As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the US Open, we look back at the 50 champions who have left an indelible mark on this inimitable event.
So dominant was Chris Evert at the US Open, both in Forest Hills and later in Flushing Meadows, that in 19 career appearances she never once lost before the quarterfinals. In the tennis-boom years beginning in the mid-‘70s, Evert reached nine singles finals, including six straight between 1975 and 1980. She went on to compile a career win-loss mark of 101-13 in New York. Her six US Open trophies are an Open era-best equaled only by all-time Slam queen Serena Williams.
Wrote Lisa Dillman in the Los Angeles Times in 1987, “With few exceptions over the years, Chris Evert and the US Open have been a study in compatibility.”
Evert’s first two US Open titles came back-to-back on clay against Evonne Goolagong in 1975 and 1976. She downed Wendy Turnbull, 7-6, 6-2, to repeat in 1977, the event’s final year at the West Side Tennis Club, and went on to make it four straight the following year at the new USTA National Tennis Center with a straight-sets 7-5, 6-4 dismissal of 16-year-old Pam Shriver. Evert joined Molla Mallory (1915-18) and Helen Jacobs (1932-35) as the only players to claim four consecutive US Open titles.
Evert, who reached 34 Grand Slam singles finals overall, more than any other player in the history of professional tennis, returned to claim US Open titles in 1980 and 1982, topping Czech Hana Mandlikova on both occasions. But it was against another Czech, Martina Navratilova, who famously defected during the 1975 US Open, that Evert would form what is viewed by many as the sport’s preeminent rivalry. The foes would face each other 80 times between 1973 and 1988, 61 of those matches coming in finals. Ironically, they met just four times at the Open, Navratilova winning three of those matches, including back-to-back finals in 1983 and 1984.
Raised on the green clay of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the player whom journalist/broadcaster Bud Collins nicknamed “The Ice Maiden” first emerged as a ponytailed baseliner with metronomic skills along the baseline. Her two-fisted backhand all but redefined the stroke for generations to come. Named the “Greatest Woman Athlete of the Last 25 Years” by the Women's Sports Foundation in 1985, she shed her girl-next-door persona and was later seen as one of tennis’ most steely competitors.
More than a quarter century later, Evert reflected on her first US Open appearance. It came in 1971, when as a 16-year-old schoolgirl she reached the semifinals, eventually falling to world No. 1 Billie Jean King, 6-3, 6-2.
“They wouldn't let me in!” recalled Evert of that first visit. “That was my first day. We went in the wrong gate, then we went in this other gate way behind the stadium. We had to walk all the way around. In those days, we had no bodyguards, no cellular phones – nothing. You just had your mother and two wood racquets.”
In all, Evert would win 18 Grand Slam titles and spend 260 weeks at No. 1 (fourth overall). Her 154 career titles rank second all-time only to Navratilova’s 167. On the doubles court, she registered 32 career titles, often teaming with Navratilova, and she was a regular in Fed Cup play. She was inducted onto the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1995.
50 Fact: The mixed doubles combo of Evert and Jimmy Connors was a true “love match” at the 1974 US Open. Though they would never marry, at the time, the two were engaged and their high-profile relationship a tabloid bonanza.
