LEGENDARY tennis champion Chris Evert was 17 when she made her 1972 Wimbledon debut 44 years ago, though you’d never have guessed it to look at her sitting in the Royal box last Sunday to watch Andy Murray win his second title. At 61, the golden girl of tennis looked remarkably unchanged from her heyday.
During a record-breaking career spanning 21 years Chris won Wimbledon three times, 18 Grand Slam singles titles, and once played 55 matches in a row without defeat-but today the mother-of-three still wears the same size 8 dress size (US4) and is fitter than most women half her age.
She retired aged 34 with millions in the bank, a place in history and the tennis Hall of Fame. These days she runs a tennis academy for kids in her native Florida and has launched a new range of sportswear for ‘tennis moms’, which she models herself.
Despite her sporting legacy, however, Chris now says all the trophies in the world will never compensate for losing the one thing that really mattered to her – married family life – which imploded in very public and spectacular fashion 10 years ago. Chris’s private life has often eclipsed her on court achievements.
Now, in a rare interview, she admits she feels nothing but regret for the way she ended her 20-year marriage to Olympic skier Andy Mill to start a relationship in 2006 with his friend, legendary Australian golfer Greg Norman – better known as the Great White Shark.
‘I’ve had a three-part life and, for me, the best part by far was being married to Andy, having kids and being a family,’ Chris says. ‘If I could do it over again, I’d have taken some time to really think about what was wrong and try to make it work.
‘If I’d been a bit stricter with my personal boundaries, maybe things might have worked out differently. There have been times in my life when I haven’t been true to myself, and that was one of them.
‘The nice thing is we still love each other. It is a very comfortable love between two people now leading separate lives. He lives 15 minutes away from me in Florida, so we spend time with each other and as a family.’
Her marriage to Norman began with a lavish 100-guest £1.3m wedding which took place in the Bahamas in June 2008, but was over just 15 months later. They divorced in December 2009, amid rumours of a massive clash of egos and tensions between Norman and her sons.
It was third-time unlucky for Chris, whose first marriage in 1979 to the golden boy of British tennis, John Lloyd, lasted eight years. They divorced in 1987 after reports of her affair with British singer and actor Adam Faith.
While all her exes have remarried, Chris has been single ever since splitting from Norman. She insists there is no lingering ill-will.
‘John and I are great, Andy and I are great, Greg and I are….fine, let’s put it that way. I don’t have any enemies in life,’ says Chris, who has described this private tumult as a delayed reaction to the discipline, tunnel-vision, determination and self-restraint required of champions.
‘I have no-one in my life right now apart from my sons – my three boys – and my work. I don’t know if I’ll ever marry again – never say never – but I’m not looking. When I tell my friends that, they all say “You’re lying” but it’s true.
‘Since I can remember, I’ve always been with someone, always had a husband, so it’s been really good for me to be on my own and learn to feel comfortable with myself. It’s a little bit like a liberation for me. I think I need to be by myself to grow and know myself before I even consider getting into another relationship.’ Chris was also engaged, at 19, to Men’s Wimbledon Champion Jimmy Connors, another tumultuous relationship.
Born in Fort Lauderdale, Chris’s upbringing was strict and conservative. Her pro-tennis coach father Jimmy Evert, who died last year aged 91, was her biggest inspiration.
‘We talked every day, right up until his death. He was very proud of me, but quietly so. He made sure I never got too big for my britches,’ she says. ‘Even after I won Wimbledon, I still had to fold the laundry and load the dishwasher at home. My family kept me humble.
‘He worked as a tennis coach until he was 75 and, even though I made millions, he never lived off my money like some people on the circuit these days.
‘Because my upbringing was so strict, so black and white with no grey, I went the other way with my sons. I listened to them, let them talk me into letting them stay up an extra hour at bedtime. I probably could have been stricter, but I’d tell them “just do your best”. As a result, they are very kind and loving.’
Despite her public image, Chris insists she was never ‘Little Miss Ice Maiden’ – so called because of her cool, on court persona.
‘When I came over here I was called “the schoolgirl who never smiles”, but that wasn’t the real me, that was just the way I played my best tennis,’ she says.
‘I was young, quiet and shy. I was uncomfortable in the limelight, I didn’t like people looking at me. I was insecure about the way I looked.
‘Back in the 70s, it was still kind of taboo to be a woman athlete. It was considered masculine, but I wanted to be feminine so I wore ruffles on my bloomers, ribbons in my hair, bracelets and a little make-up.
‘I wanted to be tough and strong, but I also wanted to look feminine. I was at High School and wanted boyfriends.’
She adds: ‘I used to get people commenting on my weight all the time. I was always conscious of that. Nothing has changed. It got to the point where athletes weren’t supposed to have an ounce of fat on them, an extra inch.
‘It hurt my feelings. I think we are all pretty sensitive. When you’re young and in the limelight, it takes some getting used to.’
Of the glamour girls on the women’s tennis circuit now, she says: ‘If you look like Maria Sharapova or Eugenie Bouchard, you’re always going to have companies coming after you with endorsements, because companies like successful women who are good-looking.
That’s the way it’s always been.
‘It’s the women’s choice how they want to come across, but you don’t have to pose naked. It should be enough that – no matter how you look – you are successful because of hard work and doing what you love to do.
‘I’m so glad I came up in the 70s. It’s much harder for women today, with the spotlight of social media.’
Even so, back then, there were still the pressures and strains, the critics, the stalkers and the crazies.
Once, when Chris was playing Wimbledon, a man hid in the closet of her Florida home for three days, smoking cigarettes and penning love letters patiently awaiting her return. He was found by a workman and arrested.
‘No-one took it very seriously back then,’ she says. ‘Not even me. It didn’t even make the press.’
Another stalker took to knocking on her door dressed in Army fatigues, and one year at the Toronto Open the players received death threats and Chins had to be driven directly to the court for the final. A man carrying a rifle was arrested in the grounds.
‘There is always the question in your mind “Is it worth it?”’ she says. ‘I liked my privacy. I was just a normal girl who wanted the same things other girls do – but then I realised there is a price to pay for everything.
‘When you are successful and famous and make money, you have to give away something.’
Chris says she was more than ready to retire at 34.
‘I was married, I wanted to have kids and I didn’t feel like putting it out on the line anymore,’ she says. ‘I’d play the best match of my career, it would be unbelievable, and the next day when I faced another match I just didn’t want to be there.’
Today, her closest friends are her former rivals from that golden era of women’s tennis – Martina Navratilova, Billie-Jean King, Pam Shriver and Tracey Austin. They meet up regularly, but never play tennis.
‘Now we are not competing, we can really appreciate each other,’ says Chris, who feels sorry for today’s players who, with their huge entourages of coaches, managers, PRs and assorted family members, are very isolated from each other.
‘Martina was my biggest on-court rival, but we’d practise together, have lunch together, play a tournament final, then travel together by plane to the next tournament.
‘I’d rather go hiking with my boys than play a tennis match now. Competing is not fun for me.
‘Yes, I was successful and made millions, but I was never a great person with a talent for tennis. I was a normal person with just one talent, which was tennis. I have many, many faults. I’m just like everyone else.’LEGENDARY tennis champion Chris Evert was 17 when she made her 1972 Wimbledon debut 44 years ago, though you’d never have guessed it to look at her sitting in the Royal box last Sunday to watch Andy Murray win his second title. At 61, the golden girl of tennis looked remarkably unchanged from her heyday.
During a record-breaking career spanning 21 years Chris won Wimbledon three times, 18 Grand Slam singles titles, and once played 55 matches in a row without defeat-but today the mother-of-three still wears the same size 8 dress size (US4) and is fitter than most women half her age.
She retired aged 34 with millions in the bank, a place in history and the tennis Hall of Fame. These days she runs a tennis academy for kids in her native Florida and has launched a new range of sportswear for ‘tennis moms’, which she models herself.
Despite her sporting legacy, however, Chris now says all the trophies in the world will never compensate for losing the one thing that really mattered to her – married family life – which imploded in very public and spectacular fashion 10 years ago. Chris’s private life has often eclipsed her on court achievements.
Now, in a rare interview, she admits she feels nothing but regret for the way she ended her 20-year marriage to Olympic skier Andy Mill to start a relationship in 2006 with his friend, legendary Australian golfer Greg Norman – better known as the Great White Shark.
‘I’ve had a three-part life and, for me, the best part by far was being married to Andy, having kids and being a family,’ Chris says. ‘If I could do it over again, I’d have taken some time to really think about what was wrong and try to make it work.
‘If I’d been a bit stricter with my personal boundaries, maybe things might have worked out differently. There have been times in my life when I haven’t been true to myself, and that was one of them.
‘The nice thing is we still love each other. It is a very comfortable love between two people now leading separate lives. He lives 15 minutes away from me in Florida, so we spend time with each other and as a family.’
Her marriage to Norman began with a lavish 100-guest £1.3m wedding which took place in the Bahamas in June 2008, but was over just 15 months later. They divorced in December 2009, amid rumours of a massive clash of egos and tensions between Norman and her sons.
It was third-time unlucky for Chris, whose first marriage in 1979 to the golden boy of British tennis, John Lloyd, lasted eight years. They divorced in 1987 after reports of her affair with British singer and actor Adam Faith.
While all her exes have remarried, Chris has been single ever since splitting from Norman. She insists there is no lingering ill-will.
‘John and I are great, Andy and I are great, Greg and I are….fine, let’s put it that way. I don’t have any enemies in life,’ says Chris, who has described this private tumult as a delayed reaction to the discipline, tunnel-vision, determination and self-restraint required of champions.
‘I have no-one in my life right now apart from my sons – my three boys – and my work. I don’t know if I’ll ever marry again – never say never – but I’m not looking. When I tell my friends that, they all say “You’re lying” but it’s true.
‘Since I can remember, I’ve always been with someone, always had a husband, so it’s been really good for me to be on my own and learn to feel comfortable with myself. It’s a little bit like a liberation for me. I think I need to be by myself to grow and know myself before I even consider getting into another relationship.’ Chris was also engaged, at 19, to Men’s Wimbledon Champion Jimmy Connors, another tumultuous relationship.
Born in Fort Lauderdale, Chris’s upbringing was strict and conservative. Her pro-tennis coach father Jimmy Evert, who died last year aged 91, was her biggest inspiration.
‘We talked every day, right up until his death. He was very proud of me, but quietly so. He made sure I never got too big for my britches,’ she says. ‘Even after I won Wimbledon, I still had to fold the laundry and load the dishwasher at home. My family kept me humble.
‘He worked as a tennis coach until he was 75 and, even though I made millions, he never lived off my money like some people on the circuit these days.
‘Because my upbringing was so strict, so black and white with no grey, I went the other way with my sons. I listened to them, let them talk me into letting them stay up an extra hour at bedtime. I probably could have been stricter, but I’d tell them “just do your best”. As a result, they are very kind and loving.’
Despite her public image, Chris insists she was never ‘Little Miss Ice Maiden’ – so called because of her cool, on court persona.
‘When I came over here I was called “the schoolgirl who never smiles”, but that wasn’t the real me, that was just the way I played my best tennis,’ she says.
‘I was young, quiet and shy. I was uncomfortable in the limelight, I didn’t like people looking at me. I was insecure about the way I looked.
‘Back in the 70s, it was still kind of taboo to be a woman athlete. It was considered masculine, but I wanted to be feminine so I wore ruffles on my bloomers, ribbons in my hair, bracelets and a little make-up.
‘I wanted to be tough and strong, but I also wanted to look feminine. I was at High School and wanted boyfriends.’
She adds: ‘I used to get people commenting on my weight all the time. I was always conscious of that. Nothing has changed. It got to the point where athletes weren’t supposed to have an ounce of fat on them, an extra inch.
‘It hurt my feelings. I think we are all pretty sensitive. When you’re young and in the limelight, it takes some getting used to.’
Of the glamour girls on the women’s tennis circuit now, she says: ‘If you look like Maria Sharapova or Eugenie Bouchard, you’re always going to have companies coming after you with endorsements, because companies like successful women who are good-looking.
That’s the way it’s always been.
‘It’s the women’s choice how they want to come across, but you don’t have to pose naked. It should be enough that – no matter how you look – you are successful because of hard work and doing what you love to do.
‘I’m so glad I came up in the 70s. It’s much harder for women today, with the spotlight of social media.’
Even so, back then, there were still the pressures and strains, the critics, the stalkers and the crazies.
Once, when Chris was playing Wimbledon, a man hid in the closet of her Florida home for three days, smoking cigarettes and penning love letters patiently awaiting her return. He was found by a workman and arrested.
‘No-one took it very seriously back then,’ she says. ‘Not even me. It didn’t even make the press.’
Another stalker took to knocking on her door dressed in Army fatigues, and one year at the Toronto Open the players received death threats and Chins had to be driven directly to the court for the final. A man carrying a rifle was arrested in the grounds.
‘There is always the question in your mind “Is it worth it?”’ she says. ‘I liked my privacy. I was just a normal girl who wanted the same things other girls do – but then I realised there is a price to pay for everything.
‘When you are successful and famous and make money, you have to give away something.’
Chris says she was more than ready to retire at 34.
‘I was married, I wanted to have kids and I didn’t feel like putting it out on the line anymore,’ she says. ‘I’d play the best match of my career, it would be unbelievable, and the next day when I faced another match I just didn’t want to be there.’
Today, her closest friends are her former rivals from that golden era of women’s tennis – Martina Navratilova, Billie-Jean King, Pam Shriver and Tracey Austin. They meet up regularly, but never play tennis.
‘Now we are not competing, we can really appreciate each other,’ says Chris, who feels sorry for today’s players who, with their huge entourages of coaches, managers, PRs and assorted family members, are very isolated from each other.
‘Martina was my biggest on-court rival, but we’d practise together, have lunch together, play a tournament final, then travel together by plane to the next tournament.
‘I’d rather go hiking with my boys than play a tennis match now. Competing is not fun for me.
‘Yes, I was successful and made millions, but I was never a great person with a talent for tennis. I was a normal person with just one talent, which was tennis. I have many, many faults. I’m just like everyone else.’LEGENDARY tennis champion Chris Evert was 17 when she made her 1972 Wimbledon debut 44 years ago, though you’d never have guessed it to look at her sitting in the Royal box last Sunday to watch Andy Murray win his second title. At 61, the golden girl of tennis looked remarkably unchanged from her heyday.
During a record-breaking career spanning 21 years Chris won Wimbledon three times, 18 Grand Slam singles titles, and once played 55 matches in a row without defeat-but today the mother-of-three still wears the same size 8 dress size (US4) and is fitter than most women half her age.
She retired aged 34 with millions in the bank, a place in history and the tennis Hall of Fame. These days she runs a tennis academy for kids in her native Florida and has launched a new range of sportswear for ‘tennis moms’, which she models herself.
Despite her sporting legacy, however, Chris now says all the trophies in the world will never compensate for losing the one thing that really mattered to her – married family life – which imploded in very public and spectacular fashion 10 years ago. Chris’s private life has often eclipsed her on court achievements.
Now, in a rare interview, she admits she feels nothing but regret for the way she ended her 20-year marriage to Olympic skier Andy Mill to start a relationship in 2006 with his friend, legendary Australian golfer Greg Norman – better known as the Great White Shark.
‘I’ve had a three-part life and, for me, the best part by far was being married to Andy, having kids and being a family,’ Chris says. ‘If I could do it over again, I’d have taken some time to really think about what was wrong and try to make it work.
‘If I’d been a bit stricter with my personal boundaries, maybe things might have worked out differently. There have been times in my life when I haven’t been true to myself, and that was one of them.
‘The nice thing is we still love each other. It is a very comfortable love between two people now leading separate lives. He lives 15 minutes away from me in Florida, so we spend time with each other and as a family.’
Her marriage to Norman began with a lavish 100-guest £1.3m wedding which took place in the Bahamas in June 2008, but was over just 15 months later. They divorced in December 2009, amid rumours of a massive clash of egos and tensions between Norman and her sons.
It was third-time unlucky for Chris, whose first marriage in 1979 to the golden boy of British tennis, John Lloyd, lasted eight years. They divorced in 1987 after reports of her affair with British singer and actor Adam Faith.
While all her exes have remarried, Chris has been single ever since splitting from Norman. She insists there is no lingering ill-will.
‘John and I are great, Andy and I are great, Greg and I are….fine, let’s put it that way. I don’t have any enemies in life,’ says Chris, who has described this private tumult as a delayed reaction to the discipline, tunnel-vision, determination and self-restraint required of champions.
‘I have no-one in my life right now apart from my sons – my three boys – and my work. I don’t know if I’ll ever marry again – never say never – but I’m not looking. When I tell my friends that, they all say “You’re lying” but it’s true.
‘Since I can remember, I’ve always been with someone, always had a husband, so it’s been really good for me to be on my own and learn to feel comfortable with myself. It’s a little bit like a liberation for me. I think I need to be by myself to grow and know myself before I even consider getting into another relationship.’ Chris was also engaged, at 19, to Men’s Wimbledon Champion Jimmy Connors, another tumultuous relationship.
Born in Fort Lauderdale, Chris’s upbringing was strict and conservative. Her pro-tennis coach father Jimmy Evert, who died last year aged 91, was her biggest inspiration.
‘We talked every day, right up until his death. He was very proud of me, but quietly so. He made sure I never got too big for my britches,’ she says. ‘Even after I won Wimbledon, I still had to fold the laundry and load the dishwasher at home. My family kept me humble.
‘He worked as a tennis coach until he was 75 and, even though I made millions, he never lived off my money like some people on the circuit these days.
‘Because my upbringing was so strict, so black and white with no grey, I went the other way with my sons. I listened to them, let them talk me into letting them stay up an extra hour at bedtime. I probably could have been stricter, but I’d tell them “just do your best”. As a result, they are very kind and loving.’
Despite her public image, Chris insists she was never ‘Little Miss Ice Maiden’ – so called because of her cool, on court persona.
‘When I came over here I was called “the schoolgirl who never smiles”, but that wasn’t the real me, that was just the way I played my best tennis,’ she says.
‘I was young, quiet and shy. I was uncomfortable in the limelight, I didn’t like people looking at me. I was insecure about the way I looked.
‘Back in the 70s, it was still kind of taboo to be a woman athlete. It was considered masculine, but I wanted to be feminine so I wore ruffles on my bloomers, ribbons in my hair, bracelets and a little make-up.
‘I wanted to be tough and strong, but I also wanted to look feminine. I was at High School and wanted boyfriends.’
She adds: ‘I used to get people commenting on my weight all the time. I was always conscious of that. Nothing has changed. It got to the point where athletes weren’t supposed to have an ounce of fat on them, an extra inch.
‘It hurt my feelings. I think we are all pretty sensitive. When you’re young and in the limelight, it takes some getting used to.’
Of the glamour girls on the women’s tennis circuit now, she says: ‘If you look like Maria Sharapova or Eugenie Bouchard, you’re always going to have companies coming after you with endorsements, because companies like successful women who are good-looking. That’s the way it’s always been.
‘It’s the women’s choice how they want to come across, but you don’t have to pose naked. It should be enough that – no matter how you look – you are successful because of hard work and doing what you love to do.
‘I’m so glad I came up in the 70s. It’s much harder for women today, with the spotlight of social media.’
Even so, back then, there were still the pressures and strains, the critics, the stalkers and the crazies.
Once, when Chris was playing Wimbledon, a man hid in the closet of her Florida home for three days, smoking cigarettes and penning love letters patiently awaiting her return. He was found by a workman and arrested.
‘No-one took it very seriously back then,’ she says. ‘Not even me. It didn’t even make the press.’
Another stalker took to knocking on her door dressed in Army fatigues, and one year at the Toronto Open the players received death threats and Chins had to be driven directly to the court for the final. A man carrying a rifle was arrested in the grounds.
‘There is always the question in your mind “Is it worth it?”’ she says. ‘I liked my privacy. I was just a normal girl who wanted the same things other girls do – but then I realised there is a price to pay for everything.
‘When you are successful and famous and make money, you have to give away something.’
Chris says she was more than ready to retire at 34.
‘I was married, I wanted to have kids and I didn’t feel like putting it out on the line anymore,’ she says. ‘I’d play the best match of my career, it would be unbelievable, and the next day when I faced another match I just didn’t want to be there.’
Today, her closest friends are her former rivals from that golden era of women’s tennis – Martina Navratilova, Billie-Jean King, Pam Shriver and Tracey Austin. They meet up regularly, but never play tennis.
‘Now we are not competing, we can really appreciate each other,’ says Chris, who feels sorry for today’s players who, with their huge entourages of coaches, managers, PRs and assorted family members, are very isolated from each other.
‘Martina was my biggest on-court rival, but we’d practise together, have lunch together, play a tournament final, then travel together by plane to the next tournament.
‘I’d rather go hiking with my boys than play a tennis match now. Competing is not fun for me.
‘Yes, I was successful and made millions, but I was never a great person with a talent for tennis. I was a normal person with just one talent, which was tennis. I have many, many faults. I’m just like everyone else.’LEGENDARY tennis champion Chris Evert was 17 when she made her 1972 Wimbledon debut 44 years ago, though you’d never have guessed it to look at her sitting in the Royal box last Sunday to watch Andy Murray win his second title. At 61, the golden girl of tennis looked remarkably unchanged from her heyday.
During a record-breaking career spanning 21 years Chris won Wimbledon three times, 18 Grand Slam singles titles, and once played 55 matches in a row without defeat-but today the mother-of-three still wears the same size 8 dress size (US4) and is fitter than most women half her age.
She retired aged 34 with millions in the bank, a place in history and the tennis Hall of Fame. These days she runs a tennis academy for kids in her native Florida and has launched a new range of sportswear for ‘tennis moms’, which she models herself.
Despite her sporting legacy, however, Chris now says all the trophies in the world will never compensate for losing the one thing that really mattered to her – married family life – which imploded in very public and spectacular fashion 10 years ago. Chris’s private life has often eclipsed her on court achievements.
Now, in a rare interview, she admits she feels nothing but regret for the way she ended her 20-year marriage to Olympic skier Andy Mill to start a relationship in 2006 with his friend, legendary Australian golfer Greg Norman – better known as the Great White Shark.
‘I’ve had a three-part life and, for me, the best part by far was being married to Andy, having kids and being a family,’ Chris says. ‘If I could do it over again, I’d have taken some time to really think about what was wrong and try to make it work.
‘If I’d been a bit stricter with my personal boundaries, maybe things might have worked out differently. There have been times in my life when I haven’t been true to myself, and that was one of them.
‘The nice thing is we still love each other. It is a very comfortable love between two people now leading separate lives. He lives 15 minutes away from me in Florida, so we spend time with each other and as a family.’
Her marriage to Norman began with a lavish 100-guest £1.3m wedding which took place in the Bahamas in June 2008, but was over just 15 months later. They divorced in December 2009, amid rumours of a massive clash of egos and tensions between Norman and her sons.
It was third-time unlucky for Chris, whose first marriage in 1979 to the golden boy of British tennis, John Lloyd, lasted eight years. They divorced in 1987 after reports of her affair with British singer and actor Adam Faith.
While all her exes have remarried, Chris has been single ever since splitting from Norman. She insists there is no lingering ill-will.
‘John and I are great, Andy and I are great, Greg and I are….fine, let’s put it that way. I don’t have any enemies in life,’ says Chris, who has described this private tumult as a delayed reaction to the discipline, tunnel-vision, determination and self-restraint required of champions.
‘I have no-one in my life right now apart from my sons – my three boys – and my work. I don’t know if I’ll ever marry again – never say never – but I’m not looking. When I tell my friends that, they all say “You’re lying” but it’s true.
‘Since I can remember, I’ve always been with someone, always had a husband, so it’s been really good for me to be on my own and learn to feel comfortable with myself. It’s a little bit like a liberation for me. I think I need to be by myself to grow and know myself before I even consider getting into another relationship.’ Chris was also engaged, at 19, to Men’s Wimbledon Champion Jimmy Connors, another tumultuous relationship.
Born in Fort Lauderdale, Chris’s upbringing was strict and conservative. Her pro-tennis coach father Jimmy Evert, who died last year aged 91, was her biggest inspiration.
‘We talked every day, right up until his death. He was very proud of me, but quietly so. He made sure I never got too big for my britches,’ she says. ‘Even after I won Wimbledon, I still had to fold the laundry and load the dishwasher at home. My family kept me humble.
‘He worked as a tennis coach until he was 75 and, even though I made millions, he never lived off my money like some people on the circuit these days.
‘Because my upbringing was so strict, so black and white with no grey, I went the other way with my sons. I listened to them, let them talk me into letting them stay up an extra hour at bedtime. I probably could have been stricter, but I’d tell them “just do your best”. As a result, they are very kind and loving.’
Despite her public image, Chris insists she was never ‘Little Miss Ice Maiden’ – so called because of her cool, on court persona.
‘When I came over here I was called “the schoolgirl who never smiles”, but that wasn’t the real me, that was just the way I played my best tennis,’ she says.
‘I was young, quiet and shy. I was uncomfortable in the limelight, I didn’t like people looking at me. I was insecure about the way I looked.
‘Back in the 70s, it was still kind of taboo to be a woman athlete. It was considered masculine, but I wanted to be feminine so I wore ruffles on my bloomers, ribbons in my hair, bracelets and a little make-up.
‘I wanted to be tough and strong, but I also wanted to look feminine. I was at High School and wanted boyfriends.’
She adds: ‘I used to get people commenting on my weight all the time. I was always conscious of that. Nothing has changed. It got to the point where athletes weren’t supposed to have an ounce of fat on them, an extra inch.
‘It hurt my feelings. I think we are all pretty sensitive. When you’re young and in the limelight, it takes some getting used to.’
Of the glamour girls on the women’s tennis circuit now, she says: ‘If you look like Maria Sharapova or Eugenie Bouchard, you’re always going to have companies coming after you with endorsements, because companies like successful women who are good-looking. That’s the way it’s always been.
‘It’s the women’s choice how they want to come across, but you don’t have to pose naked. It should be enough that – no matter how you look – you are successful because of hard work and doing what you love to do.
‘I’m so glad I came up in the 70s. It’s much harder for women today, with the spotlight of social media.’
Even so, back then, there were still the pressures and strains, the critics, the stalkers and the crazies.
Once, when Chris was playing Wimbledon, a man hid in the closet of her Florida home for three days, smoking cigarettes and penning love letters patiently awaiting her return. He was found by a workman and arrested.
‘No-one took it very seriously back then,’ she says. ‘Not even me. It didn’t even make the press.’
Another stalker took to knocking on her door dressed in Army fatigues, and one year at the Toronto Open the players received death threats and Chins had to be driven directly to the court for the final. A man carrying a rifle was arrested in the grounds.
‘There is always the question in your mind “Is it worth it?”’ she says. ‘I liked my privacy. I was just a normal girl who wanted the same things other girls do – but then I realised there is a price to pay for everything.
‘When you are successful and famous and make money, you have to give away something.’
Chris says she was more than ready to retire at 34.
‘I was married, I wanted to have kids and I didn’t feel like putting it out on the line anymore,’ she says. ‘I’d play the best match of my career, it would be unbelievable, and the next day when I faced another match I just didn’t want to be there.’
Today, her closest friends are her former rivals from that golden era of women’s tennis – Martina Navratilova, Billie-Jean King, Pam Shriver and Tracey Austin. They meet up regularly, but never play tennis.
‘Now we are not competing, we can really appreciate each other,’ says Chris, who feels sorry for today’s players who, with their huge entourages of coaches, managers, PRs and assorted family members, are very isolated from each other.
‘Martina was my biggest on-court rival, but we’d practise together, have lunch together, play a tournament final, then travel together by plane to the next tournament.
‘I’d rather go hiking with my boys than play a tennis match now. Competing is not fun for me.
‘Yes, I was successful and made millions, but I was never a great person with a talent for tennis. I was a normal person with just one talent, which was tennis. I have many, many faults. I’m just like everyone else.’
