Subscribe to Lemonada Premium for Bonus Content

After an illustrious tennis career, of course Chris Evert cherishes the wins and broken records. Yet, the sting of defeat is also etched in her memory, marked by days secluded in hotel rooms with the worst missteps replaying in her mind. Life as a high-profile athlete began for Chris as a teenager, and it opened her up to intense scrutiny from tabloids. But it also brought unprecedented levels of recognition and equality to the sport, introduced her to lifelong friends, and helped her grow in countless ways. Chris’s journey has continued to offer a mix of highs and lows, and as she speaks with me from retirement, she shares how she’s found even more ways to view the world around her, from her beloved sport to her ever-evolving spirituality.

Follow me on Instagram at @davidduchovny. Stay up to date with Lemonada on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.

Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Chris Evert, David Duchovny, Alex, Speaker 1

David Duchovny  00:01

I’m David Duchovny, and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Chris Everet is a former professional tennis player who is known for her mental toughness and record breaking talent, considered one of the most consistent players in the history of tennis. Chris won 157 singles titles and dominated women’s tennis during the 1970s and 80s. During her prime, Chris achieved an incredible feat by winning at least one title in each of the four Grand Slam tournaments for 13 consecutive years. But beyond her impeccable record, she played a crucial role in building the Women’s Tennis Association, the WTA, and globalizing women’s tennis, which helped to elevate the sport to new levels of professionalism and equality. We chat about everything from growing up in a tennis oriented family to her iconic rivalry with Martina Navratilova, plus how she overcame cancer twice. Chris opens up about what it was like leaving behind such a storied career, and what she’s been up to since retiring from the sport she helped catapult into the spotlight. Here’s that conversation.

 

Chris Evert  02:33

Oh, there he is.

 

David Duchovny  02:36

I just need my glasses. Oh, here just one. Yeah, here we go. Can’t see anything.

 

Chris Evert  02:43

I’m Chris Evert.

 

David Duchovny  02:45

Good morning, hi Chris.

 

Chris Evert  02:47

How are you?

 

David Duchovny  02:49

It’s, such a lame entrance. I’m all tangled up. This just gets better.

 

Chris Evert  02:56

God, do you know you’re […]?

 

David Duchovny  03:00

Here we go. I’m sure you’re saying something funny.

 

Chris Evert  03:05

I said, do you know who you’re interviewing?

 

David Duchovny  03:08

Well, you know you look, you look extremely put together. You got it? No, you’re, you’re fine, or else, you got somebody young helping you. What is it? I mean, you look like you’ve got all the technology.

 

Chris Evert  03:18

Oh, I have, no, I have my assistant here, my son here, right now. Let’s put his head. Big fan. He just wants to put his head in. Alex, my son.

 

David Duchovny  03:27

Alex, how are you nice to meet you.

 

Alex  03:29

How’s it going?

 

David Duchovny  03:30

Yeah, I’m good, thank you.

 

Alex  03:31

Nice to meet you. You’re the man.

 

Chris Evert  03:33

Yeah.

 

Alex  03:34

You’re the man. Thank you.

 

David Duchovny  03:35

I’m the man. All right, that’s a it’s my favorite start to any conversation I’ve had so far. Thanks for doing this.

 

Chris Evert  03:44

Thank you, sorry it took so long.

 

David Duchovny  03:46

Yeah, no, that’s okay, that’s okay.

 

Chris Evert  03:50

Failure.

 

David Duchovny  03:51

Yeah, well, it’s one of the I’ve only talked to a couple athletes, you know, on this podcast. And what’s interesting to me is especially tennis, because, you know, I mean the cliche that Federer has said, you know, I won 53% of my points, or whatever it is, 54 you know, the right, the best, the best player of all time, one loses 46% of the time. Now that’s obviously not the matches, that’s the points. But how? I mean, obviously, you know, your dad coached you from the beginning. There was a lot of, like, mental preparation, but just as as a person in that body who is, who is competing at this level and courting the notion of failure at this level and undergoing, you know, constant failure within the match. What is that athletic heart? Like SALLY JENKINS likes to ask, you know what? What is? It’s heart and head, I’d imagine, but I’ll let you speak on that.

 

Chris Evert  04:48

Well, I mean, there’s, there’s when I started playing tennis when I was six years old. So there’s, like, the whole Junior Tennis component, and then there’s the professional component. And. When you mentioned, I mean, we’re like warriors out there, one against one. And I think, David, I think one thing that people forget is that men have been warriors for centuries, and women have not. Women have been nurturers, and women have been, you know, mothers and take care of the house, the home, and the peacemakers. And it’s only been, you know, really in the last, what, 50 to 100 years, that that women’s sports has really taken on a life of its own, and so, you know, I think our nature, basically, is one of nurturing and for us to get out there, I think it really kind of was a little confusing in the beginning, you know, it’s like, I want to beat this person’s brains out, and at the same time, you know, I want to be nice to them. I want to be cordial. I don’t want to have any, you know, enemies or anything. I don’t want to be mean, but I want to just kill her out there.

 

David Duchovny  06:00

Yeah, did you? Did you have to play games with yourself, like, did you have to convince yourself that you didn’t like that person across the net, or stuff like that?

 

Chris Evert  06:09

I actually played better against people either that I didn’t like or that I didn’t know, or that I didn’t have any emotion for as soon as I had to play my girlfriend of mine or my sister, Jeannie, who is, I played her three times professionally, and it was the worst experience ever. You know, I just hate it. I didn’t even want to look at her because she was my younger sister, and I didn’t I felt so bad for her on the one hand and on the other hand, there’s no way I was going to lose to her, you know, because I’m the older sibling.

 

David Duchovny  06:46

So no, you know her game. You know her weaknesses better than anybody, I’m sure, having having grown up together, but, did your sister ever speak to you about the other side of that? I mean, what you’re talking about, in many ways, is is almost not a not a fear of winning, but a discomfort with dominating or winning within the match that you have to get over as a woman. But also, I’d like to hear how you how you dealt with the loss, or if your sister mentioned you know what it was like to lose to you, but also you know you went through your share of of game losses as well, and how, from the juniors on, how you how you just grew, how you transformed yourself into somebody that was resilient within the match and obviously in life as well.

 

Chris Evert  07:36

Well and answer your question about my sister. I You know you you don’t want to hurt the people you love, and so that’s what, that’s why I felt horrible beating her. But I have to say, on the other side of the coin, there’s a match in doubles where Martina Navtalova And I lost to my sister and Olga morozaba, and it was an upset, and we lost in doubles. And I, the very nice person that I am, didn’t talk to her for three days.

 

David Duchovny  08:12

Really?

 

Chris Evert  08:13

Yeah.

 

David Duchovny  08:15

that reminds me of something else that you that you’ve mentioned three days seems to be important, because when I was reading about your, you know, your career, and the interviews that you’ve done around it, you did lose to, is it Virginia Wade and Hamilton and you, and you said that you took three days again, very Christ like for you to go away for three days and then, so can you tell me what’s going on in that three days? I mean, is there a process, or are you just like.

 

Chris Evert  08:42

Well, the three days with Virginia Wade was that I lost her Wimbledon, and I was devastated, because I maybe was like 10 to one head to head with her, like I owned the week saying, tennis, you own someone when you beat them a lot and and the crowd got into my head, because she’s British, and shame on me, because the crowd got into my head, and I just got frustrated and, but those three days, I stayed in my hotel room and I ate and I ordered room service, and I probably gained about five pounds, and I was in my robe for three days. I it was, I think, that, you know, with all the mental health talk these days, you know, I was depressed.

 

David Duchovny  09:29

So nobody was anybody checking on you. Was anybody calling and say, Hey, Chris, you know, actually, we’re leaving the hotel tomorrow.

 

Chris Evert  09:36

No, I didn’t, I mean, I had girl, I had a few friends, players that that I would talk, you know, that I talked to and and commiserated with, but, you know, we just that was me, and you know what? I took my losses in the answer your question. I took them pretty hard. And I think that I for I’m the kind of person that I hated to lose more than. I love to win. And some people go out there and they’re happy, and they just go out there to win, and I certainly go out there to win, but, yeah, I went, but I hated to lose. And you know, that probably was an insecurity, you know, defect in my personality, that if I was not that confident of a person, that I could hold my head up high and but, you know, I think that I was thrown into competition at such a young age that, you know, I realized you were either a winner or a loser every day, every day you played a match, because it would make worldwide press. And, you know, it would be Chris ever won a tournament, or Chris Evert lost or and, you know, I, I took that personally, and it was, it’s not normal. I mean, for 16, 17, 18, for a teenager to be to lose and then to be on the front of the sports page, yeah, fun. No, fun.

 

David Duchovny  11:04

You don’t remember that as a kid. Do you remember feeling that kind of anxiety about losing as well, or was it only when it became kind of writ large in a tabloid sense?

 

Chris Evert  11:13

Um, no, I remember I had to play like my best friend, like I had to beat her, you know, yeah, no, I think that I, I probably started taking my losses a little too intense when, now, you know what, I probably I might have been that way. All always, I might have been that way.

 

David Duchovny  11:37

Yeah, it’s hard to unpack these kinds of characteristics. Because, you know, we’d have to go back so far to see ourselves as innocence. Before this, it’s not possible. We can’t really, can’t really get there.

 

Chris Evert  11:51

In the I’m going to interrupt, because in the beginning, when I was like, 7, 8, 9, 10, I was different. Because I remember coming home one day and I said to my dad, he said, How’d you do? And I said, dad, I played great. I played my forehand, worked my backhand, worked. I served well, no double faults. I really played great. And he says, well, what was the score? And I said, I lost love and love, and it was a bigger, older girl, but I was very I was happy at that point. But I think once the spotlights on you, you know, I started winning 10 and under tournaments, nationals and, you know, people are I’m getting a little bit more press. I think when the pressure is on you. I think that’s when it started.

 

David Duchovny  12:42

Yeah, well, you’d said at some point that, you know, tennis gave you self esteem. So I imagine if you’re out there with your self esteem on the line yeah, that’s a lot of anxiety to be losing with. And I think a lot of athletes, you know, a lot of athletes who were great young and, you know, most of the great athletes were great young. It’s, I mean, like you look at at Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame induction speech, where he’s going after this high school kid that, you know, that beat him out for a spot, you know. So there’s, there’s this fire, and I think it’s around self esteem and identity and all those things. So there’s no, it’s no surprise to me that you would have that, I mean, and it would be fear, and it’s fuel, you know, it’s this, it’s this real kind of odd fuel that we instill our kids with, in a way, or our athletes with, of like, you know, you’re always looking for the motivation to win. You’re always well for you the motivation not to not to lose as well.

 

Chris Evert  13:45

I think it’s a lot to put on a young kid. And I think also when you start winning at a young age, and people come up and pat you on the back and just give you all kinds of compliments and tell you how great you are. And I think that’s not healthy for your development as a human being.

 

David Duchovny  14:06

But you were, you were like the crash test dummy for all these kind all these kinds of vectors that we’re seeing now that we take for granted. So, I mean, you could probably help me list them. I’m gonna miss a couple, but like, you’re, you’re the first real, first teenage phenomenon tennis player, first female teenage phenomenon. And that continues to this day. We’re always looking for a, you know, a young female champion. You’re, you were, also the first kind of tabloid athlete, at least in tennis, I think you know that all of a sudden the tabloids started covering you as a kid as well, and then also adding on to that, you became like this American symbol. You know when, when it was you against Martina, when they kind of inflated this rivalry between. Uh, you know, American and Eastern European country, and you got saddled with so many fucking images that had nothing to do with you. And yet we deal with all these things now, we take them for granted. But it’s instructive to remember that you didn’t have like you couldn’t look at Chris ever and say, how did Chris ever do it. How did she get through this? So, how did you get through it? And were you aware of you know, he said, they don’t really know me, yeah, but they’re, they’re writing these things as if they know you.

 

Chris Evert  15:30

Yeah, they  pretty soon you have an image, and you are this image. You’re in a little bubble, and you feel responsible to act within that image. So in other words, like I also was not controversial, I was always a good sport. You know, I was, there are certain things that because of the image, I didn’t have the freedom to try to go out and take chances and figure out who I really was.

 

David Duchovny  16:02

Your chances, right, as a player, or as a as a person?

 

Chris Evert  16:07

As a person. Look, I think it’s, you know. I think it’s just a lot easier for somebody to achieve fame and recognition and attention when, like, they’re in their 20s. I mean, then when they’re, you know, 14, 15, you’re 10, 11, 12 years old. My heavens, it’s you kind of have a better sense of yourself and you’re you already have your your personality and your you already have your beliefs, and you don’t when you’re young, you don’t, that’s when you form them. But if you’re in a little box because you’re afraid to speak out and have people talk about you or whatever. I mean, I was shy anyway, so that was a bad so that was another strike against me, you know. You know, just wasn’t a daring, brave person, you know. And I think a lot of it’s a lot of it is your family too. I mean, I didn’t have parents. I had parents that played it safe, and I had parents who were very I mean, they were fearful Catholics. You know, we were fearful Catholics. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it. And, mean, that’s the environment that I grew in. So all of that combined, you know, I definitely lived, lived in, in a bubble. I mean, there’s no doubt about it, in my image, but it wasn’t it, you know, it was it was okay.  I mean, I really didn’t suffer any, you know, I didn’t have mental breakdowns or anything.

 

David Duchovny  17:40

Well, I mean, what’s what you’re describing is what people call brands now, but again, you didn’t have the vocabulary to even understand that you were being branded or that you had a brand. It just felt like I’m just going out there trying to do what I’m going to do. And there’s and they’re and they’re saying these things, but one of the things like reading about you and that your how your dad coached you to to not show emotion on the court. I’d like to, you know, because obviously I, when I talk to think about athletes, and I think of myself as an athlete, by the way, that’s a dirty secret. Thank you for not laughing.

 

Chris Evert  18:19

Very athletic.

 

David Duchovny  18:21

I’m a decent tennis player, so I always think, like, Raging Bull, you know, like we, we raise these people to be Gladiators, and tennis and boxing, I think are very similar in that way. And yet, you know, the kind of competitiveness and the fire that they need to succeed in the ring or on the court. We don’t, we don’t want to see that when they come off the court. You know, we want them to be nice people, you know, we want them to be people that don’t break any laws, people that don’t, you know, upset us, I’m interested to hear about how you learning to mask your emotions on the court, which is something that I think your father was very adamant about, you know, not showing people when you were upset so they would attack you, you know, like I coaching my son. I was like, don’t slump your shoulders, you know, then they know, they know your beat, you know.

 

Chris Evert  19:11

Exactly, right? I think again, I was pretty controlled. I controlled because I controlled. I learned to control my emotions so much on the court. You’re absolutely right. My dad said to me, don’t get mad, because then your opponent will use it to their advantage and they’ll go, Aha, I have her. And that’s he’s so right. Because whenever I played, whenever I saw my opponent start to show emotion or get mad, I knew I had them. I knew I had them. You know, mentally, that was my I was more known for my mental, you know, abilities and toughness, rather than my the physicalities of being a wonderful physical athlete.

 

David Duchovny  19:51

Are you aware of that progress to being that stoic person on the court as a kid? Or are just aware that there was one day, all of a sudden, I was like, oh, yeah, I’m in control here. I can control myself.

 

Chris Evert  20:05

I always had that. I, you know, I was born that way. I have to say, you know, a lot of people like, when I look at Martina, I bring her up a lot, because I looked at a picture when she was 10 years old, and she was ripped, and she had veins coming out of her arms. She was raped. And I go, you know, she’s just a phenomenon. And I just say, you know, she was born that way. I was born with the ability to, you know, be calm and deal with pressure well, not get frazzled out there. And and again, my game was not a big, explosive serve in volley, exciting game. My game was consistency and placement and patience, so all of that together, being shy and having that type of game and being the way I was mentally, that’s that’s the way I was off the court for the public, pretty much until, until I got older, and I in my 20s, and I and I relaxed, and then I started to get funny, and, you know, then I kind of let the personality come out, because I felt more secure with myself.

 

David Duchovny  21:12

You mentioned, you said you were a Catholic, and I wonder, you know, Catholics are famously familiar with failure, aren’t they? It’s kind of a failure salvation religion. So I wonder, I wonder how that kind of, if you leaned on that, or if that was part of your consciousness growing up and kind of in the way that you dealt with your mortality and failure around the game in those times, if it informed at all your sense of our place here on this earth as failed people. Or, you know, if that was, if that played into your consciousness at all?

 

Chris Evert  21:56

I wish I was that deep.

 

David Duchovny  22:00

No, I think you are, Chris, god damn it. I think you are.

 

Chris Evert  22:03

No. I mean.

 

David Duchovny  22:04

You’re not gonna fool me. I’m not gonna take that shit.

 

Chris Evert  22:08

I went to 12 years of Catholic school, and we went to Mass every morning. And, you know, I just, I mean, the Catholic religion to me was, don’t do this, don’t do that. It was all about the 10 Commandments. And, I mean, growing up, this is my perception. And it was never about, you know, go out and be happy, or, you know, do good works, or, I mean, it was all about fear and about, you know, sin. And I think once I went on the tour, I mean, you know, I was exposed to a lot of different things at a very young age on the tour, 15, 16, years old. Okay, I don’t even know how to, I don’t even know how to say this. But anyway, I was, I mean, you can.

 

David Duchovny  22:52

Realize don’t use names, you know, people from all.

 

Chris Evert  22:55

Well, I think that, I think I was exposed at 15 or 16, when I would go to tournaments, to women. I mean, I was the only teenager on the tour with all the women, Billie Jean, Rosie Casals, Virginia Wade, and some very open minds and some very different lifestyles that I had. A lot of the women were gay when I, when I was a teenager, I joined the tour. And I love that. I went right into that from the Catholic religion and and be became good friends with these women and saw it. Just saw and realized that it’s all about love and it’s all about being happy, and it’s it should not be about judgment, or shouldn’t be about laws and rules and this and that, that, you know, it was just a very open environment, and to this day, I learned a lot. I learned a lot from the tour at a young age because of that.

 

David Duchovny  24:49

One thing that I was when I was thinking about your career that I don’t I’m not sure that you’ve ever talked about it. It’s interesting to me, as a tennis player about the same age as you that you went through, you dominated a certain type of tennis, and then all of a sudden they started making new rackets, and the game changed. And this, unless you don’t play tennis, you don’t realize how different it’s like. If we decide all of a sudden there’s too much dunking a basketball, we’re going to raise the rim to 11 feet, like, and now that’s the game. And now everybody that grew up playing the game with 10 feet is going to really have to make a major adjustment. It’s going to be hard to be great. And yet you did it. And I wonder, just take me back to those feelings, like, at first Martina starting to beat you, your game seems like it’s part of the past. Why don’t I just quit now? You know, you got macro and Borg on the other side. They quit. You know, there’s a lot going on.

 

Chris Evert  29:28

Yeah, I hung in there. I think that.

 

David Duchovny  29:32

No, but you, you thrived, yeah, just hang in there.

 

Chris Evert  29:35

You know, I started out on the pro tour ranked in the top four in the world. I mean, basically, my first world ranking was, I was top four in the world, and I retired at 34 ranked top four in the world. So that’s, that’s what I I’m proud of that and and I think you’re right. I had to make adjustments, but I did lose to Martina 13 times in a row, being stubborn and not willing to change anything. I just because i i with my game. I beat 98% of the population of the women playing my game, but I didn’t make any adjustments with her. I was just praying that she’d have a bad day. She was dominant for two years. Yeah, and my coach would say, you got to go to the net. You got to develop a bigger serve, you got to take more risks. And I just I didn’t, and that’s not your personality, as you said, for 13 match finally I did, yeah. For some reason I did, and I played her in Miami, and I’d always lose those, by the way, those 13 matches, they were like, always three sets. I mean, they were close, but I just, I just couldn’t beat her. And so it was the mental part too. But I played her in Miami, and I said, you know, because he go to the frickin net, will you just, just try it? Just go there and see what happens? Okay? Because it’s not working the other way. So I went to the net, hit to her backhand, approach out, went to the net, she dumped it in the bottom of the net, and I said, Hmm, all right, I’m gonna do it again. Went to the net off her backhand, and she floated it up. I put away a volley, and I’m like, okay. Why was I so stubborn? Anyway, I won that match. I won that match in three sets by coming into the net, taking the net away from her, which is her strength, and also daring her to pass me on her backhand side, which was her weak side. She had a great forehand, but her backhand was not that, yeah, not very strong. Then I beat her two months later at the French Open, and then next year, the next year, I beat her the French Open again. And so we kind of ended on equal grounds, you know, which is which is kind of great. We both won 18 slams. But you got to change a losing game. You got to change a losing game, and you just have to be brave and afford, you know, you have to think, okay, I might lose a few, a couple matches in the beginning, but this is the right road to take.

 

David Duchovny  32:08

You know, hearing you say that, it sounds completely logical and almost inescapable like, well, who wouldn’t change if, if you’re losing 13 times a row, but, but people don’t. No, I’m saying to give you the credit that you deserve. And you know, I’m not bad mouthing macaron Borg, but I but also, you had the luxury of having a great Nemesis as well, which is, I think, what keeps people playing as well. I mean, it’s possible that you would have retired much earlier if you hadn’t had this person beaten the shit out of you and then continuing this great rival. Is that fair to say as well?

 

Chris Evert  32:46

That’s fair to say. I was thinking Marti and I did push each other, and we just wanted to keep playing each other, and we kept improving because we had each other and we knew that our rivalry was something special and maybe bigger than the both of us individually. You know, it was really in the sense of women’s tennis, in the sense of sports, I don’t think anybody’s ever competed against each other 80 times. You know, we compete against each other 80 times. So, yeah, and we were so different in polar opposites in every single way, shape and form. And it just made for good TV. Also, she had her set of fans. I had my set of fans. And if she wasn’t there, and I was kind of rolling along at number one. Yeah, I don’t think I would have been in Tennyson. I mean, 34 was a substantially middle I mean, that was pretty long career. That was 18 year career. Nowadays it’s not, and it’s not because, again, they it’s just so different now with all the teams and but so that’s that the

 

David Duchovny  33:48

The kind of character that you show and, and this is part of, like an athlete’s heart, I think, the character that you show first of all in transforming your game to new equipment, which is crazy when you think about it, and then transforming your game and then coming back from losing 13 times in a row. And I don’t know if it’s you or geralitis that gets to own that quote, which is one of my favorites.

 

Chris Evert  34:16

He does. Yes, he does.

 

David Duchovny  34:18

What was it exactly who was beating him?

 

Chris Evert  34:20

It’s like nobody beats via light is 14 times.

 

David Duchovny  34:24

It’s one of my favorite.

 

Chris Evert  34:26

Yeah, I think I said that once about Chris ever, and then I felt like a phony. And then I quickly said, This year I said that, but it’s a great it’s a great quote, yes.

 

David Duchovny  34:38

As long as you attribute it, I think it’s fine, but you know, to have the the fortitude to go into the failure like that, because it’s really, you’re just, you’re dealing with with failure in a way that you haven’t before, because you’re an elite athlete. I mean, to lose again, to lose 13 times in a row, two years, two years, two years of losing to this person.

 

Chris Evert  34:59

I know, but that’s awful.

 

David Duchovny  35:03

Was it? You know? I mean, you’re laughing about it now and but I think you realize you know, in terms of failure too, that this brought out the best in you, not it doesn’t bring out any negative attributes, except for maybe stubbornness, which is a good thing sometimes, but it’s like without those failures, I don’t think you would know yourself quite as well as you do right now.

 

Chris Evert  35:24

Right, and I wouldn’t have ended up, at the end of my career being the best player that I that I could be. And, I kept, what I kept thinking about those two years was that I just marveled at at Martinez athleticism, you know, just the her shot making, how quick she was, how strong her power, and at one at a point, at some point, I’d been able to stay even with her before then, because of my mental attributes, because I would value every point, not make On four stares, and she would be emotional. And so I real. That’s when I realized that you got to step it up physically. You got to go to the gym, you got to start lifting weights, and you’ve got to get stronger. You got to put more power on your serve. You’ve got to come into the net more and then I went that extra step, and that’s when everything evened out in the end, which was good.

 

David Duchovny  36:25

I mean, one thing that I always like want to talk about with tennis folks is, like, choking. You know, this thing we call choking. Okay, yeah. So it seems to me there are two responses to choking, because I think we all choke at certain points. We get tight, even if we even if we don’t lose, we know. I mean, there’s been, I think, back on my, you know, playing sports, and I know when I was super tight, and it didn’t necessarily reflect in the in the outcome, you know, but I know I was choking, or I was ripe to choke, and I’m like, and then when that happens, it’s hard not to go back to that point, especially when the commentators are talking about it. The last time you got tight and you were not really much of a you didn’t choke much, but I’m sure you felt like you were choking from time to time. And I wonder how you dealt.

 

Chris Evert  37:16

My choking was not hitting in the fence. You know, my choking was being passive. My  choking was I wasn’t hitting out with with confidence, and I’ll never forget I was okay. First of all, we didn’t have role models. I mean, none of my coaches ever talked to me about choking, so we in the 70s, we had to figure this, everything out ourselves. Yeah, everything. We didn’t have coaches. Okay? Marti and I used to practice with each other before the final, the Grand Slam, when we played each other, so what I’m trying to say is, is that I remember being at Wimbledon, and I was in a in the finals, and I was pushing. I just didn’t want to miss, so I kind of wasn’t hitting. I was guiding. I wouldn’t push. I was guiding the ball, okay? And I said to myself, I had a moment I go hit the frickin ball. Accelerate your racket with spin, okay, accelerate and with spin, because then it will stay in. So I started to almost whip the shots, you know, but accelerate. And I figured it out. I mean, that’s what I needed to do to get to a norm, my normal game, you know, not even a great game, but just a normal game, because I was so far back and and pushing the ball. So you’re I always talk to the kids about about pressure, because that’s the number one question I get oh, what do I do? I’m so tired I can’t hit a ball. I was upset in 401 and I just lost I couldn’t and I said, Okay, the first thing you need to do is do a body scan of yourself. What? How are your feet? Let’s start from the bottom, like a tree, tree, trunk, tree, the the roots of a tree. Are you? Are you moving? Well, do you stop moving when you’re nervous? What happens when you get nervous? Okay, so I go start with your feet. Now go up hands. Are you making too many errors and hitting too big of a shot, or are you too timid and just, you know again, just not hitting the ball at all. What about your serve when you get nervous? Do you just double? Do you miss first serves? Okay, so I always have an answer for something. Okay, so if your feet, if you’re if you’re slow, on your feet, which is 80% of the people that are tight.

 

David Duchovny  39:29

Always the feet, it’s always.

 

Chris Evert  39:31

Always the feet, jump up and down, just get on your toes. Jump up and down. Get ready. Return to serve. Jump up and down. You know, just over exaggerate what you’re not doing. Well, okay, if you’re making errors, put more spin on on your shots. If you’re passive again, you know, accelerate with spin. If you’re missing your serve, throw a second serve and instead of the first serve.

 

David Duchovny  39:57

I just wish we could translate these. These into life.

 

Chris Evert  40:02

I know

 

David Duchovny  40:03

I just had an emotional talk with my with my daughter, but I wasn’t moving my feet enough, you know. So I think I gotta go back. I think I gotta go back and and have another, have another talk. You know, when you were talking about the feet out, you know, I was thinking of Guillermo Vilas. Remember, like, yeah, he used to move his feet before return to serve. Oh yeah, you do that little stutter step? Yeah, you know, I’ll be watching tennis, and I’ll, you’ll see these great players, all of a sudden their footwork just goes to hell, like they, they’re just not even in the right place, or they, they’re not moving to the ball. And it is amazing that that’s where it starts, farthest, farthest from the brain, I guess.

 

Chris Evert  40:42

Yeah no, you get, you freeze up. You get paralyzed. You don’t everything shrinks, you know, you just get you don’t hit. You don’t give yourself enough space to hit ground strokes. You don’t throw your ball, talk your ball toss is low when you’re tight, everything is too close to you, and you just gotta just kind of relax and just, you just got to make yourself do it.

 

David Duchovny  41:03

As a kid. Did you have a love of, you know, hitting those, those tennis balls? Did you love the game at first? Did you remember that?

 

Chris Evert  41:10

No, I hate No. I My father. No. They started picking me up from kindergarten and bringing me over to Holiday Park. And I used to before I was being picked up, I was being picked up at kindergarten, and I would go over to my best friend’s house, Kara Bennett, who had a pool, and she we got to go swimming, and she would have a barbecue. And I was just living a normal life. And then my dad, all of a sudden, start picking me up, bringing me to Holiday Park with a basket of balls and just feeding me balls. I’m like, what is the purpose of this? You know, I had no idea, right? But then I got better, and again, I felt self esteem. I felt good about myself. I could put the ball wherever I wanted to, in the corners, I could drop shot. I never missed a ball, and I was beating everybody. I was winning. So, you know, that started happening eight, 9, 10, years old. Kids my own age, by the way, not and then it was like, I really people started watching. People were sitting in the stands and starting, like, I would have 20 people watching me in practice when I was eight years old. And I’m like, I like this, you know, I like the attention, and I like they would clap like that. I must have been so insecure, because all these things I loved, you know?

 

David Duchovny  42:32

Of course, no, I don’t think I just you’re human. How else would you not get set up to pursue that? I mean, and when those things are no longer happening. And this is another you know question that I have for for athletes, for elite athletes like yourself, is, you know when the career does finally end and you had a very long career, you know when people are no longer clapping and they’re no longer coming out to see you play, and you’re no longer coming home with a big piece of hardware that’s got to be almost like, like getting off a drug in some way, you know, and what happens to your heart and soul at that point, to say nothing of your self esteem and your head?

 

Chris Evert  43:18

I was very lucky, and I know that a lot of people, they have a hard time, you know, they don’t. I had something to go to, you know, I had just gotten married, and to Andy mill, and we, you know, we lived in Aspen, part time, in Florida, part time. And then two years after that, I I had my first child and continued. I had three children in like, five years, and being a mom that was nothing compared to being a mom. I mean, no Wimbledon title, nothing compared to that. I I don’t know that it was the the most precious thing, the most joy ever felt in my life. So I was very lucky that I had something to go to that gave me that joy

 

David Duchovny  44:02

So you didn’t miss it. You didn’t miss it at all.

 

Chris Evert  44:04

No, I did because I retired because I was mentally burned out. I didn’t retire because I had a physical injury and I couldn’t play anymore. I could have played another five years, but because I put you have to understand, I started playing tennis at five, six years old, and I played all the juniors until I was 15. Then I started playing pro tennis. I had so many years of intensity that I had to call upon such intense focus that I was at 33 when I was 33 years old, I started feeling like I didn’t want to get out of bed and go play a match. You know, I just I had it mentally. So I was ready. I was ready to retire.

 

Speaker 1  45:34

I want to just touch briefly on, you know, this again, the notion of failure, where you go now, you’ve retired, you’re happily being a mom, but you go broadcasting, and you consider that first stint as a broadcaster a failure. Am I right? That felt.

 

Chris Evert  47:10

Yeah, I was whole. I wasn’t very good.

 

David Duchovny  47:12

How did you respond to that? Did you go into it thinking, Well, you know, I know tennis inside now, and I’m going to be great at this.

 

Chris Evert  47:20

Yeah, I was a great player. I’m gonna be great at this. Yeah. I, you know, I realized that Iplayed my game with such instinct that I didn’t know, you know, I mean, it got the commentators were so technical about grips and about spins, and about, you know, strategy and I mean, I just, I hit to the opponent, to their weakness. I mean, I just played their weaknesses, and I just got the ball on the court, and I was, I kept it simple. But, you know, that’s not good for commentating. To keep it simple. Everyone wants to know is, you know, the details of what’s going on.

 

David Duchovny  48:01

Analytics, the Velo, the velocity, the spin rates.

 

Chris Evert  48:05

So I wasn’t, I mean, I was tough on myself. I don’t know what anybody else was saying, but I just knew that, boy, this is tougher than I thought. This is tougher than I thought.

 

David Duchovny  48:14

Did you enjoy it? At first?

 

Chris Evert  48:17

First time, probably not, probably not that much. But that was like the next step, you know, to retiring. You would, you should be honored if NBC wants you and John McEnroe to, you know, be their lead announcers. But so anyway, I did that for a few years and then, and then stopped, and at

 

David Duchovny  48:39

That point, did you? Were you thinking, Yeah, I’m done with that.

 

Chris Evert  48:43

Yeah, I didn’t but I had it again. I was building my tennis academy, and I had three boys, and it didn’t really it. I didn’t really care. And it wasn’t until after my third divorce. Wait, oh, thank God you haven’t covered that those failures.

 

David Duchovny  49:06

Yet.

 

Chris Evert  49:08

You’re my third divorce. When I […]

 

David Duchovny  49:12

[..] and we’re only set here

 

Chris Evert  49:14

I was in bed, lying in a fetal position that my agent called and said, ESPN, what would love for you to join their team? And I’m like, no, yeah. And then, and then he called back and he said, they said, How about for one week at Wimbledon? You don’t have to do both weeks. How about one week at Wimbledon? Just test the waters, see if you like it. And by that time, I had been coaching my Academy kids for about 10, 15, years, so and I had been, you know, talking to the coaches, and I kind of had a better grasp of the current tennis what was going on. So I said, finally, reluctantly, I said, okay, I’ll try it for one. Week, so I went there and I tried it, and I liked it more that time we had we had a good we had a fun team. I liked it more. And so it’s been, like, 15 years. I’ve been with them since then.

 

David Duchovny  50:15

Before we end, I wanted to just talk about and I’m sure you’re tired of talking about this, but, but I think it’s very near, it’s dear to your heart. Is just the way an athlete, you know, you’ve had two bouts with cancer, and way an athlete approaches not just mortality but sickness. It’s almost like, I want to say it’s even more surprising for somebody who’s in your head space to you know, the body that you relied on, that took you around the world and gave you a life and career and an identity harder even to go this body is now betraying me in a way, and I wonder also the sports metaphors about beating cancer and that kind of stuff. I wonder if you found those to be helpful or or or a hindrance to kind of the frame of mind that you need to to kind of live with it.

 

Chris Evert  51:15

Um, well, I think being tough on the court did help my attitude. I felt my resilience came out pretty strong during that time. I never thought anything about my body or why me. I because my sister, my younger sister, Jeannie, had died from ovarian cancer a couple years before I had it, and it was obviously the brought we but we all had the Bronco gene, so we had that genetic testing and that, you know, that wasn’t good. And I was like, you know, I just, what helped me was realizing that I’m one of millions and millions and millions of people that have cancer. You know, it was I. I felt like, why not me? You know, everybody, everybody. When I, you know, you walk into a hospital and you and you’re getting your chemotherapy, and you just, the room is filled with people getting chemotherapy, and it’s like, you know, this is, it’s almost normal. And you know, I was in my 60s and wasn’t like, I was young or anything like that. But I do think, you know, I was, I had a better attitude. But you know, it’s also like, like you said, it’s what the tough thing was, because my body’s always been strong as an athlete. I mean, even after tennis, I work out every day, and it’s I need that for my friend, my frame of mind, and also I need to feel strong, yeah, and I kind of lost that, you know, going through the chemo and feeling like shit, and, you know, going through that, and then when it came back twice, I was, I think that was even more of a wake up call, like, Oh, my God. You know this death is possible. So, I mean, I hope it doesn’t come back the third time. And that’s all I get. My CAT scans every three months, and when I get a clear CAT scan, which I have since my last one, I’m like, I can just go, you know, for three months I’m going to be happy until the next one.

 

David Duchovny  53:29

But you’re also, like, the kind of player you were, it’s, it’s different from me, because you say, get the information, you know, I’ve seen, get informed me. I’m like, I don’t want to know. I appreciate your character in that as well as being, you know, give me all the information. And I think that’s an important lesson for you to be imparting as well publicly.

 

Chris Evert  53:54

I do too, because there’s a big difference between stage one getting something early than stage four or five, and my sister got it. I learned in my I learned that I was stage one. She learned that she was stage four, and that’s the difference, and it’s a difference between life and death. And you’ve got it, if you it’s okay. If you get something, if you have something, and you get it early, you’ll be okay.

 

David Duchovny  54:17

Yes.

 

Chris Evert  54:19

David.

 

David Duchovny  54:20

I will change. But I just wanted to add, because I’m kind of, like, I’m moving towards this idea I have in my head where, sometimes, you know when, when we’re discussing cancer in public, you know, there’s a sense, you know, like, defeat cancer, battle cancer, all this stuff, like, like, it is a an opponent, you know, in a one on one match, and if you lose, somehow you lost your battle with cancer. You know, I wonder if those are, you know, metaphors that don’t help us. You know, that, you know. But on the other hand, we. Need to have, as you say, the resilience and the toughness to, you know, want to stay alive through the pain and all that stuff. So I just wonder, as somebody who’s been through it, you know.

 

Chris Evert  55:09

Yeah I, you know, all I, all I thought about, well, you know, you be. You become more spiritual, and I’ve become closer to my higher being. Let’s, let’s put it that way, because I’m always talking to him or her, whatever, my higher being. And I mean, that’s now my Catholic print there, my Lillian, who did my imprint therapy. Now I’m having spiritual therapy, you know, just to be, you know, just because I want to be, I want to be I want to have more of a connection to my higher power. And I wanted, because I’ve been faced, I’ve faced pretty much death, you know so.

 

David Duchovny  55:53

What does this? What does the spiritual imprinting consist of? I don’t want you to give it away before it’s all done and you’ve ascended?

 

Chris Evert  56:02

No, I just, just to have, just to have a stronger relationship with God and the my higher power. How, whatever i want it i don’t even, you know, I’ve always had mixed feelings about, I mean, I need proof. Okay, I’m like praying every night. Can you show me a, can you show me a sign? Can you appear in front of me? Can my mom appear or dad appear? Can I listen? You know, right? And and then she Lillian, makes me write down. She goes write down every experience in your life that you’ve had a close call and that you should be lucky to be alive. And I started writing down things, and I was like, on 20 things, she said, and you don’t think he’s looking out for you know how many near misses have we had in accidents or

 

David Duchovny  56:54

We don’t even know?

 

Chris Evert  56:55

Yeah, I’m just saying it’s like, you know, somebody’s looking out for you, you know. So, you know, I just, but I never. I was always more more thinking about, I hope this chemo is working. You know, I was more like that. Rather than kill the cancer, beat the cancer, it was almost like, I hope, I hope the chemo is working. I hope it’s working. I made it simple, like I do everything else in life. Just make it simple.

 

David Duchovny  57:26

Chris, thank you so much for being open with me and talking about these some sometimes difficult things, and it’s nice to see you again. And I’m just an admirer of what you’re of your life. You know what you’ve been able to do, and how you talk about it, and I’ll be listening.

 

Chris Evert  57:43

Thank you. Well,  French Open, yeah, I’ll be doing two weeks of the French and Wimbledon very and thank you for doing all that research that was very impressive, getting to talk about the important things that was good.

 

David Duchovny  57:59

Oh yeah. Okay, good and good luck.

 

Chris Evert  58:02

You don’t like accepting compliments, do you?

 

David Duchovny  58:04

Nope.

 

Chris Evert  58:06

Well, it’s good to see you too.

 

David Duchovny  58:07

Motivated by failure. Thank you.

 

Chris Evert  58:11

Okay.

 

David Duchovny  58:25

Speaking with Chris Evert, I was struck by what has been called like the mysteries of the athletic heart and the resilience of athletes in the face of constant failure, even though Chris Everett, I think, won 90% of her matches, which is incredible when you think about it, won 90% of her matches, but probably 52% of the points in those matches. And it’s those little bounce backs from little failures like losing a point that is the remarkable thing in an athlete and a spirit like like Chris Evert.

 

David Duchovny  59:22

Thanks, so much for listening to Fail Better. If you haven’t yet. Now is a great time to subscribe to Lemonada Premium. You’ll get bonus content, like my thoughts on conversations with guests including Alec Baldwin and Rob Lowe. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple podcasts or for all other podcast apps, head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe. That’s lemonadapremium.com.

 

CREDITS  59:37

Fail Better is a production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby.  It is produced by Kegan Zema, Aria Bracci, and Dani Matias. Our engineer is Brian Castillo.  Our SVP of weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neel.  Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Karpinski and Brad Davidson, the show’s executive produced by Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Jessica Cordova Kramer and me, David Duchovny.  The music is also by me and my band. Lovely Colin Lee. Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowan and Sebastian […]. You can find us online at @LemonadaMedia and you can find me @DavidDuchovny.  Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.