Navratilova, Evert rivalry helped usher in a new era
Five years after the Women’s Tennis Association was founded in a London hotel room by Billie Jean King and more than 60 players, 1978 marked the beginning of a rivalry that would define the women’s game for years to come: Chrissie vs. Martina.
Over the course of 16 years, Florida’s Chris Evert and Prague-born Martina Navratilova would play each other 80 times — 60 of them in finals.
“In the U.S., in 1978, I think tennis was at its height of the boom years,” said Pam Shriver, who had upset Navratilova in the semifinals of the U.S. Open that year as a 16-year-old amateur, still in high school.
“In the U.S., it was a bigger deal than it is now. More people played tennis back in the late 1970s,” said Shriver, who recalled riding the subway to Flushing Meadows for the 1978 final, which she lost to Evert.
The rivalry between Navratilova, an aggressive serveand-volleyer, and the baseliner Evert “gave a lot of people an interest in who to cheer for,” said Shriver, a former top-ranked doubles player who is now an ESPN broadcaster. “They were so different, they had such different styles.”
King said the Evert-Navratilova rivalry “is not only one of the most important rivalries in tennis, it is one of the most important rivalries in all of sports.”
She added: “The two of them took the baton from our generation and moved the sport forward. And they did not disappoint us. They took tennis — not just women’s tennis — to a new level.”
Mary Carillo, who played from 1977 to 1980 before her career was curtailed by injury, said the late 1970s still feels “very fresh and very new” for women’s tennis.
“Holy hell, people are really watching this, the stands are full,” said Carillo, now a broadcaster for the Tennis Channel. “Tennis was such a big deal in the U.S. from the mid-1970s through the 1980s. And it was personality-driven. People wanted to see Billie Jean King, they wanted to see Jimmy Connors and Martina and Chrissie and John McEnroe, Ilie Nastase and Bjorn Borg.”
Although Evert, now 63, lost only four out of 25 matches to Navratilova, now 61, in the first five years of their rivalry, the tables turned in 1978.
In July of that year, Navratilova ended Evert’s reign as No. 1 by beating her in the finals of Wimbledon for her first major singles title. It was their second meeting in a Grand Slam final, and 12 more would follow.
By the time their careers ended, they were tied at 18 Grand Slam singles titles each, with Navratilova leading their head-to-head 43-37.
“Towards the end of the 1970s, when we had played 40 matches or whatever, and we were No. 1 and No. 2 in the world, I started to feel like when I walked on the court that it wasn’t just any final,” said Evert, who is now a broadcaster for ESPN. “I felt like it was something very special, and I could feel the atmosphere with the fans.
“Martina had her set of fans, and I had my set of fans, so it became a little more intense. And I think the contrast in our games and our personalities really enhanced the rivalry and made it even more special.”
Their rivalry, which coincided with the emergence of multimillion-dollar corporate sports sponsorship deals, would help elevate the newly founded WTA.
Women’s professional tennis had begun in 1970 when King and eight other women, known as “The Original 9,” signed $1 contracts with World Tennis magazine publisher Gladys Heldman as they tried to establish their own tour because existing events paid women a fraction of what men earned.
In the 1970s, there was perhaps no greater stage for women’s tennis than the U.S. Open, which in 1973 was the first major to introduce equal prize money for men and women. Five years later, the Open moved from its intimate setting at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, Queens, to nearby Flushing Meadows.
For Evert, who had won three straight U.S. Open titles on clay before the move, the new site took some getting used to.
“It was really different,” Evert said of playing at Flushing Meadows, which had a 19,500-seat main stadium and a 6,000-seat grandstand. “It was very businesslike, sort of a cold kind of feeling, of, ‘OK, tennis is really professional now.’
“It took a few years for Flushing to break in. Then it turned out to be best thing.”
‘The two of them took the baton from our generation and moved the sport forward . ... They took tennis — not just women’s tennis — to a new level.’ Billie Jean King on impact of Chris EvertMartina Navratilova rivalry