When Chris Evert arrived in Paris for the 1973 French Open, she was an 18-year-old making simply her second journey out of the US. So she continues to be baffled as to why Philippe Chatrier, then the president of the French Tennis Federation, determined to take her and her mom, Colette, to Le Lido, the legendary burlesque theater on the Champs-Élysées.
“He took us to dinner, and it was a dance membership with half-naked girls,” Evert mentioned by telephone from her Florida residence in April. “They’d their breasts displaying. My eyes have been like saucers. I had by no means been uncovered to something so refined like that.”
For Bjorn Borg, the final word Paris expertise was celebrating his first French Open championship in 1974 with a non-public dinner within the Eiffel Tower.
It has been greater than a half century since Borg and Evert first performed the French Open, however this 12 months marks the fiftieth anniversary of their profitable their first main championships in Paris. Evert went on to seize 18 Grand Slam singles titles, together with a file seven on the French Open, six at the US Open, three at Wimbledon and two on the Australian Open. Borg received six French Opens from 1974 to 1981 and 5 consecutive Wimbledons from 1976 to 1980.
Borg was simply days shy of his seventeenth birthday when he misplaced to Adriano Panatta within the spherical of 16 on the French Open in 1973, solely his second look at a serious after a first-round loss on the 1972 U.S. Open.
“Once I began to play tennis at 8, 9 years outdated, I had three goals,” Borg, who will flip 68 in June, mentioned from his residence exterior Stockholm. “One was to play Davis Cup for Sweden, one was to stroll on Centre Court docket at Wimbledon and the third dream was to win a Grand Slam event. These have been my goals after I was hitting the ball in opposition to the wall. So, it meant quite a bit for me to return to Paris and play my first match in that lovely stadium.”
After reaching the semifinals of the U.S. Open in 1971 and the semis of Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 1972, Evert made her first look on the French Open the following 12 months. She reached the ultimate, the place she led Margaret Court docket, the No. 1 seed, by a set and was up 5-3, simply two factors from the championship within the second set, earlier than shedding 6-7 (5), 7-6 (6), 6-4.
“I simply didn’t have that intense feeling,” mentioned Evert, who will flip 70 in December. “Everybody thinks I had that killer intuition like I did within the juniors with the women my very own age. However after I obtained to the ladies’s event, for some motive I used to be simply extra relaxed, and I felt like I had time on my facet. I didn’t have the fervor to win that match.”
A 12 months later, Borg and Evert have been prepared.
Borg remembers being down 4-1 and two breaks of serve within the deciding set of his first-round match in opposition to Jean-François Caujolle. He then wanted 5 units to beat Erik Van Dillen and Raul Ramirez earlier than going through Manuel Orantes within the ultimate. After dropping the primary two units, Borg rallied for a 2-6, 6-7 (4), 6-0, 6-1, 6-1 win.
“Earlier than the event I’d undoubtedly say I used to be not the favourite to win,” Borg mentioned. “I shocked myself by being in my first Grand Slam ultimate. I used to be a bit nervous, however I believe he felt extra stress than I did. Plus, he obtained very drained. And the extra we performed, the extra drained he obtained and the extra stress I might see that he felt.”
Evert has no recollection of whom she performed alongside the best way to capturing her first French Open in 1974. She doesn’t recall ousting Virginia Ruzici, who would go on to win the 1978 French Open after which lose to Evert within the ultimate in 1980. Or that she didn’t lose a set en path to the title, which she received 6-1, 6-2 over her good friend and doubles associate Olga Morozova. She does, nevertheless, keep in mind having a vastly totally different angle that 12 months.
“I used to be a unique individual,” Evert mentioned. “I had the expertise of the 12 months earlier than, of letting it slip away, of not closing it out like I ought to have, and I realized from that. I used to be mentally harder, and I knew that if I had that chance once more, to shut out the match and win a Slam, I used to be going to do it.”
Evert received once more in 1975 and, after skipping the event for 3 years to play World Workforce Tennis, she received back-to-back championships once more in 1979 and 1980. Her biggest victory got here in 1985, when she upset top-seeded Martina Navratilova 6-3, 6-7 (4), 7-5 in a virtually three-hour ultimate that enabled her to reclaim the world No. 1 rating. She beat Navratilova once more within the 1986 ultimate for her final victory at a serious.
Evert and Borg possessed tangible similarities. Each have been introverts by nature and, for probably the most half, imperturbable on the court docket. They, together with Jimmy Connors, hit with then-novel two-handed backhands, spawning generations of gamers with double-fisted floor strokes. They usually each virtually by no means missed.
“I believe we launched the world to the best way we performed,” Borg mentioned. “Chrissie and I favored to play from the again court docket. We had two-handed backhands, and never too many gamers did that.”
To Evert, whose two-handed backhand was inspired by her teaching-pro father, Jimmy, Borg was all the time the star.
“In Paris they have been slightly behind the occasions when it got here to equality and girls’s liberation and celebrating girls athletes,” mentioned Evert, who received a minimum of one main yearly from 1974 to 1986. “It was all about males’s tennis. And Bjorn was like a rock star, like one of many Beatles. He needed to have safety guards round him. The ladies have been screaming and crying and making an attempt to seize at him. I’d by no means seen anyone idolized like him. To this present day I believe he’s nonetheless the largest star tennis has ever had.”
Even the present technology of gamers acknowledges the affect that Borg and Evert have had.
“Bjorn Borg? I imply he was a freak,” mentioned Frances Tiafoe. “He was unreal. Loopy information inside a brief span. He didn’t say a phrase, the silent murderer. His motion, nice type, he modified the sport to be performed extra from the again of the court docket. He was a full-on rock star, the sort of man I like.”
Jessica Pegula referred to as Evert a legend.
“She modified the sport along with her two-handed backhand, not only for women however for guys too,” Pegula mentioned. “She was a trendsetter, which is fairly cool.”
Evert mentioned she believed that her legacy within the sport was greater than her backhand and steely dedication.
“My actual legacy was bringing women into the sport of tennis,” she mentioned. “Bjorn and I have been the primary youngsters who made it huge. And we introduced a brand new technology of children to the sport.”
As for the fiftieth anniversary of their first French Open titles, Borg and Evert are struck by the velocity of time.
“It sounds scary while you say it, actually unusual,” mentioned Borg, who will retire as captain of the Laver Cup’s Workforce Europe after this 12 months’s occasion in Berlin in September. “Fifty years is a very long time, however I keep in mind it prefer it was yesterday, and it’s good to have that reminiscence.”
“Once I hear it, I can’t consider it,” mentioned Evert, who lately concluded chemotherapy for a recurrence of ovarian most cancers and can return to ESPN’s broadcast sales space on the French Open and at Wimbledon. “I’m within the final trimester of my life proper now, and yeah, it makes me really feel outdated.”