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“I realised that my strength wasn’t to blow somebody off the court. My strength was to stay in there and be steady, place the ball well, use variety, drop shots. You’ve got to know your strengths and weaknesses and keep working on them, and this translates into life and business,” she observes.
“I don’t hate her anymore. There’s no competitiveness and we know each other so well. When you’re in the locker room on that final day [of competition] and one of you wins and the other loses, you really discover the character of somebody. And I think we recognise that we both have pretty good characters,” she shares.
On Evert’s part, a lot of that character-building had to do with her father also being her coach.
Jimmy Evert was a professional tennis coach and under his tutelage, all the Evert children enjoyed successful professional or college careers in the sport. Chris and younger sister Jeanne became professional players while brothers John and Drew as well as youngest sister Clare played tennis on scholarship at their respective universities.
Chris was the only one to achieve such a spectacular level of success and credits her parents for keeping her grounded.
“I was lucky because I had great parents. I’d win Wimbledon at 19 and I’d go home and still have chores to do. I’d still have to fold the laundry, empty the dishwasher, take out the garbage. They kept my feet on the ground,” she remembers.
Our interview is taking place two days before the championship match and Naomi Osaka’s WTA Finals debut had just come to a disappointing end as she had to forfeit the match with Kiki Bertens due to a hamstring injury — after already having lost three-set matches to Sloane Stephens and Angelique Kerber. Going into this tournament, Osaka’s was hands-down the most exciting name on the roster following her stunning victory over Serena Williams at the US Open just a month earlier. Regardless, Evert still thinks Osaka is the name to watch out for in the cluster of emerging stars. Lowering her voice to an almost inaudible range as a few of the current players are also in the room and within earshot, Evert says: “Naomi — she’s 21 and still maturing; she’s only going to get better. She’s got a lot of power; her power matches Serena’s power and I think she’s hungry for success. Kiki Bertens was nowhere this time last year, but she’s made great strides in the past year. So I would look at these two. But I think Osaka.” The days of single-player dominance, however, are over. “Because on a good day, they all could win,” Evert believes. “Look at the [recent] Grand Slams — we’ve had eight different Grand Slam winners. That means there’s a lot of depth and surprises. There are so many great players that I think it’s going to be hard for anybody to dominate and I don’t know if we’re ever going to see those days of domination again. It’ll take someone really special… Maybe every 20 years, somebody really special will come along and dominate for a few years, but right now, even in this tournament, I have no idea who’s going to win.” Life after tennis
With a professional tennis coach for a father, one cannot help but wonder if a career outside of tennis was ever an option for Evert. “If my dad wasn’t a teaching pro, I wouldn’t have been in tennis,” she says matter-of-factly. She would have been a social worker instead. “I had romantic ideas of flying to Africa and other countries and helping kids. Or perhaps be a teacher of some kind, or a psychologist,” she says in retrospect. These days, Evert channels that desire to help others through her heavy involvement in charity work centred around the prevention of drug abuse and assistance for the children of addicts. Her organisation, Chris Evert Charities, has helped raise over US$24 million since its inception in 1989, when she retired from the courts. “At this stage of my life, it’s about giving rather than taking,” she explains. She describes her life as having been lived in three parts: “The first was tennis, the second was being a mum and raising three kids, and the third is about finding peace within yourself and then giving and helping people because I’ve led a really privileged life.” Evert’s third act also includes her role as an icon to inspire the next generation of athletes and tennis superstars — as a commentator on ESPN and ambassador for Rolex for the past six years. Of the Rolex partnership, she says: “I love the way they really value former champions as ambassadors, from Jackie Stewart to Arnold Palmer, as well as current champions.” “They’re a class act — timeless and beautiful,” she continues. Virtues that could also be used to describe Chris Evert, I suggest. Hesitant to embrace the compliment, she adds two more adjectives: “Durable and efficient. I don’t want to compliment myself too much, but I can compliment the watch.” Quick to compliment the watch she is, as she offers me a glimpse of the sizeable gold timepiece sitting on her dainty wrist. Evert was wearing the Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona in 18ct Everose gold — a timepiece she says was a gift to herself.
“I like big dials. I’ve always liked guys’ watches. One piece of big jewellery is better than six pieces of small jewellery for me,” she declares.
No diamonds on the bezel either, please. “I’m not into flash. I prefer subtle class,” says the owner of five Rolexes collected over the past three decades.
It has been such a privilege to delve into the mind of one of the world’s greatest athletes of all time. Achievements, accolades and statistics aside, I conclude our time together by asking if there’s something she could share about Chris Evert that nobody really knows.
“I tell a good dirty joke,” she says with a cheeky smile.
But ever the class act, she politely declines to share one.
This article appeared in Issue 860 (Dec 10) of The Edge Singapore.
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Jamie Nonis is a lifestyle journalist with an appreciation for all things beautiful
