davidjaan1982
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I have included excerpts of a “design matters” interview of Chris Evert by Debbie Millman who runs this series. This extract has Chris Evert talking about her initial matches against Margaret Court. I have highlighted a couple of sentences in bold.
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Debbie Millman:
By the time you were in eighth grade, you became the number one nationally ranked player in the girls 14 and under division. And one year later in 1970, and I remember this, you defeated the number one ranked women’s professional player in the world, Margaret Court by a score of 7-6, 7-6, and Margaret had just recently won all four grand slam single titles in the same calendar year, a feat that had been accomplished only five times in the history of the sport. Yet you thought of your win as a fluke. How and why did you think that?
Chris Evert:
Did I?
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. I mean, I’ve seen it in a few different interviews that you thought, your win of her in that moment was just a fluke.
Chris Evert:
I mean, I beat her fair and square on. It was on clay, which was my favorite surface. My best and clay was her worst. I mean, I think she had a lot going against her. I think she had just won the grand slam. She was tired. She had committed to playing that tournament after the US open. So probably she was drained from the year. And what really impressed me was that night there was a cocktail party and she was gracious enough to go to the cocktail party. Where I’m telling you nowadays, if you lose a match, there aren’t any cocktail parties that you go to.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. But you were 15. I mean, what did you make of that? I mean, aside from it being a fluke, how did that feel? 15 years old.
Chris Evert:
It wasn’t a fluke. If I said that, I was probably just trying to be humble. But now looking back, it wasn’t a fluke because I continued to beat her.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
Chris Evert:
I mean, I had many more wins over her and I remember beating Billy Jean King six, love six, one on clay. Now, if I had played her on a grass court or a hard court, it probably would’ve been a different result. But I think it was because it was the clay, that was what I was brought up on. The women in that day pretty much only served and volleyed and they didn’t have good ground strokes. And I was raised in the new generation to have good ground strokes. So I just outstudied her and won the match.
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Debbie Millman:
By the time you were in eighth grade, you became the number one nationally ranked player in the girls 14 and under division. And one year later in 1970, and I remember this, you defeated the number one ranked women’s professional player in the world, Margaret Court by a score of 7-6, 7-6, and Margaret had just recently won all four grand slam single titles in the same calendar year, a feat that had been accomplished only five times in the history of the sport. Yet you thought of your win as a fluke. How and why did you think that?
Chris Evert:
Did I?
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. I mean, I’ve seen it in a few different interviews that you thought, your win of her in that moment was just a fluke.
Chris Evert:
I mean, I beat her fair and square on. It was on clay, which was my favorite surface. My best and clay was her worst. I mean, I think she had a lot going against her. I think she had just won the grand slam. She was tired. She had committed to playing that tournament after the US open. So probably she was drained from the year. And what really impressed me was that night there was a cocktail party and she was gracious enough to go to the cocktail party. Where I’m telling you nowadays, if you lose a match, there aren’t any cocktail parties that you go to.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. But you were 15. I mean, what did you make of that? I mean, aside from it being a fluke, how did that feel? 15 years old.
Chris Evert:
It wasn’t a fluke. If I said that, I was probably just trying to be humble. But now looking back, it wasn’t a fluke because I continued to beat her.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
Chris Evert:
I mean, I had many more wins over her and I remember beating Billy Jean King six, love six, one on clay. Now, if I had played her on a grass court or a hard court, it probably would’ve been a different result. But I think it was because it was the clay, that was what I was brought up on. The women in that day pretty much only served and volleyed and they didn’t have good ground strokes. And I was raised in the new generation to have good ground strokes. So I just outstudied her and won the match.
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