This year, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the US Open, we’re counting down the 50 most memorable moments in the history of America’s Grand Slam. Today, we take a look back at No. 21.
As the 1975 US Open unfolded at Forest Hills on the clay, Florida’s Chris Evert was the overwhelming favorite to win the tournament. Clay was her surface. She was almost unbeatable on the dirt – the last time she had lost a match on clay was back in the summer of 1973. Her ground game made her almost unassailable on these courts, and the top seed was feared by just about all of the players in the field because defeating her on her terrain was such a tall task.
But one of the few players who could test Evert was a left-handed dynamo named Martina Navratilova. The 18-year-old was better on faster courts, but the fact remained that she was formidable on clay. Evert and Navratilova were friends and doubles partners. They would eventually contest 80 matches against each other across their storied careers, with Navratilova prevailing 43-37 in what many authorities believe is the greatest sports rivalry of all time.
This was their first of four head-to-head appointments at the US Open but not among their most memorable duels. Evert methodically stopped Navratilova on a balmy day, directing a barrage of balls to her opponent’s backhand. She was a 6-4, 6-4 victor. Navratilova played sporadically brilliant tennis, but Evert’s supreme consistency from the backcourt carried her to a comfortable victory.
Evert would win her first US Open that weekend over Evonne Goolagong, while Navratilova called a press conference to announce her defection to the United States from her native Czechoslovakia. Her courageous decision was lauded by fans and players alike.
Navratilova announced her decision to defect a few days after the loss to Evert. It was one of the biggest wins of her career, and her life. She said the Czech tennis community thought she was “becoming too Americanized... If I wanted to be No. 1, which I do, I couldn’t do it under the Czech government.”
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