11 July 2023 , 19:01
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There was a moment last November, as Martina Navratilova confided in her friend and one-time tennis rival Chris Evert she had cancer, when they could only giggle.
With bizarre coincidence, Martina’s devastating news of two early-stage cancers, in her throat and breast, landed less than 12 months after Chris’s own shock diagnosis of Stage 1C ovarian cancer in January last year.
“Jesus. I guess we’re taking this to a whole new level,” Martina said, sparking those giggles. "Because it was just so ironic,” Chris added, explaining their dark humour. These titans of women’s tennis, Czechoslovakia Martina, 66, and American Chris, 68, have spent half a century in hot pursuit, in one way or another.
Playing each other an incredible 80 times - Martina won 43 of their career matches, Chris, 37; both won 18 singles’ Grand Slams - they were friends, frenemies, even supposed enemies along the way.
Now, finally both cancer-free, they have opened up about just how deep their friendship runs, and how it has helped them support each other through life’s most gruelling battle yet.
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Explaining the pair have known each other longer than anyone else in their lives, Martina admitted telling Chris about her diagnosis was a relief.
Speaking to The Washington Post, she said: “As a top-level athlete, you think you’re going to live to a hundred and that you can rehab it all. And then you realise, ‘I can’t rehab this.’ So sharing that fear was easy - easier with her than anybody else.”
The former rivals have helped each other to battle cancer (The Washington Post via Getty Images)Chris added: “With all the experiences we had, winning and losing and comforting each other, I think we ended up having more compassion for each other than anybody in the world could have.
“It’s been up and down, the friendship... I saw her at her highest and at her lowest. And I think because we saw each other that way, the vulnerable part, that’s another level of friendship.” Previously, she explained: “Whenever something big happens in our lives, we’re in touch immediately. We’ve got each other’s back.”
The women met as teenagers in February 1973, in a player lounge in Florida. Martina spotted Chris playing backgammon. Then, the young Czech from a village near Prague, deep beyond the iron curtain, was in awe of the blonde, all-American sweetheart, already a top player.
“Before I even met her, she stood for everything I admired in this country: poise, ability, sportsmanship, money, style,” Martina wrote in her 1985 autobiography.
They played each other a month later. Chris won in straight sets. The girls, dubbed ‘ fire and ice’, were opposites in all ways, not least their backgrounds. Chris was buttoned-up, calaculated, whereas Martina was emotional on court.
But they became fast friends, helped by the fact Chris didn’t initially see Martina as competition. She won 16 of their first 20 matches.
Navratilova and Evert were fierce rivals on the court (Popperfoto via Getty Images)They ate lunches and dinner together. They even went on a double date with Dean Martin’s son and his actor mate, Desi Arnaz Jr. Martina was still coming to terms with her sexuality at the time, coming out as gay in 1981. Then, Chris gave unwavering public support, which Martina has commended as “huge”.
She recalled: “What’s weird about tennis is you’re both in the locker room before the match and after the match, and one is very happy and one is very sad.
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“But we would put our arms around each other and say, ‘You know what, I was lucky,’ or, ‘Next time you’re going to get it, I’m sure’, and, ‘Are you okay?’ Or we would leave notes in each other’s racket bags for later.”
The pair even became doubles partners. But as Martina became a threat, friendship faltered. Chris broke off the partnership. She admits she found it easier not to be “emotional” towards rivals.
“Chris, by her own admission, could only be close friends with people who never had a chance of beating her,” explained Martina.
By the early Eighties, training with Nancy Lieberman, the Czech was also advised not to be friendly. The pair were battling for No 1. From 1982 to 1984, Martina got to 10 Grand Slam finals and was victorious in eight. During that time she beat Chris 14 times in a row. Beating Chris became her “carrot”.
Navratilova came out on top in many of her battles with Evert“I don’t even remember when I started feeling like this is something that’s bigger than us, that the biggest thing going on in tennis right now is our rivalry,” Chris explained. Martina and I just kept pushing each other. For a certain amount of time, we left the field behind.”
But by 1984, while media commentary whipped up their battle, the women mellowed personally. At Wimbledon that year when Martina beat Chris, she told interviewers: “I wish we could just quit right now and never play each other again because it’s not right for one of us to say we’re better.”
Ahead of the 1984 US Open final, facing a long wait, the hungry pair shared a bagel. Chris won the electric 1985 French Open final, but the pair were photographed embracing warmly.
By 1986, when Martina returned to Czechoslovakia for the first time for the Fed Cup - she had defected from the Communist country in 1975 - Chris went with her. In the quarter-finals of Chris’s final Wimbledon in 1989, when she was trailing, Martina ran to the sidelines and shouted “Come on Chrissie!”
The pair now live nearby in Florida, and both work in broadcasting. They talk weekly. “Our lives are so parallel, it’s eerie when you think about it,” Martina said.
Their intertwining has had an undeniable personal impact. Martina introduced Chris to her second husband, the skier Andy Mill, while Chris was maid of honour at Martina’s marriage to Julia Lemigova.
Natratilova introduced Evert to her second husband Andy MillBut it’s health which has bonded them at the deepest level. Chris supported Martina when the latter was diagnosed with a noninvasive breast cancer in 2010.
Overcoming that, it was then her turn to support Chris through six cycles of chemotherapy and numerous surgeries early last year, following Chris’s own diagnosis.
Her sister Jeanne had died from the disease in 2021, revealing she had a BRCA1 variant, prompting Chris to get tested. Positive, doctors recommended a hysterectomy, and this revealed the cancer. She turned to Martina.
“She was one of the very first people I told,” Chris admitted. “When I called her, it was a feeling of, like, coming home.”
It was not long after Chris confided she would need a further preventative double mastectomy, Martina found out about her own new cancer blow after discovering a lump in her neck. Thankfully, her throat cancer was stage 1, and her breast cancer also early stage. The women admit they just seem to know when to offer support. Their connection is sort of “cosmic”.
Martina perhaps sums it up for them both. “She knew me better than I knew me,” she explained of her one-time rival.