Monday Open Mike: Chris Evert and Me (Off-Topic)

So is Serena the GOAT? Greatest of all time?

The newspaper reports that in 2012, she asked her coach to help her win "just one more." That is, she wanted to win one more major championship before she retired.

She has so far won nine more since then, most recently Wimbledon on Saturday.

She's almost exactly the same age as Roger Federer—a contender for GOAT on the male side—whose body seems to be breaking down at 34. The only thing of Serena's that's doing any breaking down is the way her serves break down her opponents.

As far as the greatest is concerned in tennis, the women's game sets a very high bar. Every age has had its standouts. There was Althea Gibson (USA), retired 1958; Margaret Court (Australia), retired 1977; Billie Jean King (USA)—one of the greatest figures not just in tennis but in all of women's sports—retired 1983; the fabled rivalry between Martina Navratilova (born in Czechoslovakia, later American), retired 2006(!), and Chris Evert (USA), retired 1989; and Steffi Graf (Germany), retired 1999.

Both Martina and Chris are also near the top of the list in second-place finishes, each mostly because of the other. 

I used to play tennis, though not well. The furthest I ever got was in sophomore year of prep school, when I played #1 singles a few times on the junior varsity team. That sounds better than it was, though, because in my class of 91 boys and girls, no fewer than five boys advanced to the varsity team as soon as they became eligible, in our sophomore year. About the same number as juniors and seniors combined. My class was a standout for tennis and the school won State that year, and I think several times thereafter.

Oh, and my real place on the JV team was #2...I was only slotted at #1 a few times as a "sacrifice," so the real #1 player, Fritz Kaeser, could play at #2 and so stand a better chance of winning a match for us. Let's just say the JV team did not reflect the glory or dominance of the varsity. Fritz and I were the best of the left-behinds. And Fritz was better than I was...I almost beat him...once. I believe he went on to play varsity before he graduated. The next year, my junior year, I was only eligible for the varsity team, and never played organized tennis again.

Fritz wasn't the best tennis player I ever hit a ball with, however—not by a very long shot. I once had a "brush with greatness...."

My grandparents lived near the Woodstock Country Club in Indianapolis, where the U.S. Clay Court Championships were held. In 1973 I went down to visit them so I could attend the tournament every day. That was the year that Jimmy Connors was coming on strong as the "enfant terrible" of the men's game, and his and Chris's romance was heating up the tabloids (although celebrity worship was not nearly as extreme then as it is today). I was practicing my serve on a back court when Chris Evert came over. I was fifteen and she was three years older. She was pretty and had a slender, girlish body for such a fit and strong tennis player, and she was possessed of a poise and grace unusual even among professional athletes. She was the hot story of the tournament; although Connors was just coming on, Chris had already arrived at the pinnacle she was to occupy for the next fifteen years or more. I quietly sat down on a courtside bench as she took a few serves.

Then she came over to me and said, "want to hit a few?"

I said no.

(Have I ever explained how much of an idiot I can be at times? This should demonstrate that.)

Interesting things seemed to happen every day of those two weeks. If Chris Evert was the most appealing star of the tournament, the scariest was a glowering Romanian with a huge mane of jet-black hair and a giant handlebar mustache named Ion (pronounced "yon") Tiriac. Volunteers from the country club helped with tournament duties, and my cousin Linda, who was just sixteen at the time, was assigned to ferry Tiriac from the airport to where he was staying. He terrified her with his piercing eyes and heavily accented growl. She's scared of him to this day.

Curiously, Tiriac is now, by a very considerable margin, the richest ex-tennis-player on Earth—he used his tennis winnings to start a bank in Romania and is now a billionaire.

Many tennis players in earlier times didn't get rich playing tennis—they played tennis because they were rich. My grandfather was allegedly a very good player, although he switched to golf in middle age, before I was born. At their mansion in the aptly-named Golden Hill neighborhood of Indianapolis—now a historic district—I found a curious artifact in the recesses of the dark old front hall closet. A beautiful old tennis racket, exquisitely well made. Wooden tennis racquets used to be stored in "frames," a pair of wooden trapezoids that clamped down on the head of the racquet from both sides, usually with wingnuts, to keep them from warping. On the frame of the old racquet I found, a name was hand-written in several places—"Bill Tilden," it said.

Big Bill Tilden was the dominant male tennis star of the 1920s—as big a star in America at the time as Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, or Bobby Jones.

I took the racquet to my grandfather and asked him if it was really Big Bill Tilden's. "I suppose it was," my grandfather said, clearly not sharing my enthusiasm. "He must have left it here. Where did you find it? I didn't know it was here."

It took several days to eke the story out of my grandparents and various relatives. Even as late as '73, some players still stayed with local families when they came to play in tournaments. If friendships developed, they would stay with the same families over and over again. Apparently Big Bill Tilden had been a guest of my grandparents many times in the late 1920s and throughout the '30s. "He was quite a good friend at one time," my grandmother said, darkly, "but he betrayed us."

"He was disgraced," was all my grandfather would say.

Well, I had to find out about that, of course. So on returning home I studied up. Turned out that in the 1940s, Tilden was arrested and imprisoned several times on misdemeanor morals charges involving underage boys. After those events he was shunned by many people who knew him, which no doubt included my grandparents.

As soon as I learned that, I thought "uh-oh," and decided I had better "liberate" that fine old sports artifact from my grandparents' hall closet, before it was too late. But alas, the next time I was in Indianapolis, Bill Tilden's beautiful old racquet had disappeared. No doubt my grandfather had instructed one of the household staff to discard it, and it was put into the incinerator.

Tilden is largely forgotten today and seldom mentioned, although he was voted the greatest tennis player of the first half of the 20th century by the Associated Press in 1950. I wish I had managed to rescue that racquet.

Chris Evert with Jimmy Connors around the time I got to practice with her.
Curious torn photo via The Guardian.

But Tiriac, and Tilden's racquet, and Ilie Nastase hitting a shot between his legs while running away from it, and spending so much time with my older cousin Lou, and all my other memories of that wonderful visit pale in comparison to Chris Evert, who was standing in front of me shifting her weight from foot to foot, smiling, asking me why I wouldn't hit with her. I said that I didn't think I was good enough to hit with her. She reassured me, saying I'd do fine, that she just needed to warm up a little before her next match. Still I refused. So she tried again to tempt me onto the court.

After some more back-and-forth I suddenly realized I was putting the then-most-famous female tennis player in America into the position of trying to cajole me out onto the court! Which of course was absurd. Any tennis-playing kid I knew would have jumped at the chance. So I said okay.

Well, it turns out I needn't have worried. I did fine. In fact, I never hit the ball better. I was doing so well that I kinda got to feeling a little cocky. I allowed myself to imagine she was impressed with how well I was doing. I even started trying to move her around a little. Then an opportunity opened up and I hit a hard shot directly at her—a little more directly at her than I intended to, which turned out to be one of those shots that are...well, sort of mean. She didn't react at all, but then a shot or two later she picked a short high ball and simply nailed a tremendous forehand right at me, sending me reeling backwards even though I was already behind the baseline, like a pitcher brushing back a batter. I swear that ball was hit so hard I barely saw it flash past. (It was in, too.) That was before the days of composite racquets—Jimmy was playing with one of the very earliest non-wooden racquets, a Wilson made of metal, but he was one of the earliest adopters of the new technology—and although I and my high school friends tried to hit the ball as hard as we could, I simply had no reference point for anyone who could hit a tennis ball that hard. Chris shot me a quick, dark, meaningful look, as if to say, "watch it, buster." (I saw her give the same look to opponents many times on TV over the ensuing years.) The light bulb went off over my head and I realized it wasn't me who was hitting so well—it was she. She had assessed my skill level and was feeding me exactly what I could handle, giving me balls to hit at just the right pace and in the right position to make it easy for me to hit them solidly back. Every shot she hit to me was the equivalent of a "fat pitch" to a batter. As for me, I'd forgotten who I was hitting with! I didn't forget again.

The memory makes me smile and laugh, as it has whenever I've thought of it.

We hit for fifteen minutes or so and then off she went to win her match. She won the tournament, defeating Veronica Burton of Great Britain, one of a string of four consecutive U.S. Clay Court Championships for her. Jimmy Connors lost his concentration completely against Roscoe Tanner and blew a big lead, although in subsequent years he went on to win that title four times too. I never cared for that guy...a little residual adolescent jealousy perhaps? Manuel Orantes of Spain was the winner on the men's side in '73.

Imagine, if you like basketball, playing one-on-one for fifteen minutes with Lebron James or Kevin Durant—and having them take it easy on you. Or, if you played high school football, having Drew Brees or Peyton Manning loft twenty or thirty passes to you, nice and sweet so you could catch them and look good doing it. Or if you play soccer, kicking the ball around for a while with Mia Hamm. My brother Scott had his own high point—he got to hit with Don Budge, the only American, and one of only two males, ever to win a true calendar Grand Slam. Of course Mr. Budge was an old man at the time.

I quietly followed Chris Evert's career from then on. Not obsessively of course, but with a certain gentle pride in her amazing accomplishments and an appropriately modest sense of personal connection. In later years I was sorry and sympathetic when I got wind of travails in her personal life. And save for one particular afternoon with my brother Scott on a public court in the park near our house in Bethesda, when I somehow found "the Zone" (proving it can happen to anyone), hitting a few balls with Chris Evert turned out to be the highlight of my life on the tennis court. What a kind, generous, good-hearted "older woman."

I have a huge amount of respect for Serena—I truly felt for her after her catastrophic loss to Roberta Vinci (in my gut, not just in my mind), and she'll always come to mind when the topic of America's greatest athletes comes up.

But as far as the greatest female tennis player who ever lived, well, I'm sure you understand—for me there can be only one.

Mike
(Thanks to C.E. from my 15-year-old self)

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Maciek Miechoński: "What a nice story, Mike!!! I'm not sure but think that Chris Evert is Eurosport expert during Grand Slam tournaments so you can still keep an eye on her—at least four times a year.  ;-) 

"I love to play and watch tennis as well. I'm Polish so I keep fingers crossed for Agnieszka Radwańska (who is—in my opinion—one of very few female players still playing nice, 'technical' tennis instead of 'boom-boom tennis.' You should keep playing tennis—who knows which star you are going to meet.  :-)  "

Graham Byrnes: "Ha!  :-)

"I think this is the original notion of a 'champion': someone who represents the aspirations of a community and goes out to represent them against the best 'the others' can find. So by standing on a court with Chris Evert, you got a real connection with her as a representative...because she was better than you.

"I've had similar experiences in my bumbling motorcycle-racing career: sharing the track at an Australian championship meeting with Josh Brookes, who is currently riding in World SuperBike championship, after a few years near the top of the British series.

"At the time we were on the track together we were in a lower class, and qualified at opposite ends of the grid, but once I hooked onto his back wheel as he went out on his warm-up lap. It was interesting to learn that I was already using all the right lines: my 95% was nearly identical to his 80% effort. So I wasn't doing anything stupid, which was good. On the other hand, there were no magic tricks...he was simply able to do the same things better, faster, more accurately. Come the race, I was happy to get to the end of the penultimate lap just before he passed me while winning, so I got to finish the full distance.  :-)

"Even though I never really liked him much as a person, there is that little bit of pride: 'I raced that guy once...and he thrashed me.'"

Eamon Hickey: "Wonderful to think back again on those mid-'70s tennis names. In a different, odd way, one of them is an important figure in my own development. Watching Ilie Nastase play one Saturday on TV sometime around 1975—I would have been 11 or 12 years old—was the first time I consciously recognized the phenomenon of genius. I still remember it vividly, this revelation that there exists a level of virtuosity beyond mere excellence, one that a tiny fraction of human beings can sometimes reach. As I remember it, that day Nastase only had full command of his genius for about a set and a half, but he was playing tennis as high art, something I'd never seen before. It gave me a new, wider conceptual vocabulary with which to see and think about the world."

Mike replies: I agree. Genius is an apt word.

Nastase taught me something too, though, which I never forgot—which is that talent alone isn't enough to be truly great, no matter how amazing that talent is. At the very greatest levels of sport you find people who have both great talent and who work extremely hard. Michael Jordan might be the paradigm.

I always thought Chris Evert was somewhat like Larry Bird—they both had great talent but they wouldn't have reached the levels they did just on talent alone. And they both had formidable work ethics but they wouldn't have reach the pinnacle just based on hard work, either. But put the two together and that's really what enabled them to be great. If they were extraordinary, it might have been in psychological intangibles like competitiveness, determination and self-belief.

Just imagine if Nastase had worked as hard Evert, Bird, or Jordan....

toto: "What they really mean by GOAT is Greatest of All Time (So Far). GOAT can only be determined when time has ended, or at least when the sport has become extinct."

Mike replies: It should really be "GOEE"—greatest of every era. Or "AE," any era. I.e., era in that activity's history. "All time" always sounds grandiose to the point of absurdity to me, because of course they're always talking about very finite activities. "Greatest Olympic Snowboarder OF ALL TIME." Right. Heck, human beings have only been human beings for a tiny sliver of "all time." As for the "so far," I think that's understood among people who know what "time" means.

Another thing that bothers me is that GOAT is a very awkward acronym, because "goat," of course, means the opposite of "hero" in sports—someone who blew a game for the rest of a team. Too bad about that, but there's no help for it.

Kefyn Moss: "Nice one Mike. Nothing so famously connected as you but I used to play table tennis regularly (and even won a couple of local 'championships' ha ha) and one day a young Japanese man came to the club straight off the plane. We hit it off personally and he asked (through someone who could speak Japanese as mine was very limited) if he could stay with me and my wife for three months, and we agreed.

"Turns out he had been the champion of his prefecture in Japan several times, which was at the same level as the Australian champion, really, and he coached me many times. I always hit the ball best practicing with him but always knew he was still in first gear. Just watching him play seriously (I saw him in the Australian Open and others) was poetry in motion and he is the nicest guy you would care to meet. We still keep in touch and see him occasionally."

Comments

[Jim Metzger]

Ah, the Wilson T2000 metal racket. I was a MISERABLE tennis player as a kid, not much better now, but when my father came home with a T2000 I thought that was an easy path to greatness. One of the worst rackets ever made, a sure fire way to tennis elbow as that thing sang like a tuning fork. Glad Conners could handle it.

Great story!

Jim

[Dave Fultz]

Just lovely, Mike.

Dave

[mjsmoke]

Very cool article and story! Chrissie never forgets to mention that she had a stellar career when she is commentating during Serena matches, but she has stated recently that she thinks Serena is the greatest female player to ever play the game.

[Rich Reusser]

what a great recollection, told wonderfully.

my short and unremarkable tennis career mirrored yours closely, only ten years later, and without the brush with fame. I remember slobbering all over the tennis rags looking at equipment (much as camera stuff online presently !). As I recall Wilson had a whole line of metal racquets identical to the one Connor's holds in the picture.

Though I lusted for the seventy dollar version, the twelve dollar racquet matched my non existent savings more appropriately... and not even sure what the extra money would've gotten me. tighter strings and an inflated sense of skill and importance. Damn, again like cameras !

[robert e]

What a terrific story! Too bad you didn't have an iphone on you. No autograph?

Also wanted to note that Margaret Court retired more than once. The first time in 1966 to get married, having won 13 majors, including a double career slam. She came back in '68, won a calendar slam in '70, and continued to play for years, though giving birth to three kids slowed her down a bit, until retiring for good while pregnant with her fourth child, having accumulated 25 major singles titles.

As if that wasn't remarkable enough, she's one of only three tennis players to win at least one of every slam title that she was eligible for (i.e., a singles, doubles and mixed doubles title at each of the four majors) and the only player ever to collect at least two of each.

[John Camp]

I also have a Chris Evert story. In the early 70s I was working for The Miami Herald in Fort Lauderdale, and with some of the other guys in the office, would occasionally walk down to the tennis courts on Sunrise Boulevard to play tennis after work. Chris Evert's father, Jimmy, had some kind of position with the parks department as a tennis coach. There were a whole bunch of concrete courts there, lit at night, plus one clay court, which was always immaculately groomed. But -- nobody played on the clay court except Chris, though it was a public court paid for by the taxpayers. It was hardly ever used, although she'd sometimes play on it with a partner and you could stand outside the screen and watch. You just couldn't play on it -- or at least, that was the legend. Or myth. Or possibly even the truth.

Sports like tennis and golf weren't as important back then as they are now -- they were just on the cusp of becoming what they are now. So she once asked you to help warm her up, but today, if you were to hit a ball with a star of her magnitude, you'd have to pay for it, one way or another.

[J Wilson]

While I can appreciate the Williams sisters' skills, modern tennis leaves me cold inasmuch as I can NOT take that 'hyah!(or whatever it is, that guttural sound) when they hit the ball, drives me nuts.

IF you ever get the chance, and obviously you're a Chris and Martina nut from back in the day, do NOT miss the '30 for 30' film about Chris and Martina. Fabulous.

[Hans Muus]

'(...) I realized it wasn't me who was hitting so well—it was she.' What a beautiful insight - and that for a boy of fifteen. Makes me think, may be the universe is doing this to us at all our great moments. (So step onto the court, buddy [m/f], when the occasion presents itself!)

[Tom Burke]

Lovely story, Mike.

I think the distance between a real sports person - a professional, these days - and anyone who "plays a bit", even to a fairly high standard, is enormous.

[Allan Graham]

I hope the book is coming on apace, Mike, but I have to say that you are among the most consummate of essay writers.

[Thank you! --Mike]

[Dave I.]

Mike, you must send this post to Ms. Evert! I'm sure she has some website, at least I would expect so.

I'd bet she would get a kick out of your story.

Please consider it.

[Andrew Molitor]

You are to be commended for remaining upright and conscious while Chris Evert talked to you. I am not sure I could manage that feat even today.

[John Caradimas]

Mike, fascinating!

I didn't know you were interested in tennis, but I'll give you a name to watch, if you are interested, Stefanos Tsitsipas. He is still a youngster, if I am not mistaken he is only 15, but he won his age at Wimbleton double this year, playing with another kid.

Yeah, he is a fellow Greek too, but that's not the reason, I am proud of him. His parents are good friends of ours!

[D.C. Wells]

Excellent post today. Your recollection of juvenile insecurity and overconfidence brought back memories of my own. I am happy to know that you eventually came to your senses and now have wonderful memory. I wish I could say the same . . . .

[Kelly Graham]

I thought this article at Vox made a great argument for Simone Biles being the most dominant female athlete of all time. http://www.vox.com/2016/7/11/12135222/us-gymnastics-team-roster-gold-simone-biles-olympics

I think Serena is great but I find it hard to see the GOAT argument. There are just to many phenomenal athletes to choose from.

How is Dara Torres not considered better? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dara_Torres

People thought she was serious when she tweeted she'd be competing in Rio at age 49! In an event dominated by 19 year-olds!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2015/04/01/is-five-time-olympic-swimmer-dara-torres-coming-out-of-retirement-at-age-47/

"Torres has a proven track record of retiring and coming back when everyone thought she might be too old. Torres, who competed in the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Olympics, made her first comeback in 1999. At 33, she went on to win five medals in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, making her the oldest female swimmer to medal in the history of the Games.

Torres would go on to break that record in when she made her second comeback in 2007. At the age of 41, Torres became the the oldest swimmer ever to win an Olympic medal after she won three medals at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing."

[I really just used the term GOAT here in relation to women's tennis, not to female athletes of all kinds. --Mike]

[John Krumm]

A great story well told, Mike. You usually get on base but this one is still bouncing in the parking lot.

[Michael Perini]

Mike,
Wonderful Story, beautifully written.
Thanks
m

[Daniel]

I still vote Rod Laver as top dog.
As for the women - they want the money the men make but still play 3 sets to 5 for the men.
If they really want the same money they should play 5 sets - or play the men.

[I think that would be fair, so long as the men could also give birth. --Mike]

[Ed Kirkpatrick]

Wonderful story Mike! I had my moment when I was seventeen. I played soccer in high school and was goalie. Visiting Paris in 1969, some friends and I were boarding at the University of Paris in the summer of 1969. We decided it would be fun to kick the ball around on the University’s pitch one afternoon. A group of tall black athletes came on the field and after a bit they approached us and offered a pick-up game. Knowing no better, we agreed and got our butts kicked by the Ethiopian National football team. They were very gracious and a terrific amount of fun to play against and yes, I managed to stop one or two kicks on goal.

[Jona]

My brush with tennis greatness came when I was 4. We belonged to a tennis club that hosted a tournament for older players. One day I was in the locker room and most likely staring at a strange looking man. (As a young child I tended to stare at people who looked unique to me). Well, this man smiled at me, said hi, and patted me on the butt with his racquet. It was Ilie Nastase. I have no recollection of it but my brother and father seem to remember it well.

[Animesh Ray]

Beautiful! Thank you!

[Christopher]

I think she might be the greatest of this time period. I have this rather horrible distrust of sports stars though, I don't think I could blame Armstrong. I do however feel like eventually someone will find a better legal concoction than is available today and we will see even greater stars come from it.

[Mike Fewster]

Whoops. Clearly my previous post had an error. Let's replace it with this amended version.

It's clear Mike. Chuck the camera twaddle and lets get down to real stuff. To demonstrate. A moment from my life at a similarly impressionable age. This story is regularly retold in our family to pick on me but I am fiercely proud of it.
The family had just relocated to a new city. I carefully surveyed the neighborhood to find the best tennis club. Over several weeks I stood outside courts watching the games on Saturday afternoons and made my choice. Consequently I underwent a radical change of religion. Clearly the best team in the area belonged to a particular church. Ya gotta get your priorities right.

[Dillan K]

You are very good at coming up with the unexpected, Mike. I enjoyed that thoroughly.

[Chris C]

It is interesting that you mention Margaret Court, because here in Melbourne Australia, they named a tennis court after her. Not quite as ironic as my local swimming pool, the Harold Holt Memorial Pool named after a former prime minister, missing presumed drowned whilst swimming at the beach.

[So is it called Margaret Court Court? You're right, that's the sort of thing I would like, although the Harold Holt thing is a bit too much. --Mike]