to reach the finals or the semifinals of a tournament like the U.S. Open, but you might lose in the round of 16 at San Francisco. That's the difference.

SJ: What was it like dealing with that?

CE: You have to deal with yourself and how you feel, because you have a lot of matches you don't care that much about anymore. You start saying to yourself, Why am I doing this? Do I need this aggravation? And you have to deal with the public's perception of you, the write-ups: "She's over the hill; she should have retired." The question is, What's the right time to retire? It will be interesting to see when Martina decides that.

SJ: Do you get any sense of that from her?

CE: As long as she wants to keep playing, she should. I said this once before about Jimmy—and I didn't mean to say it the way I said it—but eventually you have to go on to something else. Why do you stay in the game as long as you do? A lot of people do because they don't have anything else in their life that's more special.

SJ: They haven't found anything to replace winning?

CE: Right. If I hadn't had Andy, if I had been single and alone and insecure, maybe I would have stayed in the game. But I felt sort of grounded, so I felt like I could make the move in a graceful way.

SJ: You once said that tennis was a need. What need did it fulfill?

CE: I was very insecure when I was young. I was shy and introverted. When I went out on the tennis court, I could express myself. It was a way of getting reactions from people, like my father. I really admired my dad and put him on a pedestal, and I wanted his attention. Whether it's ego or insecurity or whatever, when you start winning and getting attention, you like it, and that feeling snowballs. You start to feel good about yourself. You feel complete and proud of yourself.

SJ: Does it irritate you when young players talk about how much more exciting women's tennis is today?

CE: Sure. I was really sensitive right after I retired. It was hard. I've been in the game for more than 20 years, and I've seen cycles. Believe me, tennis has been as exciting as it is now. In the years with Billie Jean [King], Evonne [Goolagong], Martina, Margaret Court, Virginia [Wade], Rosie [Casals] and myself, for a brief period you had five or six huge draws, and tennis was very exciting.

The reason I was sensitive about this after I retired is that I felt it was personal. Like, "Chris is out of the game, and now it's more exciting." I mean, I know I wasn't the most exciting player. I was sensitive when they would compare me to other players. Like, "Jennifer [Capriati] comes to the net more than Chris ever did, and Monica [Seles] hits the ball harder." But I understand it. They use me as a barometer.

SJ: Is it true that you were one of the most accomplished joke tellers in the locker room?

CE: Yeah. Well, I have a dirty sense of humor.

SJ: The public doesn't know that.

CE: Good. I don't want people to know everything about me.

SJ: Will you tell a joke?

CE: To you? In print?

SJ: Do you have one that's fit to tell?

CE: I'm thinking.

SJ: Do you know any clean jokes?

CE: None that are funny. There are no funny clean jokes.

SJ: It's interesting that people don't know how funny you are.

CE: Well, it was anything but funny watching me play. I had this grim look on my face the whole time. When you're in the public eye, you don't want 100 percent of yourself to be known. The public doesn't really know who I am, anyway.

SJ: It doesn't?

CE: I don't know. I mean, when John Feinstein was interviewing me for his book [Hard Courts] about the tour, he said he heard I was pro-choice on the abortion issue. I said, "So?" And he said, "Well, you never said it."

Well, no one had ever asked me. No one had ever asked me how I felt about a lot of things. I guess I'm not controversial. I have never really wanted to be. I don't think I'm an aggressive person. Sometimes I wish I were.

SJ: Do you regret having told Feinstein that you once smoked marijuana?

CE: The only reason I admitted I had tried it was to say that there is nothing positive about it. If you want to feel good and feel high, then you go for a run; you don't smoke a joint. I said one sentence to Feinstein, and then I saw the headlines. I'm sorry, but in the '70s I did try marijuana. In the '70s that was the thing to try. So I did experiment. It was the worst thing I ever did, because it totally clogged my brain. I couldn't think.

SJ: People seem taken aback when you admit things like that.

CE: So what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to hide these things, or are you supposed to admit to every little human thing that you've done? It's a tough call. That's a struggle for me.

SJ: What else does the public not know about you?

CE: Without getting into it, just that I'm not as goody two shoes as people think. They think that I am squeaky clean. I'm a normal woman. I've dated a lot of guys, I've had a few drinks, I've told dirty jokes, I've cursed, I've been rude to my parents. I'm a normal person.

SJ: So you're a regular red-blooded American woman?

CE: Yeah. I always felt dating and male companionship were important. Being in a relationship was important, whether because of insecurity or because I wanted to feel needed. Who knows? I'm far from perfect. I guess I felt a little uncomfortable with my image when it got to be squeaky clean, because I know I'm no angel. There's nothing in my life, no skeletons in my closet, that people should be so shocked about. But I've lived a normal life for a woman 37 years old.

SJ: You're viewed as very correct.

CE: I try to be correct. I'm conservative in most things. But when it comes to my emotions, I'm totally out there. I've taken chances in my relationships and with my emotions.

SJ: Were you more emotional in the locker room than on court?

CE: I'd wait. I'd cry in the shower. The only unemotional moments I've had were on the tennis court. I hid my feelings so well. And when I hit the locker room or saw my parents or Andy, it would all come out.

SJ: Why didn't you show your emotions on the court?

CE: When I look back and see myself with that little grim, fixed expression, I wonder, because that's not me. I think my father instilled it in me at a young age. I remember his telling me, "Don't show any emotion; it will be to your advantage because your opponent will be frustrated." And you know, it worked. So I stayed with it. But it wasn't me the person. It was just me the tennis player.

SJ: Was being a role model a responsibility you wanted?

CE: I never sought it, but I was placed in the position. So you do the best you can with it. It's how you perform on the court and conduct yourself, and how you deal with defeat. Those are the qualities people should look at, not whether you're gay or how many guys you've dated. Certain things are just not important; they don't have to do with your character. Your character is revealed in how you handle stressful situations.

SJ: Martina has said that being gay has hurt her in the marketplace, but she has also said that playing against Chris America hurt her, too. Is she right?

CE: Yeah. I grew up, um, I don't want to say a real American, because Martina's American, but I didn't defect. And right from the start I was sort of different from the stereotypical woman athlete. Along with Evonne and Maria Bueno, I probably helped bring some femininity into a sport that was pretty masculine at the time. I think the public liked that. And I agree with Martina. Being gay has hurt her with endorsements. That's just the way it is. It's difficult, because in terms of her being a role model, I would tell my child to look at the way she conducts herself on the court. Look at how she fights for every point. And look how honest she is with people. I guess a lot of parents aren't ready for that yet.

SJ: How friendly are you with Martina now?

CE: There are no more petty jealousies or ill feelings, because I've retired. We spent a lot of emotional Sundays in locker rooms, and whether I won or she won, the other one comforted the other. So, emotionally, there's a lot of caring between us. If she called me and wanted me to do something, I'd do it in a minute, and if I called her, I know I could depend on her. Now that I've had a baby we can have an even stronger bond, because I can share that part of my life with her. She loves kids, and she's interested in them. We also live in the same place [Aspen], so we can do more things together. The pressure's off. We're not threatening to each other anymore.

SJ: Do you think you're a good mother?

CE: I don't know if I'm a good mother, because Alex is only seven months old. Ask me when he's 18 and not in jail. But I feel that I'm a loving mother, and I give him a lot of attention.

SJ: Do you think your parents did it right?

CE: I was lucky. My parents did it right in that era. They did it right to produce a champion. I don't know if they did it right to develop a person. I feel like I'm fine now, but during that time of playing junior tournaments. I wasn't allowed to do a lot of things. I still wonder if my tennis would have been kept back if I had been able to be more sociable with kids my age and go out on dates and to parties and stuff. I think my parents felt those things would have held me back.

SJ: Did you talk to them about those things?

CE: It was hard as a child because they were the boss. It's taken years and years to...I mean, we've talked about how they raised me until we're blue in the face now. My parents have mellowed a lot. And it didn't hurt me for life. I made up for it, let's put it that way. Once I was on my own, I made up for it. As far as developing as a person, tennis can inhibit that. It can restrict anybody.

SJ: What will you do differently with Alex?

CE: Again, I could write a book on being brought up. I think one thing I'm going to do differently—and it's only one thing because in everything else my parents were wonderful—is listen a little bit better than they listened. They didn't have time. When you're running a household of five kids, you don't have a lot of time to chitchat. You know, it was, "Go to bed." And you'd say, "Can you just listen to my side?" "Go to bed." But I'll listen to him even if he's five years old, and if he wants to do something, I'll talk to him about it.

SJ: When did you finally grow up?

CE: I started soul-searching when I was 28, and that went on to about 32. Then I caught up to where I should be. Being a tennis player puts a lot of reactions and emotions on hold.

SJ: What are the qualities that make a champion?

CE: They're all negative qualities. At least they were for me. When I look at the players who have made it year after year, like Billie Jean, Monica and Steffi [Graf], I see intensity. And again, that might come from a negative—from insecurity, from seeking attention. It might come from, "I want to prove something."

SJ: Could it come from love?

CE: Are you kidding? Love? Billie Jean said 10 or 15 years ago that she hated to lose more than she loved to win. That's the truth. You hate to lose more than you love to win.

SJ: How much did you hate it?

CE: Oh, I hated it. I hated it. I think you have to have that. And you have to have an arrogance to maintain a high level of confidence. Most of the time I kept it inside. But, boy, it was there. You know you're better than the other players because there are so many times when you're down 5-3 in the third set and you don't get worried. You still know you're going to win. That's true arrogance.

SJ: Were you aware of that arrogance as a player?

CE: Oh, I knew. I was aware of all my qualities as a player. I recognized them and justified them. In my mind I thought, Well, while I'm playing, the people around me who are close to me have to understand that I'm going to be moody, that I'm going to have a short temper at times, that I don't have a lot of patience. You just get so involved. And everything revolves around you. I was aware of it. And the last three years, I didn't like it.

In fact, all during my career I had qualms about it. When I was in grade school and we had to write papers about what we wanted to be when we grew up, I wanted to be a social worker or a missionary or a teacher. I always wanted to help people. Then I got involved with tennis, and everything was just me, me, me. I was totally selfish and thought about myself and nobody else, because if you let up for one minute, someone was going to come along and beat you. I really wouldn't let anyone or any slice of happiness enter. But the last few years I looked at Andy, and I yearned to start a family. I didn't like the characteristics that it took to become a champion.

SJ: Have you ever faced real adversity?

CE: I've lived a charmed life. The toughest time in my life so far has been when I divorced John Lloyd [in 1987]. I started to deal with a lot of issues then. I had to deal with the fact that he is a great guy and a great husband, and there is nothing wrong with him. I had to do a lot of soul-searching for about two years: What's wrong with this relationship? How come I'm feeling the way I am? How come I'm not happy? And then the hurting. If I did hurt him, that hurt me a lot.

You learn about yourself through those experiences. It's not that I've regretted not having adversity or not having pain in my life, because I've had such a good life. I don't want to wish too hard, because then it will happen, but I think you grow and learn through pain. And I haven't had a lot of pain.

SJ: What are you afraid of now?

CE: I think I've lived most of my life in fear. I've been afraid of things, whether it's losing a tennis match or criticism from people or going too fast on skis and hurting myself. The fear has been something I've always wanted to overcome, and I'm overcoming it more and more. There's still a lot of that in my life, but I think I'm finally being freed from it.

SJ: One thing tennis gives you is a quantified answer that tells you who you are at the end of the day. What replaces that?

CE: In tennis, at the end of the day you're a winner or a loser. You know exactly where you stand, if you're No. 2 or No. 10, if you win or you lose. I don't need that anymore. I don't need my happiness, my well-being, to be based on winning or losing. That part of my life is over. My life is more vague now. But it's also more adventurous and mysterious. Each day brings some little piece of happiness I never allowed myself to experience when I was playing.
 
#762 ·
i posted in the MN thread that martina had made a speech about the women players grunting, saying it was cheating and should be stopped. Chris has 'joined the chorus' as it were, without clearly saying whether she thought the intent to cheat was there, but that it is a practice that players should be more aware of and stop doing:

Evert politely tells Sharapova to shut up
http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/te...pova-to-shut-up/2009/06/29/1246127478449.html
Grunt and bear it … Maria Sharapova's grunting distracts her opponents during matches, according to former No.1 Chris Evert.


CHRIS EVERT gives the distinct impression of being a very nice woman. So nice that when she was lambasting Maria Sharapova and the rest of the squealers on the women's tennis tour yesterday, calling their deafening noises an obvious attempt to distract the opposition, she back-flipped so fast at the suggestion of cheating that she nearly fell off the Overseas Passengers Terminal at Circular Quay.

"No, I wouldn't go as far as cheating - I can just see the headlines," Evert, the former world No.1, said yesterday while in Sydney with her husband, Greg Norman. She blushed and shook her head, maybe afraid of generating headlines of her own on a day that was supposed to be about Norman's return to the Australian Open, but everything else Evert said about Sharapova and co sounded like a strong accusation against … cheats?

"Correct me if I'm wrong but really, the next time you watch, say, a Maria Sharapova, the grunting is consistent but all of a sudden, when she has a set-up to hit a winner, the grunting gets louder," Evert said. "That's a bit distracting to me because basically, you're hearing a loud grunt before you see the shot. Is it distracting for the other player? Yes, it is."

Sharapova is the poster woman of screaming and squealing while performing what used to be the simple act of hitting a forehand, backhand or serve. Her rivals hate it because the sound of her screams, measured at 101 decibels, masks the sound of the ball coming off her racquet. The only player to make everyone's ears bleed in Evert's day was Monica Seles.

"She was such a lovely girl we didn't want to rub it in too much," Evert said. "But it is distracting when you're hearing it and I think the grunts are getting louder and more shrill now with the current players. I don't know how you measure it. I don't know what you do. As a player, and I was known for my concentration, it is definitely something that can put you off.

"They say you've got to blow air out when you hit the ball. I don't understand it. I'm thinking, well, Steffi Graf hit the ball a ton and she didn't grunt. There have been a lot of players who were hard-hitting players who you didn't hear a peep out of. I really don't understand the philosophy of it. Honestly.

"When there was Evonne Cawley and Margaret Court and Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova in my era, there was nothing but good sportsmanship. When you went to shake hands, you said, 'Nice match', it was very cordial. But the grunting is definitely an issue now. It just seems to me that more and more players are being distracted and complaining about it. But how do you measure a grunt?"

One of the few times Sharapova has stayed quiet was during a match at the 2005 Australian Open. A spectator yelled "Shut up" between points in her semi-final against Serena Williams and for a few games, clearly embarrassed, she did. But it started all over again when her situation became desperate. She lost anyway. Evert is appalled by the exaggerated noises being produced at key points in matches, or just before the killer blow of a rally.

"Grunting is one thing but the shrill sound that you hear with the players nowadays, they especially get louder when they hit a winner," she said. "That's the thing that I observe as a player, it comes before they hit the shot. That's the thing. It doesn't come while they hit the shot, but before they hit the shot. That's the first thing you hear and you're kind of thrown off guard as a player. Then before you know it, the ball gets past you. That is a distraction, yes."

Go on, Chris, Mrs Evert, your tennis highness, just say it. They're cheating.
 
#764 ·
I am delighted that Evert has chosen to gently enter this debate. It must be so offence for someone of her great sportsmanship to listen to this god damn noise. It is clear to me from Wimbledon that the public are really turning against the players who make this ridiculous noise. When Sharapova lost to Gisella Dulko the relief and pleasure for the crowd was obvious.And Victoria Azarenka has now been receiving hostililty and it is all due to the shrieks. I honestly feel that it is enough to put the public off the womens game. We all do not want that. I loved it when the Israeli crowd imitated the Sharapova grunt during a
Federation Cup match. I know that many of my friends say that they would shout shut up if they were at a match with all that noise.
It is so sad, Azarenka for example is a great player. But it is all being obscured by a stupid noise.:mad:
 
#763 ·
Thanks for the article Daze, It's a big story of here at the moment. I don't have a problem with grunting, it's the high pitched yelling I can't stand! I even turned off a ladies match, the other day, because of the noise, it was giving me a headache. Maria is really bad, so are the Williams Sister's, especially Serena, and some of the up and coming players are even worse. But how do you get them to stop?
 
#766 ·
Azarenka, is a prime ezxample. Up and coming player, bags of talent,but she makes the most horrendous noise when hitting the ball. Mind you, her on court manners need some work too, how she didn't get a warning or worse, yesterday is beyond me. I think she plays Serena in the next round, I match I would love to watch, because it could be a cracker, but the noise from both of thme will be ear shattering. It will be interesting if anything is said to either of them.
 
#767 ·
I actually quite like her cheeky attitude and her manner is imperious. It should be good when she plays Williams. That is today right?I was a bit drunk-no very drunk- watching and celebrating Murray yesterday so I have not looked at the order of play. I hope Serena wins though!!!
 
#778 · (Edited)
Here's an old article by B.J. Philips from "Time" magazine, from 1981, on Chris Evert Lloyd as she prepares for that year's US Open:

Not Cinderella, Just the Best

At the Open, Chris Evert Lloyd is stalking more than a title

There are so many of them now, an army of little girls with braces and pigtails pounding two-handed backhands, that one tends to forget: until 1971, just ten years ago, there were none. When the U.S. Open Tennis Championships began at Forest Hills that year, there was merely a name in small print on the list of competitors: Chris Evert, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. She was 16, a champion junior player, the kind of promising youngster who is invited to play the tournament to gain a bit of big-time experience while being soundly thrashed in the opening round.

It didn't happen quite that way. Chris Evert demolished Edda Buding, 6-1, 6-0, then beat the fourth-ranked American woman, Mary Ann Eisel, in the second round, saving six match points with finely honed strokes that would soon become famous: cross-court forehands and sweeping, two-fisted backhands down the line. Suddenly she was "Little Chrissie, Cinderella in Sneakers," enthroned on center court. She whipped the fifth seed, Franchise Durr, and Australian Lesley Hunt. She reached the semifinals, the youngest player ever to climb to the final four, before finally losing to Billie Jean King, the eventual champion. A most extraordinary athletic career had begun.

A decade later, Chris Evert Lloyd is, for the fifth time, defending U.S. Open champion. At Flushing Meadow, she will have a lot of competition for the spotlight, not just from all those teen-age terrors but from the likes of defending Men's Champion John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg, who, incredibly, has yet to win the American crown after nine tries. She has long since yielded her claims to the title of "the youngest ..." to the girls in pigtails: Tracy Austin won the finals of the U.S. Open at 16; Kathy Rinaldi played at Wimbledon at 14; Andrea Jaeger was the youngest Wightman Cup player at 15. But the ultimate superlative is well within her reach. At 26, Evert Lloyd is just a handful of major championships away from being proclaimed the greatest woman player ever.

In addition to her U.S. titles, she has won the French Open four times and Wimbledon three. Her total of twelve singles championships in these three tournaments is exceeded only by Margaret Court (with 15) and Helen Wills Moody (19). In these most prestigious tournaments, she has never failed to reach the semifinals, winning 145 matches and losing just 14. She has held the world's No. 1 ranking in six of the nine years she has played as a professional. Says Martina Navratilova, one of the few foes to challenge Evert Lloyd successfully over the years: "Billie Jean King built the car, and then Chris drove it faster than it's ever been driven. She got the vehicle and propelled it to the masses."

The road was not always a smooth one. The oldest daughter of a teaching pro, she was six when her father first took her to the court and started throwing tennis balls at her. "In the beginning, quite honestly, I played for my father," she says. "There was another factor too. I was very, very shy as a younger girl, just petrified of people. Tennis helped to give me an identity, made me feel like somebody." The woman who now jets from one world capital to the next recalls another attraction of the sport, her first trip out of state for a tournament: "We went all the way to Chattanooga. We stayed at a Holiday Inn, and we'd go out to eat at night. That was such a luxury, such a treat for our family. Maybe I didn't like hitting tennis balls, but I liked what it gave me."

Though her father Jimmy and mother Colette were protective about her personal and social life, no one could insulate her from her own achievements. She played that first Forest Hills oblivious to the banner headlines she was creating; after every match, she went home to an aunt's house for dinner, TV and an early bedtime. But when she returned to St. Thomas Aquinas High School, photographers intruded on the classroom to snap photos of the phenom doing her lessons. For the first time she became conscious of her celebrity status. Says she: "That was the difficult part, walking through school and hearing, 'There's Chris Evert.' Chris Evert was somewhere else, somebody else. Chris Evert wasn't inside me. And then there were the people staring. I've never felt comfortable with that."

In ensuing years, her personal life received almost as much attention as her performance on the court. She was engaged to Jimmy Connors, then not engaged to Jimmy Connors. She dated Jack Ford, son of the President, and Burt Reynolds, actor and Cosmopolitan centerfold. The gentlemen maintained a gentlemanly silence; the gossips and tabloids did not.

She was at that time dominating the sport as no one else had, running off a string of 56 match wins that shattered the confidence of opponents. Never as athletically gifted as some of her rivals, she beat them with unflinching concentration. Says Virginia Wade: "Chris' mind is the most superior mind in tennis. That is why she has been the greatest champion."

Her steely reserve, unblinking will and emotionless court demeanor—together with a seemingly automatic baseline game—left the fans unmoved, then hostile. No matter that she is one of the wits on the women's circuit, capable of regaling friends with off-color stories, even carrying a joke book on-court with Doubles Partner Navratilova to read between changeovers. To the public, she seemed cool and haughty, and crowds reveled in rooting against her: "At a very young age, that's very hard to take every single week. And this went on for four years. I was the ice queen and they wanted to see me melt. They wanted to see me cry, probably, show some emotion. But I carried it inside myself."

Finally she could carry it no longer, "crying every day, two or three times a day for two weeks. I thought I was losing control." Mentally drained, she quit for three months during the winter of 1977-78. "It gets old, tennis 52 weeks a year, the strain of staying No. 1. People are always at your heels, younger kids trying to beat you."

Then she met John Lloyd, a rising British player, whom she married in 1979. Today they are stay-at-homes who avoid, according to Lloyd, "any place where there are cameras and people who like cameras." Their schedule rotates: two weeks on the men's tour while he plays, two weeks on the women's tour while she plays, two weeks at home in Florida, London or Palm Springs, where they keep apartments. Says she: "He plays the supportive role sometimes; I play it other times. At first it was difficult for my tennis because I was so happy, so mellow and content that I couldn't balance that contentment off the court with the killer instinct on the court. Now I know how to do it and my tennis has never been better."

Another three-month hiatus in 1980 produced a refreshed and refocused champion: "I just realized that I could change my priorities and not worry about winning, not worry about how Tracy Austin or Martina was playing. I could simply try to master my own game and try to reach my peak. Not once did I say to myself, I've got to come back.' At 21 I needed it. But I'm not obsessed with it now as I was then, when it was the only constant in my life."

After winning last year's U.S. Open and this year's Wimbledon, she has regained her top ranking from Tracy Austin. Some day one of her three-month breaks will stretch into a genuine retirement, and tennis will lose a great and gracious champion. But right now Chris Evert Lloyd is at the top of her game—and not ready to yield. "I've been in the public eye since I was 16, and that's hard. But when you struggle with something and come through, it means more. It means more now when I win. I'm just not finished yet."
 
#779 ·
Here's an old article by B.J. Philips from "Time" magazine, from 1981, on Chris Evert Lloyd as she prepares for that year's US Open:

Not Cinderella, Just the Best

At the Open, Chris Evert Lloyd is stalking more than a title

There are so many of them now, an army of little girls with braces and pigtails pounding two-handed backhands, that one tends to forget: until 1971, just ten years ago, there were none. When the U.S. Open Tennis Championships began at Forest Hills that year, there was merely a name in small print on the list of competitors: Chris Evert, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. She was 16, a champion junior player, the kind of promising youngster who is invited to play the tournament to gain a bit of big-time experience while being soundly thrashed in the opening round.

It didn't happen quite that way. Chris Evert demolished Edda Buding, 6-1, 6-0, then beat the fourth-ranked American woman, Mary Ann Eisel, in the second round, saving six match points with finely honed strokes that would soon become famous: cross-court forehands and sweeping, two-fisted backhands down the line. Suddenly she was "Little Chrissie, Cinderella in Sneakers," enthroned on center court. She whipped the fifth seed, Franchise Durr, and Australian Lesley Hunt. She reached the semifinals, the youngest player ever to climb to the final four, before finally losing to Billie Jean King, the eventual champion. A most extraordinary athletic career had begun.

A decade later, Chris Evert Lloyd is, for the fifth time, defending U.S. Open champion. At Flushing Meadow, she will have a lot of competition for the spotlight, not just from all those teen-age terrors but from the likes of defending Men's Champion John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg, who, incredibly, has yet to win the American crown after nine tries. She has long since yielded her claims to the title of "the youngest ..." to the girls in pigtails: Tracy Austin won the finals of the U.S. Open at 16; Kathy Rinaldi played at Wimbledon at 14; Andrea Jaeger was the youngest Wightman Cup player at 15. But the ultimate superlative is well within her reach. At 26, Evert Lloyd is just a handful of major championships away from being proclaimed the greatest woman player ever.

In addition to her U.S. titles, she has won the French Open four times and Wimbledon three. Her total of twelve singles championships in these three tournaments is exceeded only by Margaret Court (with 15) and Helen Wills Moody (19). In these most prestigious tournaments, she has never failed to reach the semifinals, winning 145 matches and losing just 14. She has held the world's No. 1 ranking in six of the nine years she has played as a professional. Says Martina Navratilova, one of the few foes to challenge Evert Lloyd successfully over the years: "Billie Jean King built the car, and then Chris drove it faster than it's ever been driven. She got the vehicle and propelled it to the masses."

The road was not always a smooth one. The oldest daughter of a teaching pro, she was six when her father first took her to the court and started throwing tennis balls at her. "In the beginning, quite honestly, I played for my father," she says. "There was another factor too. I was very, very shy as a younger girl, just petrified of people. Tennis helped to give me an identity, made me feel like somebody." The woman who now jets from one world capital to the next recalls another attraction of the sport, her first trip out of state for a tournament: "We went all the way to Chattanooga. We stayed at a Holiday Inn, and we'd go out to eat at night. That was such a luxury, such a treat for our family. Maybe I didn't like hitting tennis balls, but I liked what it gave me."

Though her father Jimmy and mother Colette were protective about her personal and social life, no one could insulate her from her own achievements. She played that first Forest Hills oblivious to the banner headlines she was creating; after every match, she went home to an aunt's house for dinner, TV and an early bedtime. But when she returned to St. Thomas Aquinas High School, photographers intruded on the classroom to snap photos of the phenom doing her lessons. For the first time she became conscious of her celebrity status. Says she: "That was the difficult part, walking through school and hearing, 'There's Chris Evert.' Chris Evert was somewhere else, somebody else. Chris Evert wasn't inside me. And then there were the people staring. I've never felt comfortable with that."

In ensuing years, her personal life received almost as much attention as her performance on the court. She was engaged to Jimmy Connors, then not engaged to Jimmy Connors. She dated Jack Ford, son of the President, and Burt Reynolds, actor and Cosmopolitan centerfold. The gentlemen maintained a gentlemanly silence; the gossips and tabloids did not.

She was at that time dominating the sport as no one else had, running off a string of 56 match wins that shattered the confidence of opponents. Never as athletically gifted as some of her rivals, she beat them with unflinching concentration. Says Virginia Wade: "Chris' mind is the most superior mind in tennis. That is why she has been the greatest champion."

Her steely reserve, unblinking will and emotionless court demeanor—together with a seemingly automatic baseline game—left the fans unmoved, then hostile. No matter that she is one of the wits on the women's circuit, capable of regaling friends with off-color stories, even carrying a joke book on-court with Doubles Partner Navratilova to read between changeovers. To the public, she seemed cool and haughty, and crowds reveled in rooting against her: "At a very young age, that's very hard to take every single week. And this went on for four years. I was the ice queen and they wanted to see me melt. They wanted to see me cry, probably, show some emotion. But I carried it inside myself."

Finally she could carry it no longer, "crying every day, two or three times a day for two weeks. I thought I was losing control." Mentally drained, she quit for three months during the winter of 1977-78. "It gets old, tennis 52 weeks a year, the strain of staying No. 1. People are always at your heels, younger kids trying to beat you."

Then she met John Lloyd, a rising British player, whom she married in 1979. Today they are stay-at-homes who avoid, according to Lloyd, "any place where there are cameras and people who like cameras." Their schedule rotates: two weeks on the men's tour while he plays, two weeks on the women's tour while she plays, two weeks at home in Florida, London or Palm Springs, where they keep apartments. Says she: "He plays the supportive role sometimes; I play it other times. At first it was difficult for my tennis because I was so happy, so mellow and content that I couldn't balance that contentment off the court with the killer instinct on the court. Now I know how to do it and my tennis has never been better."

Another three-month hiatus in 1980 produced a refreshed and refocused champion: "I just realized that I could change my priorities and not worry about winning, not worry about how Tracy Austin or Martina was playing. I could simply try to master my own game and try to reach my peak. Not once did I say to myself, I've got to come back.' At 21 I needed it. But I'm not obsessed with it now as I was then, when it was the only constant in my life."

After winning last year's U.S. Open and this year's Wimbledon, she has regained her top ranking from Tracy Austin. Some day one of her three-month breaks will stretch into a genuine retirement, and tennis will lose a great and gracious champion. But right now Chris Evert Lloyd is at the top of her game—and not ready to yield. "I've been in the public eye since I was 16, and that's hard. But when you struggle with something and come through, it means more. It means more now when I win. I'm just not finished yet."

------------
Thanks Mark
 
#797 ·
Suggest maybe that this conversation is continued under private messages.
For info on Chrissie her competitive edge is still very much in view. Today when Greg 3 putted on the 16th at Sunningdale in the Seniors Open she must have send "damm" at least 3 times..and at the end walked off home very quickly...!!!! Bet he had to cook his own dinner tonight...!!
No sign of bandage on her arm this week. Although both days she has had on long shirts as whether has not been all that great.
 
#798 ·
The mystery of the bandage is solved.....at The Open last week while watching the practice sessions, she had to wear an armband to identify her as press/player to be allowed to walk with Greg. So there we have it...!!
Daze, surprised to see that she is offering 2 for 1 on her tickets to the tennis in November....any ideas why ?
 
#799 ·
So that was the reason for the armband! I would have thought the tag around her neck would have been enough, lets face it evryone knows who she is!

Maybe the 2 for 1, tickets offer, is because of the recession, it sounds like a good deal to me:)

Sorry for the off topic stuff, me bad. Sorry Iainmac:(
 
#825 · (Edited)
My two cents on :topic: is that the threads are used for chatting and discussion but also as something people like to go back over and read, on a particular topic. It does get difficult if we start having to sift through pages of personal communications when you refer back to the threads for research. We see this in how threads re-emerge disappear and re-emerge; somebody remembers a discussion from 6 months ago and brings in new information, or someone comments in a new thread about an old topic, and we bring that thread back up...which usually does get folks to read a few pages to catch up.

So lots of us understand we make personal connections here, and why shouldnt we, but many of us do engage in plenty of personal messages for that reason; thats why we have an inbox. offense should not be taken.

IMO, it's all of our jobs in the forums to keep things generally on track for organizations sake. In 'GM' it doesnt matter as much because they will prattle on about anything and rarely even consider formulating an opinion before spouting one out!! things are a little more refined in BFTP. at least, it seems that way to me.

sometimes i'll be talking to someone about the tracy-chris rivalry, for instance, and i'll think 'ooo! someone made a really good point about x, y, or z...lemme see what that was again!' and I go scrambling for the thread. If i am scrolling through 3 pages of conversations on vacation spas etc, it is cumbersome. No hard and fast rules, but just a general guide line I try to stick by for this reason.
 
#827 ·
No you are as almost;)always right. I was again playing devils advocate. I also think for the purposes of clarity topics should be adhered to. However at times it is easy to veer off, that is what humans do. The issue there, as you say, is not to use the forum topics but the inbox system for any messages. I do understand but also I do think that there is a bit too much discussion re Norman and his golf. This is not a golf forum and we do not need the analysis so deep.
 
#839 · (Edited)
Remember when Chris Evert was 18 and had just turned pro? Neither do I, but here is an article from "Sports Illustrated" on her pro debut at Fort Lauderdale, in her own backyard, in 1973:

Now She Plays For Green Stamps
...and green stuff. Chris Evert gets her introduction to the money game and comes away with 10 grand reasons for being a pro

It was something more, or maybe something less, than a tennis tournament. There was a lively and loud Dixieland band, a water ballet, a million-dollar art show featuring Picassos and Utrillos and a pro-am, which reached its artistic height when Miami Dolphin Safety Dick Anderson banged himself over the right eye with his own metal racket. All this hoopla took place last week at The Tennis Club in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and served as a sideshow in the main attraction, hometown girl Chris Evert playing as a professional for the first time. It was the splashiest coming-out party for a Southern belle since Scarlett O'Hara made her debut at Tara.

The event was the S&H Green Stamps $50,000 Women's Tennis Classic, first stop on an eight-tournament tour called—without a shred of pity for headline writers—the United States Lawn Tennis Association Women's Prize Money Circuit, or USLTAWPMC. Since the stars were supposed to be Evert and the successful 21-year-old Australian, Evonne Goolagong, some people referred to it as the Ev and Chrissie Show, which is not to be confused with that other women's tennis tour, the one underwritten primarily by Virginia Slims cigarettes and featuring Billie Jean King and Margaret Court. King and Court are aging actresses who soon will have to content themselves with character roles, says the USLTA. Ev and Chrissie are the lovely ingenues.

There would not be a USLTA tour worth a sagging net without Evert. Virginia Slims wanted her badly, but she and/or her family chose to help the Establishment USLTA start what amounts to a Chrissie clay-court caravan. The last three tournaments will be in Sarasota, Miami Beach and St. Petersburg, and two of these on the slow clay that so nicely complements Evert's backcourt game. The tour opener last week was not only on clay, not only in her hometown, but also at the club where she practices almost every day.

So it was to no one's surprise that Evert turned up in the finals on Sunday and won in a rout, though not against her fellow starlet Goolagong. Her opponent was England's veteran Virginia Wade, nine years her senior. Though Wade played in five Virginia Slims tournaments last year and has the hardest serve in women's tennis, she was no match for Evert. The scores were 6-1, 6-2, and it took only 55 minutes for Evert to win the first prize of $10,000, the equivalent of 3,333 books of Green Stamps.

“I really felt like a beginner today,” said Wade. “The only way we're going to have good matches against Chrissie is if she gets worse.”
In her months of hard practice since her last tournament—Boca Raton in October—Evert seems to have put more muscle into her serve and, if possible, sharpened the ground strokes that were already radar-guided. She still stays away from the net as if it were radioactive, but she has excellent concentration, she disguises her shots until the last moment and, with the exception of her clever drop shot, appears to hit each ball with all her strength, especially her famous two-fisted backhand. Always when serving and often on ground strokes she lets out a loud grunt, which some sensitive Lauderdalians prefer to call a gasp.

“You put more energy in your grunt than your serve,” scolds her father and coach, Jimmy.

Tennis pro Jimmy Evert is a meticulous and conservative man, so meticulous that when his kids practice at Fort Lauderdale's Holiday Park—the tennis complex that Jimmy runs—they get new balls at about the same time they would in a match, thus preventing any bad habits that might develop from swinging at dead ones. So conservative is Jimmy that he did not challenge the USLTA rule—of doubtful legality—that prevented Chris from turning pro until she was 18 and cost her almost $50,000.

Now that his daughter is 18, Jimmy is her agent as well, with the help of his brother, who is a lawyer in Georgia. As expected, Chris has not rushed out to endorse everything under the Florida sun. There is a new line of sportswear called Chrissie Evert for Sports 7 and she has joined the Wilson Sporting Goods staff, continuing to use Wilson's Billie Jean King model racket until she gets one with her own signature on it. So far that is all, though the business world would no doubt love to capitalize on her popularity by marketing Chrissie Evert cola, Chrissie Evert toenail polish and a Chrissie Evert doll—wind it up, and it swings a little racket and grunts.

If Evert was nervous in her first pro match, she did not show it. This despite tremendous pressure put on her by local people, including the disk jockey who gushed, “We've got our fingers crossed for you, Chrissie,” and the tournament promoter, George Liddy, who gave her a new car—a chamois-colored Cutlass Supreme—the day before play began. Modeling one of her own brand of frocks—she trotted out a new one each day and loaned others to her 15-year-old sister Jeanne—she played Michele Gurdal of Belgium on Wednesday afternoon and put her away with ease 6-1, 6-2. The match took just 36 minutes.

“I'd rather have my pro debut here than anywhere else,” she said afterward. “I know the people who are watching. If I win, I'd like to win in front of them. If I lose, I know they'll understand.”

No understanding was needed, or even contemplated. On Friday Evert had an easy time (6-2, 6-1) with Czechoslovakia's Marie Neumannova, who serves left-handed and hits everything else right-handed. On Saturday the semi-final victim was pretty Linda Tuero (6-1, 6-2) whose novelist boyfriend William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist, was in the audience.

“Chris is playing the best she has in her life,” said Tuero.

Goolagong had been breezing also, beating Janet Haas 6-0, 6-1 and Patti Hogan 6-3, 6-3, but her Saturday afternoon match was against the more formidable Wade, and their battle was one of the tournament's most entertaining.

Goolagong, managed by the same people who handle Arnold Palmer and promoting a line of sportswear (Ginori) to rival Evert's, did not play well and Wade was aggressive and sharp. In the first set Wade had a 4-2 lead and was within a point of breaking Goolagong in the seventh game when the Aussie ran off five straight points—two of them on streaking backhand passing shots. The set went down to the last point of the nine-point tie breaker. Wade won it, then took the second set rather easily for a 7-6, 6-3 victory, and the producers of the Ev and Chrissie Show were looking for a catchy new title. Hey, how about Virginia Slams?

Whether or not she could wreck Evert's coming-out party by upsetting the hometown heroine on Sunday was another matter; she didn't seem overly optimistic. “I've practiced very hard and I've been playing well,” she said. “I'm so pleased I got to the finals. She's a bloody good player on these courts. She'll probably kill me.” Which gives Virginia honors as realist of the week.

The crowd, naturally, would be all for Evert—or would it? Six Fort Lauderdale girls, each about 13 and each in tennis clothes, were watching the Wade-Goolagong match and rooting hard for the Aussie. They wanted Goolagong to meet Evert in the finals the next day, right? Yes, they chorused. They would be rooting for Chris, right? Wrong. They would be for Goolagong.

“She's nicer than Chris,” said one with a faceful of freckles and a mouthful of metal. “Chrissie's gotta lose sometime.”

Well, Evert did not lose despite her little detractors. The only question about her, one left completely unanswered after the tournament, was how she would do were she to play on the tougher Slims Circuit with fewer events on Florida clay and steady opposition from King, Court, Nancy Gunter, Kerry Melville, etc. Evert herself would like to know and said she was sure the Women's Lob feud would be settled by next year.

In the meantime she will be traveling the USLTAWPMC, modeling her Sports 7 dresses, honing her strokes—and making money.
 
#856 ·
natalie cole is officially the entertainment for the gala of the 20th anniversary of the evert pro-celebrity classic. she has agreed to play tennis as a celebrity in the past, but this time she will only be behind the microphone.
http://chrisevert.net/CE-News.html
In terms of the '2 for 1 tickets' deal, it was a 2 week promotion at the beginning of August. It is not something being done til the event. But there might be another promo like that again during the Open.
 
#860 · (Edited)
An article from "Sports Illustrated" by Chris Evert, published exactly twenty years ago today, concerning her imminent retirement.

'Tennis was my showcase'

No, Brits, Chris Evert isn't pregnant, but she's retiring from tennis and is eager to bike, hike, cook and become a mother
Chris Evert

Well, this is it. No more "maybes." No more "depending ons." No more "probablys." (Probably has always been my favorite qualifier—it gave me such an out.) Even though I hate dealing with this—I don't even like to think about it—my mind is made up. The 1989 U.S. Open will be my final tournament.

Oh, I'm still going to play on the U.S. team in the Federation Cup in Tokyo in October—I think Martina [Navratilova], Pam [Shriver], Zina [Garrison] and I have a great chance to win, and I'd love to go out on a high note. Martina and I also will play some exhibitions in the fall and winter. And next year, if I'm feeling great, I may do a cameo at my home tournament in Boca Raton. But as for Chris Evert, serious competitor, yes, I guess I really am outta here.

For some time I've thought this would be my last year. In April and May, when I wasn't doing so well in the clay-court tournaments, I thought I'd retire right then. But I really enjoyed preparing for Wimbledon, and after having five weeks off, I've enjoyed practicing and getting back into form for the Open, too. The thing is, I've played week in and week out for so many years, I just don't want to put in a full schedule anymore.

I've never believed athletes should stop in the prime of their careers. I think they should play past their prime to find out what their prime is. That's why even if I had won one of the Grand Slam tournaments in the last few years, I still wouldn't have quit. If I could win a major championship then—or even now (hope, hope)—why couldn't I win more later? Anyway, I always wanted to finish out a tennis year. This is the year.

Physically, I've never felt better. I'm in better shape than I was five years ago. The mental strain is the difference. I used to cruise through the early rounds of tournaments. Now I'm exhausted after three matches, and then comes Zina or Lori McNeil or one of the younger girls, say Monica Seles, and I can see they're not scared or intimidated.

I don't feel the same intensity. But I know a lot of other things in my life would suffer if I did feel that intense. At Wimbledon I felt especially vulnerable. I know I've lost some confidence, and I just don't want to pay the price anymore. The truth is that at 34 I feel I'm about three years past my best tennis. That wasn't too long to stay, was it?

Actually, it took me until this year to realize I was past my prime. Going into each season I always had big-picture goals: to be No. 1 and to win a major tournament. Last year Martina, Gaby Sabatini and I were very close for No. 2, and I even thought I could still beat Steffi [Graf]. Most of all, I enjoyed the competition.

But this year I haven't woken up each morning with any goals. My ultimate goal was to stay with Sabatini. I didn't realistically feel I could win the Slam events. That brought my desire down several notches. O.K., O.K., Steffi's probably responsible for that. If Steffi weren't around, maybe I'd have a whole different outlook. Still, I only wanted to play well. I was No. 4. I had begun to accept my defeats, justify them. I felt a certain calmness about them. That was significant because it meant my attitude had changed. These were fairly good clues that it was truly time to stop.

Losing in Houston in April to Monica showed me how intense I would have to be, how really hard I would have to train, to keep up my usual standard. For four weeks I had practiced on clay, and I hated every minute of it. I was in a foul mood. I wasn't patient. Then, in the finals, I played Monica, this little 15-year-old who put her heart and soul into every point. I tried to take shortcuts to get by. It actually hurt me, true pain, to stay intense for more than a couple of points at a time.

The same feeling carried over to Geneva a month later, when I lost to Barbara Paulus, whom I had beaten easily earlier in the year. She hit a hundred moon balls, and I just didn't want to fight for three sets. I came off the court and told my husband, Andy, "Let's go home." I decided right then to pull out of the French Open.

Back in Florida, Andy sat me down and said, not for the first time, "Look, you don't owe anybody anything. I see what you're going through. You're not happy. You've been a winner all your life. Don't put yourself through this. You don't need tennis anymore." He was right. If anybody has convinced me that it's O.K. to stop playing, it's been Andy.

I have wondered since I was 25: How will I know when to retire? I thought nobody would tell me; I'd just feel it. I do, and I'm glad. It's tough for some other people around me to accept my decision because they aren't prepared. Especially my dad, who has been my coach and my inspiration over all these years. He has always encouraged me to play more than anyone. Sometimes I've felt like asking him, "Dad, what's the deal? Do you want me to play till I'm 50?" This summer even he recognized the signs, and now it seems O.K. with him for me to stop. I will remember many things about my career, the most important being my parents and their support.

Let me say it isn't just the pedestal that Graf has reached that seems so far away. It's Monica and Arantxa Sanchez, who's all of 17, and all these other young girls as well. Each time I watch them I remember how it felt to be young and fresh and keen. The fact is, I'm not going to get any better, and they are. Fairly wise thinking, huh? Real Einstein stuff, right? But you know what? I watched the French Open on TV—a tournament I've won seven times—and I didn't even miss it. It seemed like tough work. I thought, Gosh, I'm glad I'm in Florida and they're in Paris. All of a sudden, a Grand Slam tournament didn't look like fun.

The thought of relaxing and being free is very appealing. Remember, I started in big-time tennis when I was 15 years old. In fact, my very favorite match still is the one in Charlotte, N.C., in 1970, when I was 15 and beat Margaret Court, who had won the Grand Slam. Ever since then, I've been on a mission.

I think that's the difference between Martina and me. She didn't really get engulfed by tennis until much later, when she was 23 or 24. I've got a lot of years on her as far as putting up with the pressure and tension and mind games. Last year I saw the first glimpses of burnout in Martina, and I thought this year she would be about at the stage I am. There was even a lot of press talk about us retiring together. She skipped the French, too, remember. Before Wimbledon, Billie Jean [King] got Martina in such a terrific frame of mind and so psyched up, that it turned the game around for her and she was eager again.

I'm a great believer in niches, and someone whose situation is more parallel to mine is Jimmy Connors. We both came up about the same time and won our first Wimbledons in 1974. We were engaged for 10 months, of course, and saw each other for another three years. Thank god we both realized it would never work out. I honestly believe that Jimmy might be leaving the game now, too, if he had a niche. If Jimmy had gotten that gig as Pat Sajak's replacement on Wheel of Fortune, who knows? But I don't think Jimmy has found his niche outside tennis. Bjorn Borg's been away from the game how many years? And he hasn't found a niche yet.

The difference with me is I think I have found my niche. Tennis has been my world since I was six. Tennis molded my personality, defined who I was. Every day I woke up, my moods were subject to tennis: Did I win or lose? I had a high esteem for myself following victory, the opposite after a loss. It's so difficult to cut yourself away from that, but even while I've struggled on the court these last few years, boy, have I advanced in other areas.

I never had a permanent home to go to as an adult before Andy and I settled in Aspen. I've grown to love my weeks away from the tour. It's no secret I've been in seventh heaven ever since I met him at a New Year's Eve party at the Hotel Jerome in Aspen three years ago. I can't explain how great it is that my happiness is no longer based on winning a tennis match.

I've found my niche as Mrs. Andy Mill, as a full-time wife. We've bought a 6,000-square-foot house in Starwood in the valley outside Aspen. I'm going to have a ball decorating it. We'll keep our main residence at the Polo Club in Boca Raton, which I represent as the touring pro. I can't imagine ever leaving Florida for good, since most of my family is there or other places in the South.

What will I do with myself? What won't I do? I'll go biking and hiking with Andy. I'll even go fly-fishing with him. I'm going to shop for groceries, peel vegetables and cook! I'm going to sit on a couch and read a magazine without feeling I've got to train or practice or eat a meal or be anywhere on time. I'm going to be on the telephone nurturing friendships the way normal people do. I'll be fulfilling my endorsement contracts. I'm starting a pro-celebrity tournament in Boca Raton to help combat drug abuse. And I'll work for NBC at next year's French Open and Wimbledon.

Oh yes, I left something out. Attention, British press: Andy and I are going to try to have a baby. No, I am not pregnant yet. Over the years the tabloids in London have had me "with child" about 10 separate times.

Like every woman, I wonder what my maternal instincts will be. When you're young, you fantasize about how wonderful and cuddly babies are. Only recently have I begun to notice the work that goes into raising children and the strain in my sister Jeanne's eyes. And she's only 32. Jeanne and her husband, Brahm, live 15 minutes from us in Delray Beach, and their kids, Eric, who's 3½ and Kati, who's seven months, are worth every strain.

I'm a great believer in getting to know kids, because I don't think my parents or their generation did enough communicating with children. Eric and I go bicycling and fishing. I caught a crab in a little net for him, and we played on his swing set. It was such fun. Most of all, though, I talk with him, and it's great. Of course, my contact is only for a few hours, which is quite different from being with a child for 24 hours every single day. I wonder how I'll bear up to that. We shall see. People often ask me what will I do at next year's U.S. Open. Hopefully, I'll be very pregnant by then.

As exotic as the people and places on the circuit have been, what I'll miss the most is the game itself. I've always loved the geometry of the sport, loved finding the angles, the holes, somehow searching out a way to win. Tennis was my showcase, my way of being creative. I was a shy little girl who desperately needed something to excel in. Deep down inside, the game made me a complete person. It made me feel whole.

To this day I remember being 13 and noticing all the beautiful girls at St. Thomas Aquinas High and wondering how I could compete without spending $5 million on plastic surgery. Then one day I said something funny in a mixed group, and the boys laughed. I realized that if you could be bright and witty, you had a chance to be popular, too.

I've always been conservative and have always held my emotions and my personality in check. My on-court stoicism has often dominated my public image off the court as well. Because my father was my role model, I grew up with total seriousness all around me. But I love humor, and it doesn't bother me that the world doesn't know the real me. It's never been a calculated move that I would be two different people. I just am.

My whole life has been so intense that humor and laughter became my escape. Though I've seldom exposed that side of myself to a general audience, the women on tour will tell you that I am among the more cynical and sarcastic voices in the locker room. Pam Shriver is my idol witwise, and when we get together we can brutalize practically anybody with some very rough humor. My brother John is one of the funniest guys in the world. It is very important to have that atmosphere around me as a balance.

Martina claims I tell the dirtiest jokes around—probably as a semi-revolt against my strict Catholic upbringing. And when I've become angry in practice, every four-letter word imaginable has graced these lips. Just the other day I broke my racket with a vengeance. Only about five people were watching me practice, but they must have thought the sky had fallen. It felt sooooo good.

I don't want to sound overly metaphoric, but tennis really is a lot like life: Working hard in a rally, exploring for openings, taking risks, making the points, missing. Until only a few years ago, I enjoyed the mental aspects of the sport much more than the physical aspects. But Martina revolutionized the game, raising it to a level that forced me to join a gym and become a true athlete—or at least a facsimile of one. I should thank Martina not only for ordering me out of my blue funk and inviting me to Aspen over those Christmas holidays when I met Andy—this was following my separation from John Lloyd—but also for introducing me to the, ahem, joys of exercise. Without my daily workouts, I could never make the 20-mile mountain-bike rides my husband "forces" me to accompany him on now—not to mention holding Martina to a 43-37 edge in our rivalry.

Of course, I'll miss playing Martina. My biggest thrills came in beating her, yet when I lost to Martina, I was disappointed but never devastated. If I couldn't win the tournament myself, I wanted her to win it. I could feel the rivalry emanating not only from us but from crowds around the world as well. The excitement and the tension were everywhere.

When have No. 1 and No. 2 been so close for so long in any sport as Martina and I were? We have an incredible bond. I trust her more than any other player, and she's the most compassionate, giving person I know. After my losses she always calls—overseas, if we're in the same hotel, whatever. She searches me out. She calls when I have a big win, too—or if I have to play Steffi the next day.

Believe me, I've been critical of Martina. For a while—when Nancy Lieberman was Martina's trainer and plotting her Kill Chris strategy back in the early '80s—we didn't get along, but we got through that. Then there was my loss to her in the 1988 Wimbledon finals. To this day I think I got a bad call on match point. The linesman didn't call my shot out until Martina glared at him. I know it; I'll always believe it. I was mad at her for a couple of weeks. Then I told myself, Hey, it isn't worth ruining the friendship, and we were back together.

Martina bought 125 acres in Aspen a while ago—she's going to build a castle and move there permanently—and we usually find ourselves in town together about four times a year. We have dinner and go skiing. That is, we start out skiing together. Martina goes 50 miles an hour faster than I do, and we meet later for lunch. She's such a jock, sometimes it's laughable. Martina has always been better at everything than me.

Recently Andy taught me how to fly-fish, and I actually caught four big trout. Martina tried and tried, but she couldn't catch a thing. It killed her. One night she asked Andy how I could possibly catch any fish when she was so much better at it but couldn't catch a thing. It turned out Martina was holding the bait just above the water, thinking "fly" meant the fish literally flew out of the water to get the bait. My loving husband suggested the next time Martina try resting the fly on the water.

Maybe the fact that I didn't miss playing the French Open on my beloved clay—the surface on which I had my greatest achievement, 125 straight victories from 1973 through 1979—is the strongest single indication that I'm ready for a new life. I will miss doing something well, being totally focused and putting all my faculties and emotions on the line. It's a nice feeling when everything is flowing. You feel so comfortable.

The players, the camaraderie, the locker room? No, I won't miss that. I've been with three different generations on the women's tour. When I arrived on the scene, there were Margaret, Billie Jean and Rosie [Casals]. Then came Martina's and Pam's generation. Now it's the younger girls. I don't have a whole lot in common with them. I had the most fun when Billie Jean, Rosie, Virginia [Wade] and Wendy [Turnbull] were playing. They were fun and stimulating and intelligent. They were my mentors. I respected them.

Now, with my personality, it's hard for me to go up and make the first move with these kids. Introduce them to the WITA [Women's International Tennis Association]? Give them coaching? They don't need me. They've got five people around them, all their entourages. In the early days you didn't have that. I was taken under the wing of the older players. Now it's big business, which has taken away the spontaneity and fun. The younger girls are in and out of the locker rooms so fast. They don't want to socialize anyway.

The women used to play at country clubs in front of 1,500 to 2,000 people. The crowds were more intimate. Now we go to arenas that seat 10,000. It's colder, stiffer. It's show biz. In the old days there wasn't the money, the pressure, the exposure. The Family Circle Cup at Hilton Head is about the only tournament left that's exactly the way it used to be. The tour just isn't the same. You have to generate your own fun.

There also are many more European players on the circuit today, and an alienation exists between them and the Americans. The Europeans resent us because they feel the WITA wants to keep all the tournaments in the U.S. I get flak because I've been president of the WITA for seven years, which has made life on the tour even less fun.

I've always wanted more tournaments in Europe, because that's where the money and growth is. But the Europeans don't seem to understand that we can't burn bridges with the promoters in the U.S., when a few years ago Europe was telling us to drop dead. Steffi and her father are rumored to be at the forefront of this movement. It's harder for the Europeans to understand why we would want to be loyal to the U.S. tournaments when the European market is offering such big bucks. But there must be a compromise somewhere. We've got a European office now, and we're adding a couple of European tournaments each year to those that already exist. As with any other sport, expansion can't be an overnight thing.

Finally, I can't avoid some regrets. I wish I had pushed myself more to learn to serve and volley. I wish I hadn't been so committed to Team Tennis in the mid-'70s and had played the French Open instead. I probably cost myself three French championships and maybe the Grand Slam in 1976, when I won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open and dominated all year. I feel sure I would have won Paris on clay that summer, and with three titles in the bag, I would have played the Australian Open to try for the Slam, even if it meant spending Christmas away from home.

Speaking of Wimbledon, that's the bugaboo. I won it three times, in '74, '76 and '81. But I should have won it seven times. In 1975 I had Billie Jean down 3-0 in the third set in the semis, but I was going through some heavy stuff with Jimmy that year. When I looked up in the stands and saw him with Susan George, the actress, I freaked out. I just couldn't believe he would do that. I couldn't hit a ball after that and ended up losing the match. Billie Jean crushed Evonne Goolagong Cawley 6-0, 6-1 in the final.

In 1977 I had Virginia Wade beaten in the semis. I was a much better player, but I let the crowd, which was rooting for Virginia because she's English, get to me. She won 6-1 in the third set and then beat Betty Stove in the finals.

In 1978 I had Martina down 4-2, 40-15 in the third set in the finals, but I had met John that year. I was thinking of him on every point, I wasn't focused, and I let another golden opportunity slip away because of a relationship. Looking back, I'd rather be in love any day, but that's twice love cost me Wimbledon. I just wish I had been a little tougher.

In the semis in 1980 I finally beat Martina at Wimbledon. But I celebrated so much that the next day I was in a fog against Evonne and lost 6-1, 7-6.

Next week, at my 19th U.S. Open—a record for women, someone tells me—there'll be no such excuses. It's not likely that I'll win the tournament for the seventh time, but I'm going to try my best. The Open is where I made my first big splash, saving six match points in 1971 to beat Mary Ann Eisel in the second round and reach the semi-finals at 16; where I had the most satisfying victory of my career, over Tracy Austin in the semis in 1980; and where I washed out most ignominiously last year, defaulting my semi-final against Steffi with a stomach virus.

A couple of friends recently told me they didn't even want me to play the Open. They wanted to remember me by that final wave on Centre Court after I lost to Steffi in the semis at Wimbledon. I understand why they feel that way but, hey, I want to play till I run out of gas. At least let me make that decision.

In 1975, when I won my first U.S. Open, 6-2 in the third over Evonne, I'll never forget looking up and seeing my mother bawling in the stands. I mean, she was sobbing! I was like, Mom! How can you show these emotions in public? Control yourself! How embarrassing! I'm afraid that 14 years later there are going to be one or two more scenes like that one.

I wish everybody would do me a favor and not mention the significance of this Open. Don't remind me it's the last one. I hate any tone of finality. I've never had to deal with endings. Even winning the tournament won't necessarily make the ending happy. Giving up tennis will leave a void in my life forever.
 
#1,828 ·
An article from "Sports Illustrated" by Chris Evert, published exactly twenty years ago today, concerning her imminent retirement.

'Tennis was my showcase'

No, Brits, Chris Evert isn't pregnant, but she's retiring from tennis and is eager to bike, hike, cook and become a mother
Chris Evert

Well, this is it. No more "maybes." No more "depending ons." No more "probablys." (Probably has always been my favorite qualifier—it gave me such an out.) Even though I hate dealing with this—I don't even like to think about it—my mind is made up. The 1989 U.S. Open will be my final tournament.

Oh, I'm still going to play on the U.S. team in the Federation Cup in Tokyo in October—I think Martina [Navratilova], Pam [Shriver], Zina [Garrison] and I have a great chance to win, and I'd love to go out on a high note. Martina and I also will play some exhibitions in the fall and winter. And next year, if I'm feeling great, I may do a cameo at my home tournament in Boca Raton. But as for Chris Evert, serious competitor, yes, I guess I really am outta here.

For some time I've thought this would be my last year. In April and May, when I wasn't doing so well in the clay-court tournaments, I thought I'd retire right then. But I really enjoyed preparing for Wimbledon, and after having five weeks off, I've enjoyed practicing and getting back into form for the Open, too. The thing is, I've played week in and week out for so many years, I just don't want to put in a full schedule anymore.

I've never believed athletes should stop in the prime of their careers. I think they should play past their prime to find out what their prime is. That's why even if I had won one of the Grand Slam tournaments in the last few years, I still wouldn't have quit. If I could win a major championship then—or even now (hope, hope)—why couldn't I win more later? Anyway, I always wanted to finish out a tennis year. This is the year.

Physically, I've never felt better. I'm in better shape than I was five years ago. The mental strain is the difference. I used to cruise through the early rounds of tournaments. Now I'm exhausted after three matches, and then comes Zina or Lori McNeil or one of the younger girls, say Monica Seles, and I can see they're not scared or intimidated.

I don't feel the same intensity. But I know a lot of other things in my life would suffer if I did feel that intense. At Wimbledon I felt especially vulnerable. I know I've lost some confidence, and I just don't want to pay the price anymore. The truth is that at 34 I feel I'm about three years past my best tennis. That wasn't too long to stay, was it?

Actually, it took me until this year to realize I was past my prime. Going into each season I always had big-picture goals: to be No. 1 and to win a major tournament. Last year Martina, Gaby Sabatini and I were very close for No. 2, and I even thought I could still beat Steffi [Graf]. Most of all, I enjoyed the competition.

But this year I haven't woken up each morning with any goals. My ultimate goal was to stay with Sabatini. I didn't realistically feel I could win the Slam events. That brought my desire down several notches. O.K., O.K., Steffi's probably responsible for that. If Steffi weren't around, maybe I'd have a whole different outlook. Still, I only wanted to play well. I was No. 4. I had begun to accept my defeats, justify them. I felt a certain calmness about them. That was significant because it meant my attitude had changed. These were fairly good clues that it was truly time to stop.

Losing in Houston in April to Monica showed me how intense I would have to be, how really hard I would have to train, to keep up my usual standard. For four weeks I had practiced on clay, and I hated every minute of it. I was in a foul mood. I wasn't patient. Then, in the finals, I played Monica, this little 15-year-old who put her heart and soul into every point. I tried to take shortcuts to get by. It actually hurt me, true pain, to stay intense for more than a couple of points at a time.

The same feeling carried over to Geneva a month later, when I lost to Barbara Paulus, whom I had beaten easily earlier in the year. She hit a hundred moon balls, and I just didn't want to fight for three sets. I came off the court and told my husband, Andy, "Let's go home." I decided right then to pull out of the French Open.

Back in Florida, Andy sat me down and said, not for the first time, "Look, you don't owe anybody anything. I see what you're going through. You're not happy. You've been a winner all your life. Don't put yourself through this. You don't need tennis anymore." He was right. If anybody has convinced me that it's O.K. to stop playing, it's been Andy.

I have wondered since I was 25: How will I know when to retire? I thought nobody would tell me; I'd just feel it. I do, and I'm glad. It's tough for some other people around me to accept my decision because they aren't prepared. Especially my dad, who has been my coach and my inspiration over all these years. He has always encouraged me to play more than anyone. Sometimes I've felt like asking him, "Dad, what's the deal? Do you want me to play till I'm 50?" This summer even he recognized the signs, and now it seems O.K. with him for me to stop. I will remember many things about my career, the most important being my parents and their support.

Let me say it isn't just the pedestal that Graf has reached that seems so far away. It's Monica and Arantxa Sanchez, who's all of 17, and all these other young girls as well. Each time I watch them I remember how it felt to be young and fresh and keen. The fact is, I'm not going to get any better, and they are. Fairly wise thinking, huh? Real Einstein stuff, right? But you know what? I watched the French Open on TV—a tournament I've won seven times—and I didn't even miss it. It seemed like tough work. I thought, Gosh, I'm glad I'm in Florida and they're in Paris. All of a sudden, a Grand Slam tournament didn't look like fun.

The thought of relaxing and being free is very appealing. Remember, I started in big-time tennis when I was 15 years old. In fact, my very favorite match still is the one in Charlotte, N.C., in 1970, when I was 15 and beat Margaret Court, who had won the Grand Slam. Ever since then, I've been on a mission.

I think that's the difference between Martina and me. She didn't really get engulfed by tennis until much later, when she was 23 or 24. I've got a lot of years on her as far as putting up with the pressure and tension and mind games. Last year I saw the first glimpses of burnout in Martina, and I thought this year she would be about at the stage I am. There was even a lot of press talk about us retiring together. She skipped the French, too, remember. Before Wimbledon, Billie Jean [King] got Martina in such a terrific frame of mind and so psyched up, that it turned the game around for her and she was eager again.

I'm a great believer in niches, and someone whose situation is more parallel to mine is Jimmy Connors. We both came up about the same time and won our first Wimbledons in 1974. We were engaged for 10 months, of course, and saw each other for another three years. Thank god we both realized it would never work out. I honestly believe that Jimmy might be leaving the game now, too, if he had a niche. If Jimmy had gotten that gig as Pat Sajak's replacement on Wheel of Fortune, who knows? But I don't think Jimmy has found his niche outside tennis. Bjorn Borg's been away from the game how many years? And he hasn't found a niche yet.

The difference with me is I think I have found my niche. Tennis has been my world since I was six. Tennis molded my personality, defined who I was. Every day I woke up, my moods were subject to tennis: Did I win or lose? I had a high esteem for myself following victory, the opposite after a loss. It's so difficult to cut yourself away from that, but even while I've struggled on the court these last few years, boy, have I advanced in other areas.

I never had a permanent home to go to as an adult before Andy and I settled in Aspen. I've grown to love my weeks away from the tour. It's no secret I've been in seventh heaven ever since I met him at a New Year's Eve party at the Hotel Jerome in Aspen three years ago. I can't explain how great it is that my happiness is no longer based on winning a tennis match.

I've found my niche as Mrs. Andy Mill, as a full-time wife. We've bought a 6,000-square-foot house in Starwood in the valley outside Aspen. I'm going to have a ball decorating it. We'll keep our main residence at the Polo Club in Boca Raton, which I represent as the touring pro. I can't imagine ever leaving Florida for good, since most of my family is there or other places in the South.

What will I do with myself? What won't I do? I'll go biking and hiking with Andy. I'll even go fly-fishing with him. I'm going to shop for groceries, peel vegetables and cook! I'm going to sit on a couch and read a magazine without feeling I've got to train or practice or eat a meal or be anywhere on time. I'm going to be on the telephone nurturing friendships the way normal people do. I'll be fulfilling my endorsement contracts. I'm starting a pro-celebrity tournament in Boca Raton to help combat drug abuse. And I'll work for NBC at next year's French Open and Wimbledon.

Oh yes, I left something out. Attention, British press: Andy and I are going to try to have a baby. No, I am not pregnant yet. Over the years the tabloids in London have had me "with child" about 10 separate times.

Like every woman, I wonder what my maternal instincts will be. When you're young, you fantasize about how wonderful and cuddly babies are. Only recently have I begun to notice the work that goes into raising children and the strain in my sister Jeanne's eyes. And she's only 32. Jeanne and her husband, Brahm, live 15 minutes from us in Delray Beach, and their kids, Eric, who's 3½ and Kati, who's seven months, are worth every strain.

I'm a great believer in getting to know kids, because I don't think my parents or their generation did enough communicating with children. Eric and I go bicycling and fishing. I caught a crab in a little net for him, and we played on his swing set. It was such fun. Most of all, though, I talk with him, and it's great. Of course, my contact is only for a few hours, which is quite different from being with a child for 24 hours every single day. I wonder how I'll bear up to that. We shall see. People often ask me what will I do at next year's U.S. Open. Hopefully, I'll be very pregnant by then.

As exotic as the people and places on the circuit have been, what I'll miss the most is the game itself. I've always loved the geometry of the sport, loved finding the angles, the holes, somehow searching out a way to win. Tennis was my showcase, my way of being creative. I was a shy little girl who desperately needed something to excel in. Deep down inside, the game made me a complete person. It made me feel whole.

To this day I remember being 13 and noticing all the beautiful girls at St. Thomas Aquinas High and wondering how I could compete without spending $5 million on plastic surgery. Then one day I said something funny in a mixed group, and the boys laughed. I realized that if you could be bright and witty, you had a chance to be popular, too.

I've always been conservative and have always held my emotions and my personality in check. My on-court stoicism has often dominated my public image off the court as well. Because my father was my role model, I grew up with total seriousness all around me. But I love humor, and it doesn't bother me that the world doesn't know the real me. It's never been a calculated move that I would be two different people. I just am.

My whole life has been so intense that humor and laughter became my escape. Though I've seldom exposed that side of myself to a general audience, the women on tour will tell you that I am among the more cynical and sarcastic voices in the locker room. Pam Shriver is my idol witwise, and when we get together we can brutalize practically anybody with some very rough humor. My brother John is one of the funniest guys in the world. It is very important to have that atmosphere around me as a balance.

Martina claims I tell the dirtiest jokes around—probably as a semi-revolt against my strict Catholic upbringing. And when I've become angry in practice, every four-letter word imaginable has graced these lips. Just the other day I broke my racket with a vengeance. Only about five people were watching me practice, but they must have thought the sky had fallen. It felt sooooo good.

I don't want to sound overly metaphoric, but tennis really is a lot like life: Working hard in a rally, exploring for openings, taking risks, making the points, missing. Until only a few years ago, I enjoyed the mental aspects of the sport much more than the physical aspects. But Martina revolutionized the game, raising it to a level that forced me to join a gym and become a true athlete—or at least a facsimile of one. I should thank Martina not only for ordering me out of my blue funk and inviting me to Aspen over those Christmas holidays when I met Andy—this was following my separation from John Lloyd—but also for introducing me to the, ahem, joys of exercise. Without my daily workouts, I could never make the 20-mile mountain-bike rides my husband "forces" me to accompany him on now—not to mention holding Martina to a 43-37 edge in our rivalry.

Of course, I'll miss playing Martina. My biggest thrills came in beating her, yet when I lost to Martina, I was disappointed but never devastated. If I couldn't win the tournament myself, I wanted her to win it. I could feel the rivalry emanating not only from us but from crowds around the world as well. The excitement and the tension were everywhere.

When have No. 1 and No. 2 been so close for so long in any sport as Martina and I were? We have an incredible bond. I trust her more than any other player, and she's the most compassionate, giving person I know. After my losses she always calls—overseas, if we're in the same hotel, whatever. She searches me out. She calls when I have a big win, too—or if I have to play Steffi the next day.

Believe me, I've been critical of Martina. For a while—when Nancy Lieberman was Martina's trainer and plotting her Kill Chris strategy back in the early '80s—we didn't get along, but we got through that. Then there was my loss to her in the 1988 Wimbledon finals. To this day I think I got a bad call on match point. The linesman didn't call my shot out until Martina glared at him. I know it; I'll always believe it. I was mad at her for a couple of weeks. Then I told myself, Hey, it isn't worth ruining the friendship, and we were back together.

Martina bought 125 acres in Aspen a while ago—she's going to build a castle and move there permanently—and we usually find ourselves in town together about four times a year. We have dinner and go skiing. That is, we start out skiing together. Martina goes 50 miles an hour faster than I do, and we meet later for lunch. She's such a jock, sometimes it's laughable. Martina has always been better at everything than me.

Recently Andy taught me how to fly-fish, and I actually caught four big trout. Martina tried and tried, but she couldn't catch a thing. It killed her. One night she asked Andy how I could possibly catch any fish when she was so much better at it but couldn't catch a thing. It turned out Martina was holding the bait just above the water, thinking "fly" meant the fish literally flew out of the water to get the bait. My loving husband suggested the next time Martina try resting the fly on the water.

Maybe the fact that I didn't miss playing the French Open on my beloved clay—the surface on which I had my greatest achievement, 125 straight victories from 1973 through 1979—is the strongest single indication that I'm ready for a new life. I will miss doing something well, being totally focused and putting all my faculties and emotions on the line. It's a nice feeling when everything is flowing. You feel so comfortable.

The players, the camaraderie, the locker room? No, I won't miss that. I've been with three different generations on the women's tour. When I arrived on the scene, there were Margaret, Billie Jean and Rosie [Casals]. Then came Martina's and Pam's generation. Now it's the younger girls. I don't have a whole lot in common with them. I had the most fun when Billie Jean, Rosie, Virginia [Wade] and Wendy [Turnbull] were playing. They were fun and stimulating and intelligent. They were my mentors. I respected them.

Now, with my personality, it's hard for me to go up and make the first move with these kids. Introduce them to the WITA [Women's International Tennis Association]? Give them coaching? They don't need me. They've got five people around them, all their entourages. In the early days you didn't have that. I was taken under the wing of the older players. Now it's big business, which has taken away the spontaneity and fun. The younger girls are in and out of the locker rooms so fast. They don't want to socialize anyway.

The women used to play at country clubs in front of 1,500 to 2,000 people. The crowds were more intimate. Now we go to arenas that seat 10,000. It's colder, stiffer. It's show biz. In the old days there wasn't the money, the pressure, the exposure. The Family Circle Cup at Hilton Head is about the only tournament left that's exactly the way it used to be. The tour just isn't the same. You have to generate your own fun.

There also are many more European players on the circuit today, and an alienation exists between them and the Americans. The Europeans resent us because they feel the WITA wants to keep all the tournaments in the U.S. I get flak because I've been president of the WITA for seven years, which has made life on the tour even less fun.

I've always wanted more tournaments in Europe, because that's where the money and growth is. But the Europeans don't seem to understand that we can't burn bridges with the promoters in the U.S., when a few years ago Europe was telling us to drop dead. Steffi and her father are rumored to be at the forefront of this movement. It's harder for the Europeans to understand why we would want to be loyal to the U.S. tournaments when the European market is offering such big bucks. But there must be a compromise somewhere. We've got a European office now, and we're adding a couple of European tournaments each year to those that already exist. As with any other sport, expansion can't be an overnight thing.

Finally, I can't avoid some regrets. I wish I had pushed myself more to learn to serve and volley. I wish I hadn't been so committed to Team Tennis in the mid-'70s and had played the French Open instead. I probably cost myself three French championships and maybe the Grand Slam in 1976, when I won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open and dominated all year. I feel sure I would have won Paris on clay that summer, and with three titles in the bag, I would have played the Australian Open to try for the Slam, even if it meant spending Christmas away from home.

Speaking of Wimbledon, that's the bugaboo. I won it three times, in '74, '76 and '81. But I should have won it seven times. In 1975 I had Billie Jean down 3-0 in the third set in the semis, but I was going through some heavy stuff with Jimmy that year. When I looked up in the stands and saw him with Susan George, the actress, I freaked out. I just couldn't believe he would do that. I couldn't hit a ball after that and ended up losing the match. Billie Jean crushed Evonne Goolagong Cawley 6-0, 6-1 in the final.

In 1977 I had Virginia Wade beaten in the semis. I was a much better player, but I let the crowd, which was rooting for Virginia because she's English, get to me. She won 6-1 in the third set and then beat Betty Stove in the finals.

In 1978 I had Martina down 4-2, 40-15 in the third set in the finals, but I had met John that year. I was thinking of him on every point, I wasn't focused, and I let another golden opportunity slip away because of a relationship. Looking back, I'd rather be in love any day, but that's twice love cost me Wimbledon. I just wish I had been a little tougher.

In the semis in 1980 I finally beat Martina at Wimbledon. But I celebrated so much that the next day I was in a fog against Evonne and lost 6-1, 7-6.

Next week, at my 19th U.S. Open—a record for women, someone tells me—there'll be no such excuses. It's not likely that I'll win the tournament for the seventh time, but I'm going to try my best. The Open is where I made my first big splash, saving six match points in 1971 to beat Mary Ann Eisel in the second round and reach the semi-finals at 16; where I had the most satisfying victory of my career, over Tracy Austin in the semis in 1980; and where I washed out most ignominiously last year, defaulting my semi-final against Steffi with a stomach virus.

A couple of friends recently told me they didn't even want me to play the Open. They wanted to remember me by that final wave on Centre Court after I lost to Steffi in the semis at Wimbledon. I understand why they feel that way but, hey, I want to play till I run out of gas. At least let me make that decision.

In 1975, when I won my first U.S. Open, 6-2 in the third over Evonne, I'll never forget looking up and seeing my mother bawling in the stands. I mean, she was sobbing! I was like, Mom! How can you show these emotions in public? Control yourself! How embarrassing! I'm afraid that 14 years later there are going to be one or two more scenes like that one.

I wish everybody would do me a favor and not mention the significance of this Open. Don't remind me it's the last one. I hate any tone of finality. I've never had to deal with endings. Even winning the tournament won't necessarily make the ending happy. Giving up tennis will leave a void in my life forever.
I bumped this because it is such a fascinating read !
 
#864 · (Edited)
I agree Chrissiefan. I actually think there are some players who were a little unlucky and could have won more slams except for other circumstances:

Evert - should have won some more French and Australian Titles had she have played them more in the 70s (these were her peak years)
Goolagong - should have won some US titles had they stayed on grass instead of changing to clay (also peak years)
Court - should have won some more slams but for having 3 years of retirements at her peak (2 for children)
Seles - definately would have won a BUNCH of more slams except for her stabbing (definately dominating the majority of the tour)
Navratilova - could have claimed some Aussie titles had she have played late 70s.
King & Bueno - could have claimed some Aussie titles had they have played more during the 60s.

I don't think any of them would be ungracious if they commented on those points. I think they would all be justified.
 
Top