Background

Chris Evert was born on December 21, 1954, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States; the second child of Jimmy and Colette Evert. Jimmy Evert was a decent tennis player in his day, winning as a junior and in some single men's tournaments. He was employed as a teaching tennis professional and tennis park manager in Florida. Colette was a homemaker active in local charities.

Education

Evert began playing tennis at the age of six at Holiday Park Tennis Center where her father was the teaching pro. Her two brothers and two sisters also played, though only her younger sister Jeanne became a ranked professional player.

Evert was a good tennis player from an early age, and her father, who served as a coach for much of her career (late in her career she turned to Dennis Ralston), had her practicing every day from the time she was a young child. She primarily played on clay courts, a surface on which she would dominate as an adult.

By the time Evert was ten years old, she was winning local junior tournaments. Evert's style of play already had many of the trademarks of her adult game. She played from the baseline, focusing on groundstrokes that were carefully placed and strongly hit. Because she was such a small child (and only 5'5" and 115 lbs as an adult) and did not have the strength to use a one-handed backhand, she developed her own two-handed backhand. Because of her success with the stroke, her father/coach did not change it. It became the trademark of her game. She later became a better volleyer than she was often given credit for, but she had to learn to like coming to the net.

Because Evert was not a very athletic person, she practiced hard, working especially to enhance her mental focus and great concentration so she could outwit her competition. This focus also gave her the ability to outlast her opponents.

By the time Evert was a teenager, she competed in a number of junior tournaments in singles as well as doubles and did well. At the age of fifteen, Evert defeated arguably the best female tennis player at the time, the number one ranked Margaret Smith Court (who had just completed the Grand Slam), during a ladies' clay-court tournament in North Carolina, the Carolinas, in the semifinals. Evert lost to Nancy Richey in the finals.

When Evert was sixteen, she began playing on the women's tennis circuit as an amateur. Though tennis was her focus, she continued to attend high school at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, from which she later graduated. She had no social life outside of school and tennis. Before she played in the U.S. Open in 1971, she won forty-six straight singles titles. Her first victory came in the Virginia Slims Master's Tournament in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1972.

In 1971, when Evert was only sixteen, she played in her first Grand Slam, appearing in the United States Open.

Career

In December 1972, Evert turned professional; she won her first professional tournament in March 1973. Victories in the 1974 French and Italian championships and at Wimbledon highlighted a remarkable 56-match winning streak. She retained her Italian and French titles in 1975, and that year she also won the first of four consecutive United States Open titles (1975-1978), becoming the first woman since Helen Hull Jacobs to do so. In 1976, she won her second Wimbledon title. Despite having had occasional troubles on grass courts, she compiled one of the most spectacular records in tennis in clay-court competition; as of April 1978, she was undefeated on clay in 118 matches in 24 tournaments.

In 1980, Chris was the number one ranked player in the world, winning both the French and United States Opens. In 1981, she was again the number one player in the world and won Wimbledon. But there was a fall-off in the early part of the 1980s after this. She lost in the third round of Wimbledon in 1983, the first time she had lost before the semifinals in her thirty-four Grand Slam appearances as a professional. Though she had a stomach virus, her game was not as potent this time period as the players she faced were more athletic. At that time, Evert changed her training to work on the weak parts of her game (second services, attacking short-balls) and included weight work and aerobics. Her game soon improved. Even during this transition, however, Evert did win at least one Grand Slam, including three French Opens in 1983, 1985, and 1986.

By 1988, Evert was nearing the end of her playing career. That year, she also played for the United States Olympic tennis team, though she did not medal. Evert did not play well during her last two years on the women's tennis tour. She even skipped the French Open in 1989 because she was not playing up to her standards.

Evert's last official tournament was the 1989 United States Open. She lost in the quarterfinals to Zina Garrison. Evert found it to be mentally tiring to play through early rounds, though physically, she was fitter than ever. By this point, she had wanted to retire for the two previous years, but could not.

After the United States Open, she played for her country in the Federation Cup competition. The United States won the Cup, and Evert won all the singles matches she played. After this, the only tennis she played in were some exhibition matches with Navratilova.

Chris Evert retired from professional tennis in 1989 and became a television commentator, a special adviser to the United States National Tennis Team, and president of the Women's Tennis Association (1975-1976 and 1983-1991). With her family, she cofounded the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton. In 2015, Evert launched a line of tennis and active apparel in collaboration with Tail Activewear called Chrissie by Tail. She was also a member of the Athlete Advisory Committee for the 2019 Aurora Games.

Achievements

• In the 1970s and 1980s, Chris Evert was one of the most dominant and popular women's tennis players in the United States and the world. Over the course of her professional tennis career, she won 157 titles and 1300 matches, including eighteen singles titles at Grand Slam events. She had a winning percentage of more than 90 percent. Evert was the first female tennis player to win $1 million playing professional tennis and went on to earn over $9 million before she retired in 1989.
  
  Evert was voted the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year on four occasions and was the first female athlete to be Sports Illustrated magazine's sole recipient of the "Sportswoman of the Year" award in 1976. She was voted the "Greatest Woman Athlete of the Last 25 Years" by the Women's Sports Foundation in April 1985.
  
  In 1995, Chris was the fourth player ever to be unanimously elected into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Two years later, the International Tennis Federation presented her with the Philippe Chatrier Award. In 1999, Evert rated No. 50 among ESPN's Greatest North American athletes of the 20th century. Evert was awarded the International Club's prestigious Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award in 2001. In June 2013, she was awarded a special merit from the International Tennis Hall of Fame. They presented her with their gold ring in recognition of her outstanding achievements.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Chrissie: My Own Story

    (A top tennis player describes the personal and profession...)

    1982
  • Lloyd on Lloyd

    (Chris Evert and John Lloyd discuss the pressures of life ...)

    1985

Religion

Evert was raised in a staunchly Catholic family and wore a crucifix around her throat.

Views

Chris Evert started Chris Evert Charities soon after her retirement from professional tennis in 1989. She established the charity to fight drug abuse and assist neglected and abused children in South Florida. It has raised more than $24 million, including $800,000 in 2017.

Quotations: "You've got to take the initiative and play your game. In a decisive set, confidence is the difference."

"If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that's a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life, and there's going to be a life after tennis that's a lot longer than your tennis life."

"Find something that you're really interested in doing in your life. Pursue it, set goals, and commit yourself to excellence. Do the best you can."

"Whatever your goal in life, be proud of every day that you are able to work in that direction."

"You can't give up! If you give up, you're like everybody else."

"Competitive toughness is an acquired skill and not an inherited gift."

"If you're a champion, you have to have it in your heart. You can have the greatest coaches in the world, all the opportunities to play, and the greatest equipment, but if you don't have it inside, you're not going to make it. On the other hand, if you don't have any of those luxuries but you have heart and courage and the guts to go out there and grind it out, then you'll make it."

"I realized that with hard work, the world was your oyster. You could do anything you wanted to do."

"Training the body to obey the mind as I have done differs from the more conventional method of getting the mind to obey the body."

"The difference is almost all mental. The top players just hate to lose. I think that's the difference. A champion hates to lose even more than she loves to win."

"There were times when deep down inside I wanted to win so badly I could actually will it to happen. I think most of my career has been based on desire."

"To be a tennis champion, you have to be inflexible. You have to be stubborn. You have to be arrogant. You have to be selfish and self-absorbed. Kind of tunnel vision almost."

"If I win several tournaments in a row, I get so confident I'm in a cloud. A loss gets me eager again."

"Single-mindedness. I hate to say it because I don't think it's the best thing for developing a person, but the single-mindedness - just concentrating in the one area - that's what it takes to be a champion."

"Don't let a first-set victory lead into a second-set slump."

"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."

"You pay a price for everything in life."

"Ninety percent of my game is mental. It's my concentration that has gotten me this far. I won't even call a friend on the day of a match. I'm scared of disrupting my concentration. I don't allow any competition with tennis."

"The great high of winning Wimbledon lasts for about a week. You go down in the record book, but you don't have anything tangible to hold on to. But having a baby - there isn't any comparison."

"Being famous before you've formed your personality, before you have that self-esteem, is dangerous."

Personality

Evert was very insecure when she was young. She was shy and introverted. When she went out on the tennis court, she could express herself.

Physical Characteristics: Chris Evert is 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in) tall and weighs 55 kg (121 lbs).

Quotes from others about the person

• Billie Jean King: "She's the most competitive athlete I've ever played against, without any question."
  
  Alice Marble: "She's been a wonderful champion, a credit to the sport, and a lady. She would have fit nicely into the tennis of Helen Moody's time, or mine, or probably anytime. She's a classic."
  
  Monica Seles: "Chris brought a lot of femininity to the game with her hair in ribbons and her clothing. I think she influenced the world of tennis more than any other player. You can never take away her place in history."
  
  Steve Flink: "Chris had the ability to keep her game at a high level longer than any other champion has."
  
  Rosie Casals: "Chrissie was funny off the court but not so funny on the court."
  
  Martina Navratilova: "Chris is an idol for me. (She) was head and shoulders above the rest, mentally. A champion on and off the court…just a good example for any young girl or boy to emulate."
  
  Bjorn Borg: "My favorite woman tennis player...because she's so consistent on the court, with such good ground strokes, and she never gives points away; the opponent must always win the point against her. We play the same kind of style."
  
  John Parsons: "Perfection is the word that sums her up in almost everything she's tried to do, on and off the court. It's an extraordinary record. She's been such a marvelous ambassador for the sport."
  
  Steffi Graf: "Chris was the player who brought femininity to the game. A real lady who was always fair."
  
  Mary Carillo: "When I think of the young Chrissie, it reminds me of the young Peggy Fleming. Very feminine. Men liked to watch her, girls wanted to be like her. Chris Evert invented the backcourt game that so many players now emulate."
  
  Jeanne Evert: "She enjoyed the point. She liked to win, but didn't want to win too easily. She wanted to work for her victory."
  
  John McEnroe: "She was an assassin that dressed just nice and said the right things and meanwhile just cut you to shreds."
  
  Andy Mill: "If you can take all the profanity and animation of McEnroe, Connors, and Ilie Nastase (and) put that all into one set of eyes - and she gives you that with one look - it is really powerful."
  
  Stan Smith: "Chris represented the game in a fantastic way. She's shown a lot of class over the years. She's won as a champion, she's lost as a champion."
  
  Elise Bergen: "She gave back to the sport more than she took out of it. It wasn't a requirement but she made it one."
  
  Colette Evert: "She was gracious in her defeats and never had any excuses. She was really a class act."
  
  Jerry Diamond: "Chris Evert epitomizes tennis. I rate Chris Evert and Billie Jean King as the two strongest proponents of the game of women's tennis."

Interests

• going to the movies

• Politicians

  George Bush, Hilary Clinton

• Writers

  Ken Follet

• Sport & Clubs

  skiing, hiking, golf

• Athletes

  Michael Jordan, Fred Couples, Joe Montana

• Music & Bands

  soft rock, Elton John, Whitney Houston

Connections

Chris Evert and Jimmy Connors became engaged when Chris was 19. The wedding was planned for November 8, 1974, but later was called off.

In 1979, Evert married the British tennis player John Lloyd. After her affair with British singer and actor Adam Faith, the couple separated, but later reconciled. The couple divorced in April 1987.

In 1988, Chris married Andy Mill. They have three sons - Alexander (b. 1991), Nicholas (b. 1994) and Colton (b. 1996). On November 13, 2006, Evert filed for divorce and on June 28, 2008, married her third husband Greg Norman. They divorced on December 8, 2009.

Father:

Jimmy Evert

(July 31, 1924 - August 21, 2015)

Jimmy Evert was an American tennis coach and player.

Mother:

Colette Evert

(born June 15, 1928)

ex-partner:

Jimmy Connors

(born September 2, 1952)

Jimmy Connors is a retired American world No. 1 tennis player. He held the top Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) ranking for a then-record 160 consecutive weeks from 1974 to 1977 and a career total of 268 weeks.

ex-spouse:

John Lloyd

(born August 27, 1954)

John Lloyd is a British former professional tennis player. Lloyd reached an ATP world ranking of 21 from July 23, 1978 to July 30, 1978, and was ranked as UK number 1 in 1984 and 1985.

ex-partner:

Adam Faith

(June 23, 1940 - March 8, 2003)

Adam Faith was an English teen idol, singer, actor and financial journalist. He was one of the most charted acts of the 1960s.

ex-spouse:

Andy Mill

(born February 11, 1953)

Andy Mill is a former alpine ski racer on the United States Ski Team. He was a two-time Olympian, competing primarily in the downhill and combined events on the World Cup circuit.

ex-spouse:

Greg Norman

(born February 10, 1955)

Greg Norman is an Australian professional golfer and entrepreneur who spent 331 weeks as the world's Number 1 Official World Golf Rankings ranked golfer in the 1980s and 1990s. He has won 89 professional tournaments, including 20 PGA Tour tournaments and two majors: the Open Championships in 1986 and 1993.

Son:

Alexander Mill

(born 1991)

Son:

Nicholas Mill

(born 1994)

Son:

Colton Mill

(born 1996)

Sister:

Clare Evert

Brother:

Drew Evert

Sister:

Jeanne Evert

(October 5, 1957 - February 20, 2020)

Jeanne Evert was an American professional tennis player and the younger sister of Chris Evert. She was ranked as high as 28th by the WTA in 1978 and ninth within the United States in 1974.

Brother:

John Evert

Friend:

Martina Navratilova

References

• The Rivals: Chris Evert Vs. Martina Navratilova A book by Johnette Howard.
  2005
• Chris Evert Lloyd A biography of Chris Evert, an American tennis player who won the Wimbledon championship in 1974.
  1981
• Chris Evert's Instagram
• Chris Evert's Facebook
• The Official Chris Evert Website
• Chris Evert's Twitter