Chris Evert on having ovarian cancer, Emma Raducanu’s chances of more glory, the future of women’s tennis and who is the greatest
“It was the longest four days of my life,” Chris Evert says as she remembers facing her mortality last December while waiting for a second cancer diagnosis. Evert, who won 18 grand slam titles from 1974 to 1986, had just come through surgery for ovarian cancer. She had then been tested to ascertain whether the cancer had spread, as she says “all the way to the lymph nodes connected to my reproductive organs. If I tested positive for the lymph nodes I would have been stage three or four. My kind of cancer, ovarian cancer, is very insidious and sneaky as there aren’t many signs that you have it. When you find out you have ovarian cancer you’re usually stage three or four, which means curtains, basically.”
The 67-year-old has been such a familiar presence for so long, firstly as a remarkable tennis player and then in the commentary box, that it feels jolting to hear her confront her own death. She was revered for her composure on court, even when she first became famous after reaching the semi-finals of the US Open in 1971 at the age of 16 but Evert looks up with a tangled expression when I ask her to describe her emotions while waiting for those test results.
