Her extreme ability to isolate each individual point helped build a very tough killer instinct. “One thing that makes Chris such a great champion,” Billie Jean King said, “is that she doesn’t play games or sets, she plays points.” If she could focus only on the ball, then her sister could become just another player, and then she could block out any other distractions to focus on winning every single point. “She had to focus on playing the ball instead of her sister,” says sister Claire Evert. “Having siblings definitely helps you improve your game,” Chrissie says, “Just look at the McEnroes and the Williamses – of course, it helps.”įor one thing, it made her mentally stronger having to compete with her sister, who she didn’t like to beat. But part of the Evert children’s tennis success had to do with having each other to play with. Indeed, a fine teacher he must have been, because all 5 of his children went on to win National Juniors Championships. (Today, over 80% of the top 100 pros use a two-handed backhand.) Not the stroke, but the way tennis was played. I had hoped she would change.” And she did. A powerful drive shot, the two-handed was supposed to be a temporary compensation, Jimmy Evert says, “because she was too small and weak to swing the backhand with one hand. “I remember him saying ‘Racquet back, turn sideways, step in when you hit the ball’ and I remembered those three fundamental things forever,” says Chrissie in retrospect.Īnother thing he taught her, which later became a trademark shot that influenced generations of players to emulate her, was the two-handed backhand. Tossing tennis balls out of a shopping cart, he taught little Chrissie and her four siblings the basics of tennis, with hand-me-down racquets. Her father, Jimmy Evert, was working 7 days a week as the tennis pro at Holiday Park (since renamed the Jimmy Evert Tennis Center) and looking for ways to be closer to his children. “For seven years, she was Queen of the Courts, ruling the Tennis Throne…”Ĭhris Evert was born on Decemin Fort Lauderdale, Florida and was hitting tennis balls across the public clay courts of that city by the time she was only five years old.
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