Chris Evert is an American tennis player who used to be one of the best in the world.
She won 18 major singles titles, like the US Open six times and the French Open seven times. She was number one in the world for 260 weeks, which is seven times at the end of the singles season.
For eleven years, Evert was in charge of the Women’s Tennis Association. She was put into the Hall of Fame and given the Philippe Chatrier award. After sharing her cancer diagnosis earlier this year, Chris Evert talked about her cancer experience. This made some people curious about her family and kids.
Where are the three kids of Chris Evert now?
Together with her ex-husband Andy Mill, Chris Evert had three sons: Alexander, Nicholas, and Colton.
Mill and Evert were married for 18 years before they split up in 2006. Mill is a two-time Olympian in ski racing and used to be on the US team.
Three years after getting married in 1991, the couple had their first child, Alex. Colton, the couple’s youngest son, was born in 1995. Nicholas, the couple’s second son, was born in 1994.
The famous tennis player’s three sons took up the sport she loved. The famous athlete taught her sons how to play tennis on the court at their old mansion in Boca Raton, where she raised her children.
Her sons Alexander, Nicholas, and Colton are now adults. Alexander is 30, Nicholas is 28, and Colton is 26.
Even though they have sometimes been seen with their mother, no one knows what they are doing because they tend to stay out of the spotlight.
Chris Evert Talks About His Fight Against Cancer
Chris Evert thought about her life after she was told she had cancer. She said in the interview that she found out she had cancer after her sister Jeanne died.
Jeanne had ovarian cancer that was in stage 4, and after she died, her family found out she had the BRCA gene.
Evert said that when she found out about this, she had tests done and found that she also has the gene. After that, she decided to have a full hysterectomy.
She was told after the surgery that she needed more surgery because her ovaries and fallopian tubes had cancer.
She had a second surgery after she found out she didn’t have cancer, but she still had to go through chemotherapy, which she did and finished in May.
Chris Evert Gets Married
People were very interested in the relationship between Evert and Jimmy Connors in the 1970s, especially after they both won the Wimbledon singles championship in 1974.
Evert and Connors also played mixed doubles together from time to time. They got engaged when she was 19 years old, and their wedding was set for November 8, 1974.
The wedding was called off because the love had gone away. When Evert got pregnant in May 2013, Connors wrote in his autobiography that she chose to end the pregnancy on her own.
Evert married British tennis player John Lloyd in 1979, after which she changed her name to Chris Evert Lloyd. They broke up after she had an affair with British singer and actor Adam Faith, but they got back together later.
Carol Thatcher wrote a book with her husband about their marriage called Lloyd on Lloyd. In April 1987, they decided to end their marriage.
In 1988, Evert got married to downhill racer Andy Mill. Martina Navratilova set them up. Their three sons, Colton, Nicholas, and Alexander, were all born in 1994.
On November 13, 2006, she asked for a divorce. Evert gave Mill a settlement of $7 million in cash and stocks, and on December 4, 2006, the divorce was finalized.
Evert married Australian golfer Greg Norman for the third time on June 28, 2008, in the Bahamas. On October 2, 2009, 15 months after they got together, they said they were breaking up.
Awards and other honors
Evert was named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year four times. In 1976, she was the only female athlete to win Sports Illustrated’s “Sportswoman of the Year” award. In April 1985, the Women’s Sports Foundation named her the “Greatest Woman Athlete of the Last 25 Years.” Evert led the Women’s Tennis Association from 1975 to 1976 and again from 1983 to 1991.
In 1995, she was the fourth player ever to be chosen unanimously by 185 sports journalists from around the world for the International Tennis Hall of Fame. For her contributions to tennis, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) gave her its highest honor, the Philippe Chatrier Award, in 1997. In 1999, ESPN ranked Evert as the 50th best North American athlete of the 20th century. In 2001, the International Club’s Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award was given to Evert. In 2005, Tennis magazine put her at number four on its list of the 40 best players of all time.
In 2012, Tennis Channel asked players and experts to vote on the 100 best players of all time. Evert came in ninth overall and fourth among women (finishing behind Graf, Navratilova, and Court in that order.) In June 2013, the International Tennis Hall of Fame gave Evert a special honor. They gave her their gold ring as a reward for all the great things she had done on and off the tennis court.
How you play
Evert was a baseline player who is said to have changed the way tennis is played. She was known for her consistent, counterpunching style of play. In fact, the International Tennis Hall of Fame called her a “human backboard” after the fact. Evert was one of the first players to only play from the baseline. Most of the time, she only went to the net to get short balls, but towards the end of her career, she went more often to end points. Evert’s forehand was hit flat, with consistent depth and power, and it went deep into the court. Towards the end of her career, when graphite technology improved, she started to use more topspin on her forehand. Evert was one of the first women to use a double-handed backhand successfully on the WTA tour. This type of backhand didn’t give her the extra reach that a one-handed backhand did, but it did give her power and consistency that had never been seen on the tour before. This style of backhand would later become the standard for women’s tennis players. Evert didn’t usually hit a lot of winners. Instead, her game was based on retrieving balls with devastating accuracy and making as few mistakes as possible. Evert’s serve wasn’t very strong, but it was reliable and on point. Evert had a light touch and one of the best drop shots in the game at the time. At a time when serve-and-volley was the most common way to play, Evert was able to hit difficult passing shots with ease, pushing her opponents back behind the baseline and stopping them from rushing the net. Evert’s best qualities on the court were her speed, her precise footwork, her coverage of the court, her fitness, her consistency, and her mental toughness. Even though she did well on all surfaces, Evert’s favorite was clay. The surface’s high bounce and slower speed let her play her measured, defensive style to great effect, as shown by the fact that she won 382 of the 382 matches she played on clay during her career. Evert was called the “Ice Princess” because of how calm she was on the court, how tough she was mentally, and how elegantly she played.
Life at home
Evert was born in 1954 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His parents, Colette (née Thompson) and Jimmy Evert, were devout Catholics, and he grew up in a Catholic home. She graduated from Ft. Lauderdale’s St. Thomas Aquinas High School in 1973.
Jimmy worked as a tennis coach for a living, and tennis was a big part of his family’s life. Chris and her sister Jeanne both played tennis professionally. Their brother John played tennis on scholarship at the University of Alabama and then at Vanderbilt University, and their brother Drew went to Auburn University on a tennis scholarship. Clare was the youngest sister. She went to Southern Methodist University on a tennis scholarship. Chris, John, and Jeanne and Clare, who are sisters, all won titles at Florida’s prestigious Junior Orange Bowl.
Evert signed a contract with Puritan Fashions to promote a line of sportswear before she won her first Grand Slam tournament.
Carl Rosen, the head of the company, thought so much of her that he named a young racehorse after her. Chris Evert went on to win the U.S. Filly Triple Crown in 1974, get the Eclipse Award for Outstanding 3-Year-Old Filly, and be inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
In the 1970s, Evert’s relationship with the best men’s player, Jimmy Connors, was a big story, especially after both of them won the 1974 Wimbledon singles titles. Evert and Connors also played mixed doubles together from time to time. When she was 19, they got engaged, and their wedding was set for November 8, 1974. The couple broke up, and the wedding was canceled. In May 2013, Connors wrote in his autobiography that Evert was pregnant with their child, but she ended the pregnancy on her own. Evert said that she was “very upset that [Connors] used the book to lie about a private matter.”
During the US Open in 1978, one of the diamonds on her bracelet fell on the court. When asked about it in an interview after the match, she said, “Oh, that was my tennis bracelet.” Since then, diamond bracelets have been called “tennis bracelets.”
Around 1978, John Lloyd and Evert were in Fort Lauderdale
Evert changed her name to Chris Evert Lloyd when she married British tennis player John Lloyd in 1979. After she had an affair with British singer and actor Adam Faith, the two broke up. They later got back together, and Carol Thatcher wrote about their marriage in a book called Lloyd on Lloyd, which she wrote with Adam Faith. In April 1987, the couple split up.
Evert got married to downhill skier Andy Mill in 1988. Martina Navratilova had set them up. They have three sons: Alexander (born in 1991), Nicholas (born in 1994), and Colton (b. 1996). Evert filed for divorce on November 13, 2006. On December 4, 2006, the divorce was finalized. As part of the settlement, Evert gave Mill $7 million in cash and securities.
Evert married Australian golfer Greg Norman in the Bahamas on June 28, 2008. He was her third husband.
After 15 months together, they said they were breaking up on October 2, 2009. On December 8, 2009, they were no longer married.
Evert became a supporter of the new Women’s Sports Policy Working Group in 2021. This group was set up in response to an executive order from President Joe Biden that requires all transgender female athletes to be included.
Evert said in January 2022 that she had been told she had ovarian cancer. In May 2022, it was said that Evert’s ovarian cancer treatment with chemotherapy was over. She also said that the doctor told her that because the cancer was found early, there was a 90% chance that it would never come back.