Chris Evert is rightfully considered one of the most famous and powerful tennis players in the world. She began her brilliant path as a champion very young. In 2014, the athlete turned 60 years old, and although her journey in big-time sports ended a long time ago, she is still remembered and loved to this day.
Tennis player Chris Evert
The real name of the famous athlete - Christina Maria Evert - was shortened to Chris. The very first success came to her in the late 60s, and a year later Chris made the whole world of big-time sports talk about her loudly.
Chris Evert was mentioned in the book “The Greatest Matches of the Twentieth Century” as one of the strongest athletes after Steffi Graf. All experts considered her style of play to be quite unusual: on the court she was always distinguished by icy equanimity, as if she had completely detached herself from everything that was happening except the game. And although many considered Chris’s calmness to be feigned, such endurance helped her become a star.
Biography
Chris Evert was born on December 21, 1954 in a small town in Florida. From a very early age, the child developed a passion for sports and extraordinary abilities. It was during this same period, thanks to her father Jim Evers, that she developed such unusual style games. Since Christina grew up in a sports family, and her father was a professional coach, questions about training were resolved very simply.
As the athlete herself recalls, as a child she was very shy, and only sport helped her find inner balance and understand what she wanted in life.
Tennis has always been Chris Evert's passion rather than his profession. She lived and breathed it. Another passion of the tennis player was helping children. She dreamed that someday she would open her own charity organization and devote herself to helping children who found themselves in difficult situations.
In 1988, Chris gave the victory to Steffi Graf, and in 1989 she ended her career.
Now Evert, together with his brother John, teaches at the Tennis Academy, which they opened in Florida. Chris is considered one of the most respected trainers.
Career
Tennis player Chris Evert set foot on the path of professional sports at the age of five. In 1970, she won a tournament among her peers, after which she received an invitation to play in another tournament. In it, she brilliantly defeated her opponent in the first round, and in the semi-finals she emerged victorious in a duel with Margaret Smith, the famous Australian tennis player.
These victories allowed Chris to take part in the Fed Cup, she became its youngest participant. The young athlete played in the US Championship at the age of 16. Then she reached the finals of the French Championship, and a year later became its winner.
For the next five years, Chris was among the women. In 1975, she won the US Championship for the first time, defeating Evonne Goolagong. Chris won her next victory a year later at the French Championships. The athlete won this championship seven times.
Personal life of Chris Evert
The famous tennis player's first great love was Jimmy Connors. Chris Evert, whose personal life interested everyone, immediately attracted even more attention. Although there was nothing unusual in these relationships, because the young people were doing the same thing, and it was quite natural that a relationship began between them. Chris Evert and they dated for two years, got engaged, but the wedding, which was planned for 1974, never took place: they broke up.
Over the next few years, Chris dated different men, and in 1979 she married John Lloyd, a tennis player, and became Chris Evert Lloyd. Eight years later they divorced, and a year later she married famous skier Andy Mill. In this marriage they had three sons - Alexander James, Nicholas Joseph and Colton Jack. In 2006, the couple divorced, and in 2007, Chris became engaged to Greg Norman, a famous golfer. This marriage was the shortest. It ended in 2009, the couple divorced. Chris later claimed that she had more of a business relationship with Greg.
Sports achievements
Christina Maria Evert is the first athlete to win more than a thousand matches in her entire life. Compared to this figure, the number of her defeats is negligible. She never left the race in the first rounds; out of fifty performances, in almost all of them she reached the semi-finals.
Over the years, Chris Evert has won thirty-four finals in the tournament Grand Slam, and won the title every year for twelve years. It is estimated that she won a total of 154 WTA tournaments in singles and 8 in doubles. In this tournament, she was ranked first for 260 weeks.
For six years, Evert was unbeaten in matches on clay: she won 125 games in a row. She served as president of the WTA from 1983 to 1991, and has been an honorary member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame since 1995.
Chris Evert: TV presenter career
Chris Evert, whose biography and sporting achievements are well known to everyone, decided to reach new heights. In the spring of 2015, the tennis star became the TV presenter of a new show on the Eurosport channel.
Chris launched a project called “Tennis with Evert,” which ran from May 29 to June 7. Together with her, the program was hosted by Barbara Schett, another famous tennis player. The broadcast was broadcast from the courts of Roland Garros, where the next tournament was supposed to end. As Evert admitted to Chris, this tournament is very dear to her, and she will be happy to share her competent opinion about this game with television viewers.
Chris Evert photography
By 1969, she became the US No. 1 girls' 14-and-under player. In 1970, she won the national 16-and-under tournament, after which she was invited to play in a tournament in Charlotte, North Carolina. Fifteen-year-old Evert crushed Françoise Duerr 6-1, 6-0 in the first round of the competition, and in the semi-finals she defeated Margaret Smith 7-6, 7-6, who was then the world number one and Grand Slam singles winner. Thanks to these victories, Evert was allowed to take part in the Wightman Cup, where she became the youngest participant.
Evert took part in the US Championships for the first time when she was 16. After an easy victory over Edda Bading in the first round, she had to meet Mary Anne Eisel. Evert saved 6 match points on Heysel's serve with the score 6-4, 6-5 (40-0), and then won the match with a score of 4-6, 7-6, 6-1. She later defeated Duerr (2-6, 6-2, 6-3) and Lizzie Hunt (4-6, 6-2, 6-3), but lost to Billie Jean King in the semi-finals.
Evert's neat shots just under the baseline were ideal for playing on clay, but she proved that she could look just as good on other surfaces. When Evert began playing among juniors, she used a two-handed backhand because she was too small and fragile to return such shots with one hand. This became her hallmark, and future generations of tennis players began to often copy her. Evert's graceful image, pleasant appearance, and calm demeanor made her a find for the press and a fan favorite.
Evert became a finalist at Wimbledon and the French Championships in 1971. A year later, she became the winner of these tournaments. These were her first Grand Slam titles. Her fiancé, Jimmy Connors, won Wimbledon that year, and media attention focused on their relationship. Connors and Evert were engaged when they played mixed doubles together in 1974, although Evert very rarely took part in such competitions. By that time, Evert began to pay less attention to playing as a couple, focusing all her energy on her singles career.
For the next five years, Evert was the first women's racket in the world (with interruptions). In 1975, she again won the French Championship and won her first US Championship, beating Evonne Goolagong in a three-set final. In 1976, Evert won Wimbledon, again defeating Goolagong in a three-set final. The rivalry between Goolagong and Evert continued for several more years. In total, they played 33 matches, of which Evert won 21. For Evert’s superiority in women’s tennis, her calmness, and steely endurance on the court, they began to call her “The Snow Maiden.”
A few years later, Martina Navratilova became Evert's new rival. They were good friends off the court, but their on-court rivalry is still considered one of the greatest in the world of tennis. In their early meetings, Evert was often stronger, but Navratilova began to gain power by the early 1980s. However, Evert was still stronger on clay courts. By August 1973, she had won 125 consecutive matches on clay, which remains a record for both men and women. The winning streak was broken on May 12, 1979, when Evert lost to Tracy Austin 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 in the semi-finals of the Italian Championship. After the match, Evert said: “The fact that the winning streak was interrupted makes me feel better, of course, but it’s still disappointing.” Then Evert won 72 tournaments on clay in a row, breaking her winning streak in the semi-finals of the French Championship, losing to Hana Mandlikova.
Evert has won the French Championship 7 times. The two biggest victories in this tournament were three-set fights against Navratilova in the 1980s. In 1985, Evert won 6-3, 6-7, 7-5, after which she again became world number one for the fifth and final time. In 1986, when Evert was 31, she won her last Grand Slam title, beating Navratilova 2-6, 6-3, 6-3. Evert retired from her professional career in 1989. During her time in professional tennis, she recorded 157 wins in singles and 8 in doubles. Statistics of the final meetings: 157 victories - 72 defeats. She has reached 273 semi-finals out of 303 tournaments in which she has taken part. She won the WTA Championship four times and helped Team USA win the Fed Cup eight times. Evert's last match came in 1989 at the Fed Cup against Conchita Martinez, whom she beat 6-3, 6-2. Evert won at least once every year for 13 years (from 1974 to 1986). She won 18 Grand Slam titles: 7 victories at the French Championships, 6 at the US Championships (3 on clay, 3 on hard courts), 3 at Wimbledon, 2 at the Australian Championships (2 on grass).
Best of the day
Evert has reached 34 finals and 52 semi-finals out of 56 Grand Slam tournaments. In 1976, she was awarded the title "Sportswoman of the Year". In April 1985, she was recognized as “The best female athlete of the last 25 years.” Evert was President of the Women's Tennis Association from 1975-1976 and 1983-1991. In 1995, she was unanimously elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. In 2005, Tennis Magazine named Evert fourth on Tennis Magazine's list of the 40 greatest athletes.
Evert was born in Florida, in Fort Lauderdale. Early in her career, even before her first Grand Slam victory, she signed a contract with Puritan Fashions Corp. Her father, Jimmy Evert, was a professional tennis coach. For the Everts, tennis was something of a family affair: Christina and her sister Ginny Evert became tennis players, and their brother Jack Evert played collegiate tennis for his university.
Evert's romance with tennis player Jimmy Connors attracted public attention in the 70s, especially after they both won Wimbledon titles in 1974. Evert and Connors also played doubles together from time to time. In 1974 they became finalists at the US Open. Then they got engaged, but their relationship did not last long. The wedding, planned for November 8, 1974, was cancelled. In subsequent years, she had affairs with several famous men. According to reports, among them were actor Burton Leon Reynolds and John Ford (son of US President Gerald Ford). In 1979, she married British tennis player John Lloyd, and became Christina Evert-Lloyd. They divorced in 1987. In 1988, she married two-time Olympic champion Andy Mill. They had three sons: Alexander James (born 1991), Nicholas Joseph (born 1994), Colton Jack (born 1996). On November 13, 2006, Evert filed for divorce. The trial ended on December 6, 2006, with Evert having to pay Mill $7 million. Evert now runs a tennis academy with Robert Segusto and his wife.
December 15th on tapes news agencies An unexpected message arrived. Legendary athletes - tennis player Chris Evert and golfer Greg Norman - announced their engagement at a press conference at a golf tournament in South Africa. The couple got engaged on Sunday, December 9, 2007, while traveling to South Africa from the United States. When asked about the wedding date, Evert replied: “Well... it's an engagement ring... But we don't know where or when we'll get married yet.”
Chris Evert was the women's tennis champion from 1974 to 1986. The athlete also became famous thanks to her composure during the game and her powerful backhand. Chris grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, playing tennis with her father.
When Evert was 15 years old, she became famous after her victory over one of the most recognized tennis players, Margaret Court. The following year, Chris reached the semifinals of the US Championships, but lost to Billie Jean King. However, Chris's skill, as well as her maturity as a tennis player, made Evert a crowd favorite. Thanks to her calm behavior on the court, the athlete received the nicknames “Snow Girl” and “Snow Princess”.
Chris's natural charm contributed to her popularity on the pages of sports magazines.
For two years, the athlete dated tennis champion Jimmy Connors (1974-1976), which only increased her popularity. Throughout the 1970s, Chris was one of the dominant players. Her charisma and exciting rivalry with Martina Navratilova helped attract attention to women's tennis.
Since retiring from the sport in 1989, Chris occasionally provides commentary for NBC television. During her biography, Chris Evert has won 157 singles titles and 8 doubles titles. In addition, the athlete received 18 Grand Slam titles, won the French Championship seven times, the US Championship six times, Wimbledon three times, and the Australian Championship twice.
Additional data: Chris holds the record for most consecutive clay court wins (125). This winning streak was broken in 1979 when Evert lost the game to Tracy Austin.
In 1979, Chris married John Lloyd, beginning to compete as Chris Evert Lloyd. In 1987, the couple divorced. In 1988, Chris married for the second time, now to Olympic ski champion Andy Mill, and divorced him in 2006. Three sons were born into the family. In 2008, Evert married golfer Greg Norman. A little later, in her interview with Vogue magazine, Chris said that there was a business relationship between her and Norman while each was paired with a previous companion.
Biography score
Chris Evert is a legendary American tennis player who won 18 Grand Slam tournaments and achieved a thousand match victories for the first time in tennis history. The playing style of the “queen of clay” left a special mark on the history of this sport, which representatives of the younger generation began to copy. The on-court confrontation between Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, which lasted more than ten years, also aroused great interest.
Playing style
Today, world women's tennis is ruled by the athletic Serena Williams, who prefers a strong style of play. However, Chris Evert's tennis looked very different. A short, fragile girl, she preferred a playing style that did not require sudden jerks and constant movement.
Positioned at a long distance, Chris Evert methodically fired at her opponents, carefully and accurately sending the ball under the baseline. She did not try to force things and had inexhaustible patience. Such a monotonous rally could last for several minutes, after which the girl easily outplayed her exhausted and confused opponent.
In those cases when the opponents, tired of long-range shelling, came to the net, the American skillfully extinguished their ardor with her deadly accurate candles. This style of play, involving long rallies of the ball, was perfectly suited to the slow clay courts, and Chris Evert was the true “Queen of Clay”.
Of her 18 Grand Slam titles, she won nine on clay courts in France and the United States, when the US Open was still played on clay.
Coach's daughter
Very often people come into big sports following in the footsteps of their parents. This is what happened with Chris Evert. short biography which will be outlined below.
The future sports legend was born in 1954. Jimmy Evert, her father, was a tennis coach and from the age of five taught his daughter all the intricacies of the aristocratic game. Tennis was family business For the Everts, her sister Ginny was professionally involved in this sport, her brother Jack performed in student tournaments.
A memorable part of Evert's game was her two-handed backhand. As a girl, little Chris simply physically could not hit backhands with one hand and became the first athlete to perform this strike with both hands. Gradually, this manner was adopted by thousands of Evert's followers.
Rough start
By 1969, young Chris became the first US racket among girls, and a year later she won the national tournament in age group up to 16 years old. Thanks to this, tennis player Chris Evert received an invitation to her first adult tournament in her life, held in North Carolina.
She reached the semi-finals, where world number one Margaret Smith was waiting for her. To the great amazement of the audience, the unknown junior beat the tennis star of our time in two sets and made it to the final of the tournament.
So she received an invitation to play at the US Open, where she became the youngest athlete. Already at the age of sixteen, the semi-final of the Grand Slam tournament appears in the biography of Chris Evert. The match with Mary-Ann Eisel was especially impressive, where yesterday’s junior played off six match points. Only Billie Jean King was able to stop the daring schoolgirl in the semi-finals of the tournament.
Rising Star
Until the age of eighteen, Chris Evert's strict mother did not allow her to play outside the United States, so her debut in Europe came in 1973, when she was able to reach the finals of Wimbledon and the French Open. That year she won eleven tournaments and quickly broke into the elite of women's tennis. Elegant, slender, pleasant to talk to and self-possessed, Chris Evert has become a real favorite of the public.
Even then, the American’s signature style of play emerged, horrifying her rivals. According to Olga Morozova, who met Evert twice in the finals, she played with the precision of a clockwork mechanism, anticipating a second before Morozova hit which direction the ball would fly.
In 1974, she won her first Grand Slam tournament, winning on the courts of France and adding a victory at Wimbledon. Also in 1974, Chris Evert played doubles. Interestingly, she chose Olga Morozova as her partner, against whom she played in the finals of Wimbledon and Roland Garos.
Queen of the soil
At nineteen years old, she became the undisputed leader of women's tennis, at one point her winning streak on clay courts reached 80 matches. At first it seemed that the famous Australian Yvonne Goolagong, an elegant and spectacular tennis player who preferred quick rallies, could compete with her. In 1971, she beat seventeen-year-old Chris, but then the pendulum swung in the other direction.
They first met in the final of a Grand Slam tournament in 1975. In the final third set, Evert trailed by three points, after which she took matters into her own hands and began to methodically and persistently attack Goolagong from the baseline, which was simply suffocated by the monotonous and deadly long rallies of the ball and lost five games in a row. This victory was another in a series of unbeaten matches on clay for two and a half years.
After that, she met Goolagong twice more in the finals of major tournaments, certainly beating the Australian.
For five years in a row, Chris Evert held the title of first racket of the world, not letting anyone get close to her.
Confrontation with Martina Navratilova
In 1975, the American first met the young Slovak tennis player Martina Navratilova in the final of the Grand Slam tournament. Chris Evert was in her prime and beat the future legend of women's tennis without much trouble. It is interesting that at the same tournament, which was Roland Garos, the American, together with the same Martina, won the doubles title.
However real battle between great sportswomen unfolded in the late seventies. Martina Navratilova has matured, gotten stronger and began to beat Chris Evert more and more often.
The decisive moment was the final of the 1978 Wimbledon tournament. Then Martina defeated her opponent in a stubborn three-set match. After some time, it seemed that Chris Evert's fame had finally faded. The final of the Virginia Slims tournament was especially significant, where in the final the tennis player from Czechoslovakia beat the American with a humiliating score of 6:0 6:1.
Recent years
After disappointing defeats, Chris Evert realized that her previous style of play was beginning to become outdated; the era of fast, physically strong tennis players had arrived in women's tennis. The hardworking American got down to business and in a short time improved her general physical fitness.
Her longtime rival Olga Morozova said that she watched in amazement as the fragile, thin Chris worked persistently and hardworking with heavy barbells in the gym in order to gain at least a little muscle mass.
The girl’s efforts were not in vain, there was noticeable progress in her game, she began to act in a faster manner and correspond to the spirit of the times.
In the eighties, she was no longer by far the best athlete, but she competed on equal terms with young rivals hungry for victory. Evert herself calls the Roland Garos finals of 1985 and 1986 her best matches. Then, at the height of her career, she was able to twice defeat Martina Navratilova, who in those years was considered the absolutely strongest in the world.
By 1989, Chris Evert realized she had done all she could in tennis and ended her long career with pride and head held high.
Offside
After finishing competing, Chris Evert did not give up tennis. She served as acting president of the Women's Tennis Association from 1983-1991. However, administrative work weighed heavily on the athlete, and she decided to make a career in television. Here she found herself as a tennis commentator. Chris Evert made her debut at the Family Circle Cup tournament, which took place in 1990.
Today living legend Together with his brother, he runs his own tennis academy.
Personal life
In the seventies, the public's attention was attracted by the romance of two tennis celebrities - Jimmy Conors and Chris Evert. Everyone was waiting for the wedding, the date of which had already been set, but suddenly the tennis stars announced their breakup.
The bright, talented athlete attracted many men; there were rumors about her affairs with actor Burt Reynolds, John Ford, the son of the US President. However, in 1979, the tennis player ended her single life and began to call herself Chris Evert-Lloyd. The sport that the spouse played was tennis, so the spouses had the opportunity to meet each other during competitions.
They separated in 1987, after which Chris Evert married skier Andy Meal, with whom she gave birth to three sons. The marriage lasted quite a long time and broke up in 2006.
Some of those who saw Chris Evert play tennis treated their impressions with the same feeling as the formation of growth rings in trees, an inevitable process that few people care about. Others, especially admirers of her style and appearance as a rosy-cheeked girl next door, loved her with all their hearts and enjoyed the game. This division of opinion was best summed up by the New York Times, which wrote about the 1975 US Open final between Evert and Yvonne Goolagong that, after a match that the paper said "at times could be like a bland pie," its columnist witnessed a conversation between two visitors to Forest Hills who professed opposing views on Evert's inherent style of play. “Do you think this is exciting or boring?” - the young man asked his friend. "Fabulous! - she answered. “Just great.” “In my opinion, it’s quiet horror,” he objected. But no matter how you feel about Chris Evert's playing style, one thing is certain - she was from the breed of winners.
As much as her style, Chris Evert is characterized by her victories. She played for survival, which placed special demands on both herself and her opponent. Settling on the baseline - as if she had paid for her stay there and now decided to fully justify her own expenses - and rarely, if ever, came to the net, Evert deflected all balls aimed in her direction like a living wall. Her opponents tried to endure this exchange of blows, but eventually they became tired of this non-stop process of sending the ball into the wall called “Evert”, and they fell into that unconscious state that one of them called “tennis knockout”.
Billie Jean King, who knew better than anyone else how to evade the traps set by Evert, understood that such an activity could be likened to picking cheese out of a mousetrap. “I beat her,” King recalls, “when I was able to put pressure on Chris without making mistakes. We had to force her to move without allowing her to get into a rhythm on the baseline.”
Unlike Billie Jean, Evert's more aggressive opponents were brought to their knees by her merciless baseline play, something she learned from her father, a tennis teacher and professional who trained with her at Holiday Park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A national player in the era before Jack Kramer popularized the game in the postwar era, Jimmy's dad took his tiny five-year-old daughter to the clay courts at Holiday Park and taught him the game he knew best: the game of catching every ball. , in repelling any blow. No phenomenal serves, no risk, just hit after hit from the baseline, hit after hit, hit after hit until the racket wears off.
Little Chrissy, not tall enough to see the stitches at the top of the net and too small to hold a racquet in one hand, learned this lesson by heart! In addition, her father taught her two more important sciences: the two-handed backhand, a legacy of the days of Pancho Segura, which at first simply allowed her to hold the racket, and over the years acquired a very eloquent strength; and - the most important component of her talent - endless patience.
This patience manifested itself in an icy equanimity that implied a calm but conscious reserve that allowed her to tune out everything around her and concentrate only on what was truly necessary at the moment: the game. It is not surprising that she became known as the "Ice Princess of the Court", and in England - "Ice Lolly", which in British means "popsicle on a stick".
One of the rivals, Julie Heldman, believed that Evert's coldness was feigned. “She created most of her image herself,” Heldman said, trying to explain her rival's cold nature. Evert admitted that she sometimes displays an impassiveness worthy only of characters exhibited in a museum. wax figures Madame Tussauds, but explained it differently: “I don’t show emotions, but believe me, they remain in their place. If I laugh and smile, I'll lose concentration."
Although as she grew up she began to exhibit the typical adult emotions of showing tempers, throwing racquets and, with rare equanimity, even swearing, by the time of her debut in 1971 at the US Open in Forest Hills, Evert had outgrown these emotional antics and put on a mask of equanimity. . It was this year that America recognized this daring and imperturbable sixteen-year-old with a ponytail, endowed with a youthful face and the confidence of a beauty, as its favorite. Journalist Grace Lichtenstein, noting the emergence of a new tennis darling, wrote: “Men found her delightful, little girls adored her, middle-aged mothers came up to her after the game and said that she had restored their faith in youth. She was Miss American Pie.
She knew how to play tennis, becoming, three months and ten days before her seventeenth birthday, the youngest semi-finalist in the history of the women's championships. In 1972, she won the US clay-court championship; in 1973 she won eleven tournaments and reached the finals of Wimbledon and the French Championship; In 1974, at the age of nineteen, she finally won a then-record 55 matches in a row, winning titles at Wimbledon, France and Italy.
At first it was believed that Evert's main competitor in the fight for the title of tennis queen would be the hot Australian Yvonne Goolagong, whom sixteen-year-old Chrissie first met at Wimbledon in 1971. In that first match, the ballerina-like Goolagong defeated the clockwork-like Evert. But in 1975 they switched roles, and Evert not only won the US Open, but did it in her signature style.
Trailing by two points in the final third set after a technical break on Goolagong's serve, Evert, who had no desire to be second, took matters into her own hands and went on the attack, her long shots from the baseline sapping Goolagong's strength just as slowly and true, just as water wears away a stone. First Goolagong lost focus, then she lost the thread of the game as Evert's style suffocated her. Evert won the last five games. Goolagong later admitted: “She stayed too far back, and I didn’t have the patience for long plays with the ball... Playing from behind all the time is not my style.”
"Playing all the time from behind" was not the style of many tennis players, almost all of whom inevitably lost concentration in the face of Evert's overwhelming dominance. Even victories have become a habit for her - victory in the final of the US Open was the eighty-fourth she has won in a row on clay in more than two and a half years, which caused one of the observers after her match with Goolagong, held in Forest Hills, to sneer: “ What a surprise! Chris Evert won."
When Goolagon left tennis, Martina Navratilova, who had recently appeared both in the championship and in the country, became Evert's real rival. Their rivalry has become one of the main decorations of modern tennis. At first, Chris's "tough" mentality gave her the upper hand, and she won fourteen of the first sixteen head-to-head matches. However, Martina finally got rid of her nervousness and began to overcome it. Nevertheless, Chris managed to impose her will on Martine at the French Open Championships in 1985 and 1986. Evert considered both matches to be the highest achievements in her career: “In both meetings I had to act from the second position, many considered Martina to be in good shape, not to mention the fact that she was considered the first number, and I was the second. And beating Martina at a low point in my career, when Navratilova was still rising to stardom, was extremely important to me.”
By the time she finally decided to hang up her racquet after the 1989 US Open, fittingly choosing the same venue where she had taken her first steps to stardom nineteen years earlier, Chris Evert could be proud of a career that had proven that patience is more than a virtue and carries its own reward. For during those nineteen years, she became the first woman to win a thousand singles matches, including a remarkable 125 wins in a row on her home soil, and the first woman to earn a million dollars in prize money. All this shows that tennis has brought Chris Evert a lot of happiness.