Behind Every Great Woman...

This is the final installment of our book club on Johnette Howard's "The Rivals," about the lives and careers of Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.

Kamakshi,

Even after 10 years, and even when they’re not around much, the Williams sisters remain the most polarizing figures in the game. The WTA Championships last week was an encouraging display of big-hitting, athletic tennis from the top women, and a vast improvement on last year’s fatigue-fest in L.A. But despite all those good things, the edge that the Williamses bring was noticeably absent. Some fans don't miss that particular drama at all, but it's what landed the women’s game on the cover of Time Magazine all those years ago.

At some point, the Willamses’ story will be as remarkable to look back on as the Chris-Martina story is today. I like their punky style (particularly Venus’ unmatched ability to never give a reporter what he wants), their open-stance backhands (which they invented), the way they never complain about calls, and how they’re the only players on either tour to follow the rules and cross directly to the other side of the court after the first game (kind of anti-punk punk). But I would like them better if they gave their opponents more credit. In fact, I think that has hurt them competitively. From Day 1, Venus and Serena were told by their father that they were the best, no girl could beat them, and they fulfilled his prophecy. But as they’ve begun to lose more often, they haven’t accepted that they need to improve or adapt or change much of anything—they’re still the best, and nothing any opponent does will change their minds about that.

The time may be right for U.S. fans to appreciate the Williamses a little more, if they come back strong in 2007—an all-sister Slam final would have a kind of retro appeal now. But I don’t think we have to worry about them becoming beloved geezers playing into their late 40s like Navratilova.

There’s one last element about The Rivals I want to mention: The two people who did the most to make them champions. For Chris, of course, it was her father, Jimmy. He comes across as a pretty ideal father-coach: demanding and humble at the same time, a workaholic who balked at doing an instructional book because he thought “no one would read it.” Call him the anti-Nick!

Before Bollettieri’s, Evert had perhaps the premier junior-development program in Florida. Harold Solomon and Brian Gottfried, along with Chrissie, came out of his Ft. Lauderdale club. Evert says when she looks at photos of her playing as a teenager, she can see that the little crease of determination across her face came from her father. It wasn’t part of her personality at all.

Like Pete Sampras’ parents, Jimmy didn’t go to many of Chris’ matches. He relied on the phone. Chris, 16 and unknown, was allowed to play her first pro tournament in 1971. She promptly wiped the court with Top 5 player Frankie Durr 6-1, 6-0, and then, unbelievably, beat world No. 1 Margaret Court, who had won the Grand Slam the year before, in two tiebreakers. When Evert’s mom called to tell Jimmy the news, he said, “Well, pick me up off the floor!” Ten years later, after Chris beat Tracy Austin for the first time in years, at the U.S. Open, she called to tell him the news. After he hung up, Jimmy wasn’t sure he believed it was true. So he called the “U.S. Open” back and someone there told him that, yes, Chris had beaten her nemesis.

As with all things in their relationship, Martina’s svengali could not have been more different from Chris’. The person most responsible for making her into an all-time great was a Jewish women’s basketball star from Far Rockaway, New York, Nancy Lieberman. A driven teen prodigy, she was dubbed “Lady Magic,” though I like Howard’s description of her as a “kosher Larry Bird.” Lieberman, who knew nothing about tennis, met Navratilova in 1980 and traveled with her to the French Open. She went to watch Martina practice before the tournament. Martina hit a few balls, said hello to friends, played with someone’s dog, then left. As they were heading back into Paris, Lieberman asked her, “Martina, when are you going to, you know, practice?” Navratilova said that was her practice. Lieberman was shocked. “What? Martina, that wasn’t a practice!” She couldn’t believe Navratilova had gotten so far with no real dedication to training.

Lieberman, who would become known as “Agent Orange,” in tennis circles (for her temper and hair color), had had to give up her own athletic dreams when the fledgling women’s pro basketball association at the time went kaput. She couldn’t stand to see her girlfriend wasting her talent, so she set about revamping her entire approach to tennis—as well as living out her own dreams through Martina, a rather volatile situation. Lieberman encouraged Navratilova to give up her friendship with Chris, whom she considered to be manipulative in her own quiet way. She also didn’t want Navratilova to settle for beating opponents, she wanted her to destroy them in record time. Mary Carillo remembers Lieberman throwing her hands in the air on the sideline, exasperated, because, while Navratilova was winning easily, she wasn’t doing it fast enough. Lieberman may have violated all the basic rules of tennis fairness and etiquette, but it got results. With Lieberman as her coach, Navratilova became the most dominant tennis player of the Open era.

An old school Catholic family man; an in-your-face Jewish lesbian. If there’s a lesson from the careers of Chris and Martina, it’s that—contrary to popular opinion—in tennis, anything goes.

Thanks for joining me, Kamakshi. See you next month.

Steve

I’ll be back tomorrow with a quick review of last week’s WTA Championships