Chrissy Evert has been on the therapist’s sofa regularly for the past two years. The focus? Fear and ego. “I grew up in a very fearful environment — Catholic upbringing, strict parents — and then ego from tennis,” the three-time Wimbledon champion says. “When everybody’s telling you how great you are, you start to believe it.”
Evert started therapy after she was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer three years ago, knowing she would have some rare time laying low. In 2022, after chemotherapy, she was given the all-clear but late last year the cancer returned. After further treatment in December, she has overcome it again. Her beloved younger sister, Jeanne, died of the same disease in 2020.
Inevitably, Evert’s perspective on life has shifted: “I don’t sweat the small stuff, don’t get as upset as much, don’t really care about what people are saying, about opinions of me,” she says.
The golden girl of tennis’s golden era — she won 18 grand slams in the Seventies and Eighties — also has food for thought after her therapy sessions.
“It’s easy to get a big ego when you’re a tennis player, and it’s not all your fault,” she says, when we meet in an office overlooking Court 18 at Wimbledon on Friday. “The people around you adore you, but what they really adore is your tennis, because they don’t know you.”
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Presumably it’s hard to differentiate between the two? “That’s why you become isolated because finally you realise that it’s not genuine and it’s a lot of noise,” she says. “It can get lonely too. Why do people want to be with me? Because I’m Chris Evert? Or because I’m Chrissy?”
In person, Chrissy is captivating company, quick to laugh and full of sunny Floridian vim. Now 69 but looking barely 60, it’s hard to fathom that it was 50 years ago, aged 19, that she first lifted the Wimbledon trophy (and again in 1976 and 1981).
“For every champion, there are majors that we should have won that we didn’t, and there are majors that we had no right winning that we did,” she says, modestly putting her 1974 victory in the latter category. Billie Jean King and Australia’s Evonne Goolagong were, she says, “better grass court players” that year, but both were knocked out by others in the quarter-finals.
It’s not yet known whether the Princess of Wales will appear to present the tournament’s trophies as usual this week, because of her own illness with cancer. Evert has met Kate over the years, and when she starts speaking about her, her eyes brim with tears. “I’ve always wanted to get a message to Kate,” she says, her voice catching. “I get emotional when I think about her. She’s so young to have cancer and I’m always thinking about her. I know what it’s like, I’ve had that experience.”
Evert has made clear she doesn’t want to dwell on her health, so we move on to tennis. The game in 1974 is worlds away from 2024, with its mega money, sprawling sponsorships and vast teams of agents and trainers. “It was more intimate. It wasn’t big business then, it was more of a sport,” says Evert, who is at SW19 as a commentator for ESPN. “You had big marquee names, like Bjorn Borg — he was like a rock star and needed five security guards wherever he went. It was like the beginning of the tennis boom. We weren’t playing for the money. We weren’t thinking about endorsements. We were just thinking about, ‘Oh, I’d like to win a grand slam title’.”
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However, the woman who injected glamour and glitz into the sport (“being feminine was always important to me”) doesn’t go in for the misty-eyed romanticism of yesteryear. The sexism was worse, she says, and the global value of the sport was nothing like it is now.
But for today’s marquee names such as Britain’s Emma Raducanu, who plays in the singles on Sunday, more money on the line plus social media equals more pressure. “I can understand why these players have mental health issues because if [fame] happens overnight, it can be mindblowing,” Evert says.
She speaks highly of Raducanu, 21. “She was never to me a flash in the pan like, ‘Oh, she won the US Open, but she hasn’t done anything since’. I was like, ‘nah nah nah, she’s too good’.” She adds that it seems as if Raducanu is now making her own career decisions, rather than being told what to do. (On court, though, Evert says she has “got to put a little more pop on her groundies”.)
Talk turns to retirement and Sir Andy Murray, 37, who is bidding farewell to Wimbledon. Evert has some advice on life after tennis: “I would say, ‘Andy, it’s time to be Mr Mum. Just be with your kids while they’re young because you don’t get those moments back’.”
Evert herself retired in 1989, aged 34. “I was just burnt out from playing tournaments from seven years old,” she says. “With Andy, he’s a different animal, he just loves the game. He’s very lucky that he has a great wife and four healthy children. He’s got a great life ahead of him. Just appreciate it.”
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One person who has supported Evert through her trials in recent years is her one-time great rival, Martina Navratilova, the Czech-American player. As well as having the same grand slam victory tally, and living near by in Florida, the women also both had cancer at the same time — twice. “We just can’t escape each other,” Evert says, laughing.
While Evert gave her former adversary a necklace to wish her a speedy recovery, Navratilova brought her food when she was ill. “She’s a better cook than me — I’m not a cook,” Evert says. “We realised at the same time what was important in life.” Health, love and family are the holy trinity.
Evert has been married three times: to John Lloyd, the British former tennis No 2; to Andy Mill, an American Olympic alpine skier with whom she has three adult sons and a baby grandson; and to Greg Norman, the Australian golfer.
“I’m friends with all my ex-husbands,” she says, smiling. “When you have cancer, you realise that life is too short. You don’t have any enemies. You don’t have anybody that you have a problem with because you realise that everybody has their own cross to bear.”
We talk about her young romance with the Hollywood stud Burt Reynolds (“a gentleman”), her one-time fiancé Jimmy Connors taking her to London’s Playboy Club back in 1974 (“it was a little out of my league”) and how she isn’t dating now (“it’s not that I don’t want to date, but in the last few years during my cancer situation, that wasn’t a priority”).
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She still exercises every day and is competitive about her rankings on Peloton, the exercise bike that allows you to see others’ performances. “I need to be at least in the top quarter of the sixties [age category], which I am,” she says. “I’m 80 per cent of what I used to be cardiovascularly and energy-wise. I’m happy with that.” These days, her sons are the only ones likely to persuade her to pick up a tennis racket.
In December she will turn 70. “I think about it a lot. I never thought about other ages as much as 70 because that’s like old,” she says, guffawing. “Now I’m in Billie Jean King territory.”
Besides commentating, Evert runs a tennis academy in Florida and works on the charitable side of the United States Tennis Association. “I need to work, I can’t just sit around the house and get manicures and lunches with my women friends,” she says. “I’m not that person.” With that, she springs up and is back off to work.
