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“Our lost and found is currently filled with pants. I don't know what I've never seen this happen.”
This is true. This is true. Mysteries of every size each week, this American life, wherever you get your podcasts. This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. My guests, Chris Everett and Martin and Everett to Lovah were the greatest female tennis players of their generation. They were friends and they were each other's greatest rivals in the 70s and 80s. When Everett retired in 1989
that each won 18 grand slam victories and they'd each been the top ranked female player in the world seven times.
Never to Lovah retired in 2006. Now they're the subject of a new Netflix documentary called
Chris and Martina, the final set. It tells the story of how they interacted as friends and as opponents and how their friendship won cold for an extended period when their rivalry became more fierce. When they were each retired, their friendship deepened as they both faced cancer and were able to support each other. Everett was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2021. Never to Lovah was diagnosed with throat and breast cancer in 2022. The same year that Everett had a recurrence. When I spoke
with them a couple of weeks ago that were both in remission, but late last week Everett disclosed she desperately diagnosed with a recurrence of ovarian cancer. Here's how the interview went a couple of weeks ago. Chris Everett, more teen than Everett to Lovah, what a pleasure to have you on fresh air and really like that the documentary is so good. Both in terms of your friendship, your rivalry, but also the excerpts of matches between the two of you that are just spectacular to
watch. So congratulations on that. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, what are the odds you'd have cancer at the same time and be a short drive from each other in Florida? It's really amazing. Yeah, this is Chris. Freaky. I can't even, I can't get away from her. You know, everything happens with us. We had a 15-year career and then we got cancer, you know, at the same time and
it really is freaky. But you know, I always say if I want someone to be in the trenches with me,
it's Martina because she has been so supportive and so understanding and so such a calming, you know, voice to talk to. Yeah, we have such a level of trust that we know whatever we say to each other. It stays there. We know we'd give each other the best advice we know how to and there's no,
“there's an ulterior motive for no, you know, no playing games and that's how we like it. Because”
I think we both have had so many people's, oh, you'll grade this and that they don't, you know, they don't give you the real story. But we've always been honest with each other on that front. So you both have or had athletes' bodies and, you know, Martina, one of the things you
you were known for at some point in your career was basically building your body. You know,
just like intense like four hour a day training to make your body stronger and then Chris, you ended up doing a very similar thing to keep up with Martina. And when you had cancer, you were really weak. I mean, it was hard to just walk. What was it like for you as athletes to live in a body that wasn't functioning, that was very weak? Well, for me, I mean, so Chris's diagnosis and treatment was much more life-threatening than mine, percentage-wise,
“but my treatment was more difficult physically. I think I, I was abroad my yoga mat with me.”
I was in New York for seven weeks and I literally sat on the yoga mat maybe half an hour of the seven weeks and did some stretching. I couldn't even do the down dog pose because I would have fallen down. I had absolutely zero strength left. But the longest thing that took was the taste, which I loved to eat, so that was stuff. But, you know, we're athletes, so we want things to happen right away. It was almost a year before I had full taste buds coming back. But it all came back.
But Chris was, well, you'd talk about what you went through. Well, I think the chemo kicked my butt, let's put it that way. And, you know, when you think about, you know what, I don't want to use the word poisons, but the toxins, you know, it's killing the good cells, as well as the bad cells. And it left me very weak, very, very weak. After a chemo, I would have three or four days of intense nausea and I just would feel tingling in my body and it just wasn't nice.
And, you know, I did not have the energy.
And it was foreign. You know, it felt like it wasn't my body for sure. Yeah.
“What were you able to do to support each other through the cancer and its treatment?”
You know, there are a lot of phone calls between us. And Martina, who is the cook in the relationship. I don't cook, but Martina would bake bread for me and her wife Julia would cook, make some chicken soup, so I got a lot of stuff. I got a lot of food from Martina. She got a necklace from me. No, I get you a little bit from Chris. She gets food from me. But, you know, Martina is my relationship because we've had one for 50 years.
It's not the type where we have to talk to each other every day to maintain the closeness.
I always knew she was there. She always knew I was there if we need to talk and that was that.
Martina, you knew that something was wrong when you felt a lump in your throat. But, um, it was my, my, my, uh, lymph node. It was your lymph node. Yeah. Yeah. The, the tumor was in my, on my tongue, based on my tongue, but I didn't feel that. I just felt a swollen lymph node. So, if you can.
“Right. And that's what got you. The question to be tested. But, but Chris, you weren't symptomatic,”
but your sister, Jean had died of a variant cancer and she had a genetic mutation and you wanted to see if you had the same thing. Don't get that right? Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you the story to that. My sister, Jeanie was traveling with me to Singapore and we were running to the gate. But, I look back and Jeanie was helping him puff and not running. And I said, Jeanie was the matter. She's an athlete. And she said, I don't know, I just been out of breath the last few weeks.
And I, I just don't know. I think maybe I have a lung, you know, infection or something. And I said, well, did the doctor say that and she goes, no, I'm been to a doctor. So, I said, Jeanie, you know what? We're going to Singapore for four days. And when we come back, you are going to the hospital right away and get this tested because something's not right.
So, she said, okay. So, she went and first, she got her genetic testing and believe it or not,
she did not, everything turned out fine. She didn't have the brachat gene, but she had a variant that was of uncertain significance, which means it hasn't been tested enough. You know, there's none of the case studies. And so, they said, you know, she doesn't have brachat. So, you don't need to be tested. So, nobody else in the family was tested, but unfortunately, Jeanie left it too long and when she went in, she had stage four, a variant cancer. And it spread everywhere in her body.
And she ignored the symptoms because, like most women who are nurturers, they're caring about their kids and their husband and their family, they forget about themselves. And that's probably one of the messages I want to get out there. If you feel anything different at all, slightly, you know, go get it tested. So, after my sister died two years later, I get a call from the
“geneticist and they said, do you remember that variant that your sister had of uncertain significance?”
Well, that has changed and now that's basically cancerous. And it's brachat. So, we recommend
that you and your family go get tested. Next day, I went got tested. I had the brachat Jeanie and me. And that week, I got a hysterectomy and they took it all out, but the results came back and they said, unfortunately, you have a tumor in your ovaries and you have tumors in your phlopian tube. And I was like, are you kidding me? And they said, but, you know, it's stage one. You got lucky. You got it early. And by the way, I had had blood tests. I had had internal sonograms. I had, you know, everything
that you can imagine. And nothing was detected as far as a variant cancer. And I felt fine. I felt no symptoms. So, that was my story. And it's like, you know, so I had the brachat Jeanie. And I got, I had a hysterectomy. And then later on, I had a mastectomy because you have a 70% chance of getting breast cancer if you have the brachat Jeanie. Did you freak out, Martina, when you were diagnosed? Oh, yeah. Yes, I did. So, I felt that my lymphina was swollen. So,
about two weeks later, it's still there. Swone. So, I called my doctor. And he says, we need to get a biopsy. And it was also in a Tuesday. It says, by Thursday, Friday, we'll know. So, Friday,
I don't hear anything.
the lymph node is HPV. But the tumor could be anywhere. He literally said, it could be in your lungs.
“Or your kidneys, or your liver. And I'm, oh my God, you know, I could like, not see next year.”
So, I totally freaked out over the weekend. This is Friday afternoon. And then I found out, Monday, oncologist calls me and he says, well, it's HPV. And it's definitely just in your throat. It's not anywhere else. And the cure rate is 95%. And I was so relieved. I had like the worst weekend on my life from what the original doctor said. And then the oncologist said, it's going to be nasty. It's not nice. We need to find out what the tumor is, but it's somewhere in
your throat. So, good news, bad news. And then when I, and then so we scheduled a CT scan. And so then they injected you to see where the tumor is. And they said, okay, so you know, we found the tumor. It's at the base of your tongue on the left side, size of a one, maybe two, two centimeters, almost an inch. I didn't feel it. And also you're right breast laid up. So, I know it's cancer unrelated to that. And now someone had biopsy on the breast. And it's
completed different cancer tumor about a centimeter. Same thing, nothing showed. I did not feel anything. The mammogram, the day of the surgery still didn't show the tumor. So, even with the
mammograms that we have, they're amazing. They still didn't find it. Only ultrasound found it.
So, then I had to figure out, okay, what do we do now? You know, then you get into the solution. What's the sequence of cure? Because I had two different cancers that went unrelated. I did the gene testing. I have nothing. I was just, this is my third cancer, second and third cancer that I've had unrelated to each other. So, you had breast cancer in 2010. In 2010, yes. In the documentary, we see you in the present. And you, you're still like recovering, but you're done with the treatment.
And you're in, I'm not sure what room you're in. Whether it's one of your living rooms, there's some place else. But you're watching playback, a video playback of some of your matches together, you know, of excerpts of some of your matches together. The playing is spectacular. And what was it like? What were you seeing? And what was going through your mind? As you are, at this point,
“like close to 70, I think that's about how old you were. Looking back at when you were in your”
prime. And, and we're rivals battling it out on the tennis court. For me, it was fun watching with Chris, because we were a different reaction to what happened on the court. But what impressed me is how well we played with those wooden brackets. Because you know what, those brackets are not easy to play with. But you're trying to put yourself in there physically, what it was like, mentally, what it was like. And it's like, oh, I should have gone down the line. Or I can't believe
I missed that shot. Chris, you had such a great pass. It was amazing. So it was impressive. I was
in the bodies. Yeah, I'm like, I wish I could still let that six back. Yeah, I think, I mean, I had to emotionally get myself back into that time, you know, that, that time of my life. You know, I, I think when I watched, you watched two different matches. One, Martina one on the grass. And I, I noticed that I was winning quite handily. I had control the match. And then I had a sitter. And I hit it down the middle and Martina kind of ran into it. Because I didn't
mean to hit her in the head, even though some people may think I did. But Martina kind of was trying to cover that shot. So she ran and I hit her in the head. And it was like a comic relief a little bit, you know, and because we were both so stressed out comic relief. But unfortunately, for me, she came to life after that man after that point. And then she just played, you know, great grass court tennis and beat me. And I remember feeling genuinely happy for her. I remember
it was her first Wimbledon. That's always been her dream since she defected. Her family couldn't
be there to watch her. She was all alone. And I, I just was happy for it. And I knew that this was
“going to be one of many for her to win. In my match, the French Open, I remember that that was in”
85. And that was the happiest I've ever been winning a major. Because I had had a two and a half year drought against Martina and hadn't beaten her. Everybody counted me out and never thought I'd win another major. And I did. And I went back to the gym and worked out and came into the net, had some new strategies to play. So we both kind of redefined ourselves and our games because the other one was the number one at the time. And we made each other better at the end of the day.
I'd like you to each evaluate each other's strengths and vulnerabilities from...
view as the opponent. Well, for me, Chris was the epitome of mental toughness and
poker face. She controlled her emotions on the outside 100%. You never knew if she was winning
or losing. She was just so controlled and I still wasn't. So I always admired that and couldn't believe that she could keep it together like that. And her concentration levels, she never gave anything away as far as points you had to earn it. So I knew every time before we played each other and whether winning or losing, I knew it was going to be a long, long physical match. Nothing physical in my game was any good. Well, yeah, you never missed. So and you and she ran
everything down and then later when she got older, she shortened the points and took the net away
“from me. But yeah, it was emotional. Okay. I think with Martina, she was like an unbelievable athlete.”
So basically her movement, her power from her shots, she had a great forehand and a really tricky
serve to return. Her backhand was her weaker side and you know, I tried to extend rallies and keep her at the baseline because I felt like, you know, she would, I could wear her down and eventually she 'd miss and she would get emotional. Sometimes in matches and I felt like that was sort of a feather in my cap. But later on, the end of her career, obviously, she really improved in that area. You each started really young. Chris, you were five. You were trained by your father who was a
tennis pro and he used to come with like a cart of tennis balls and throw them your ways so you can hit them back. Martina, you started training in Czechoslovakia at age four. You started
“five. Oh, you were five, too. Yeah. And it was your father or a stepfather who who trained you?”
My stepfather. And so you both. You both trained hard. And at the time when you were training, which obviously really paid off, did you want to go out and play with friends instead of constantly training? Did you think at the time I'm missing my childhood? Or did you think that in retrospect? My mother used to pick me up from kindergarten and I used to go to Carabena's house. My girlfriend down the street and goes swimming in her pool, which was a novelty and have barbecues at night.
And I really had a great afternoon. All of a sudden my mom started picking me up at kindergarten and bringing me to Holiday Park so that my dad could throw tennis balls. That's where your dad was. My dad, who was my tennis pro and tennis coach, used to throw balls and I would repeatedly hit
“the tennis ball. So he was teaching me how to play tennis. I remember five years old feeling,”
very resentful and very bitter and very upset. But there's something I could do about it because my dad was my dad and he was a disciplinary and he was the head of the family. So I had no say. But it wasn't my choice to go over and play. But as time went by, interesting enough, more more kids came to Holiday Park and I met new girlfriends and I played with the girls. I played tennis with the boys and it really became a great little spot to have friendships and also to
play tennis to get better. So I mean that feeling went away quickly and as soon as I started winning ten and under tournaments and twelve and under tournaments, you know, I had the fever and I knew that I really loved it and I loved to win. For me it was different in that I did not play everyday
at all growing up. First two years, since I was five, I was just on the hitting against the wall.
And when I was seven, when I could hit the, at least my grandmother's racket, someone I could finally hold the racket with one hand because I was just hitting 200 back ends against the wall. Then I got on the real court and then at when I was nine, I got a coach who taught my father how to teach tennis. And then the winter we didn't play at all from like October, this was on play in Europe. And so from October to April, I did not play tennis at all until I was maybe
ten years old and I would go once a week for an hour. In the winter, that was it. And during the summer and the winter I was doing cross training because I was playing hockey, I was, you know, I was skiing, climbing trees in the summer, I would swim in the river, ride my bicycle everywhere, but I didn't really play tennis on a daily basis until I was like 15, 16 years old. So it was just complete a different for me. My guests are Chris Everett and Martina and Everett
Alova. The new Netflix documentary about their friendship, their tennis rivalry, and having cancer at the same time in the 2020s is called Chris and Martina, the final set. They were in remission
When we recorded our interview a couple of weeks ago, but last week Everett d...
been diagnosed with a recurrence of Ovarian cancer. We'll hear more of the interview after a break, I'm Terry Gross and this is fresh air. One of the world's most famous art detectives was on the hunt for a stolen van Gogh. He turned to an unlikely source for help. You have born soccer players, born teachers, born policemen, I'm a born burglar. On the Sunday story, how an art thief and an art detectives set out to recover a missing masterpiece. Listen now to the Sunday story from the
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that might have flown under the radar to add to your watch list. Listen to pop culture happy hour via the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Chris Everett and Martina Neverattelova, who were tennis champions in the 70s and 80s. They spent much of their careers as friends and as the greatest rivals, a new Netflix documentary called Chris and Martina the final set is about the challenges of that dual
relationship and about how they supported each other when they were each diagnosed with cancer at about the same time in the 2020s. When I recorded this interview with them a couple of weeks ago, they were in remission. But late last week, Everett revealed she had just been diagnosed with the recurrence of ovarian cancer. Chris in 1970, when you were 15, you defeated the number one ranked women's professional player in the world Margaret Court and you became famous for being
so good at age 15. How did that affect your sense of who you were and what your life would be
“last? I want to know. You know, fame at a young age and success is not a good recipe for”
emotional and mental development and growth really isn't because I did beat Margaret Court and then all of a sudden I was going to have a lot of attention and people were coming up and patting me on the back and telling me how great I was and people were allowing me to get away with things and it went to my parents allowing me to get away with things as well. I just think before you develop a personality and you develop principles and boundaries when you're a kid and everyone's
telling you that you're the greatest ever. I just think that it just is very, very confusing and very detrimental to, you know, in those days we didn't have psychiatrists and therapists and, you know, we didn't have the resources that today's game has. You know, Martian, I had to do this all ourselves,
all figured out all by ourselves and my parents weren't that much of a help because they had never
“been in my position so it was like it was very strange and I think it affected me, you know,”
later on in my life when it came to relationships. Well, come on, so you had to go to school, I think the day after the Margaret Court match. I did. I did. That's, what a clash of worlds that yeah, I mean, I did and you know, I was, people, the kids were looking at me different, like I was very honestly, I was very shy and I wasn't outgoing and I wasn't confident in myself, I was a bit insecure. I wasn't the popular girl and people were looking at me and kids were
looking at me and, you know, so I felt like an outsider, actually. And then, you know, as years went by and I started playing tournaments and the press dubbed me, you know, they labeled me, gave me an image, little miss ice made and, you know, Cinderella and sneakers, little miss icicle and because I was very cool and calm on the court and composed, they thought I was cold and how could this be a
“school girl being this cold? And so they gave me an image and honestly, when you're young,”
you start living within your image, you just, it's just easier. Martina, when you played your first
match in the U.S., I think it was the first time you'd been to the U.S. from Czechoslovakia and travel was so restricted after the Russians invaded, what was that first tournament like for you? Like,
You weren't really speaking the language, you were basically alone.
like, you know, befriended you and was helping kind of acclimate you. But tell me what that first match was like and was that against Chris? No, no, no, no. So the first tournament I'd been to play qualifying to get into the draw, it was 16 draw, Chris ended up winning it, of course. But I won my first round match. I got qualified and I won the first round match and then I lost
in the quarters. But I was thrilled to be in the States. I always loved American cars. And when
you order a ham sandwich, you got two inches of ham and two slices of bread, whereas growing up, you had thick bread and one slice of ham. So I thought I was in heaven. And it was $2 for
“two cents for that sandwich. I still remember that I couldn't believe how much ham I was getting.”
So I fell in love with American culture because it was so there were oranges on the streets. I could pick an orange. Is this a letter to our California? Florida, this is for Florida. So I'm picking up an orange of, you know, as I'm driving down the road. And in Czechoslovakia, we only had oranges once a year. For Christmas, we would get bananas and oranges.
It was a treat. Normally, you just get apples and pairs and maybe peaches. So it was like,
you know, Alice in Wonderland for me coming to the States. Chris, you befriended a Martina, you helped her, you know, culturally, but also did you help her with her game? And did you think she's going to become my fiercest rival soon? No, I did not help her with her game. She won't gonna do that. You want to go back? Yeah, I was not a coach. I was a player trying to protect my number one ranking. I saw a very talented young Czechoslovakia player and I played
her in Akron, Ohio and you were 16 then? Yeah, 16, I was 18. Yeah, I went in, which is in the same month that I met her. And I won 7, 6, 6, 3. But I remember thinking to myself, holy cow, when this young girl, you know, gets into better shape, she is going to be a force to be reckoned with and very dangerous because she had so much talent. She, her hands were quick. You know, she had a big
first serve, she had a big forehand and she just was so powerful. So you maintained your friendship
until that kind of one cold. And the way the story is told in the documentary is that, Martina, you had become close to Nancy Lieberman, who I think it's fair to say was like, the most famous basketball player of her era. And I think you became romantically involved too, but she told you that you had to train harder, eat better, and, you know, trim down, and she had you training for hours a day and your body transformed unbelievably. But she also told
you that it was time to stop being friends with Chris because it's hard for an opponent to be a friend.
“You have to just, like, not think about her feelings or anything and just see her as your rival.”
And I want to know from each of you how that felt. Let's start with you Martina, how did it feel like I can't be friends with Chris anymore? Well, this happened so Nancy and I made an April, and then Nancy came with me to the French Open, he's born Wimbledon, and I lost in the semis and all those tournaments. And after Wimbledon, she says, what are you doing at Wimbledon? What do you mean? You could be in so much better shape, and you're too nice with Chris.
I'm like, what are you talking about? Oh, you need to be tough, and you need to start training harder, and you need to hate your opponents, and you need to hate Chris. I'm like, oh, okay. And I was very, you know, naive, and again, and it had the skills to say, no, that's, I don't have to hate her. I just need to want to beat her. I was, I was almost too friendly. But the getting in shape thing was news to me, I thought I was in good shape,
then she took me on the basketball court, had me run some suicide drills, and then she said, when I realized, okay, I'm not in that's good to shape, is that all? So that summer I started training hard, then during the assault, and Renee Richards started helping me, became my coach after the assault, and that's when everything kind of changed for me. The fitness, and then the coaching, because for six years after I defected, I didn't have a coach. My father was my coach, but we could
talk maybe once a month. So you couldn't coach me, and I was on my own, and that's when Renee started helping me, that's when everything changed for me. And Chris, what was it like for you
“after Martina following the advice of Nancy Lieberman distance herself from you?”
I heard full. I was very hurtful, and I, I don't think that was really Martina. I think she was just, you know, following Nancy's orders, and Martina, you know, was really sort of afraid to speak up
To her at the same time.
love when it came to retinous and her fitness. And because it was 180 degree turn from the athlete that she was then until after she had worked out with Nancy, and she was just, she became unbeatable, and then for the next two and a half years, you know, lost six matches. So she did her a lot of good less than that way, but not in a nice way. You lost six matches. I had a stretch where I lost six
“matches in three years. That's how amazingly I played then. I mean, when I look at the numbers”
now, I'm like, wow, but when you, when you're doing it, you don't think about it, but, you know,
that was a pretty good stretch. My guess our tennis champions, Chris Everett and Martina never to
Lova, they spent most of their careers as friends and rivals, and are now the subject of a new Netflix documentary called Chris and Martina, the final set. We'll be right back after a short break. This is fresh air. Every episode of it's been a minute, MPRs, what's happening in culture podcast starts by asking three questions. Who? How? Why now? If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it. At MPR, we stand for your right to be curious, and indulge your cultural curiosity.
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And NPR, we stand for your right to be curious, to make sense of the biggest story of the day and what it means for you. Follow Consider This, wherever you get your podcasts. This is fresh air. Let's get back to my interview with Tenys Champions. We spent most of their careers as friends and rivals. Chris Everett and Martina Neverattelova. They're the subject of a new Netflix documentary called Chris and Martina, the final set.
Chris Everett had been ranked the number one female player for seven years, but in 1978 Neverattelova defeated Everett in her first grand slam singles title at Wimbledon and supplanted Everett as the top ranked female player. Neverattelova went on to hold that position for almost seven years. Chris, what it did to your identity because your identity was built
ever since you were like 15 on like being amazing, being unbeatable, being number one,
and when you stopped being number one, when you were losing to Martina, who you had known before she was nearly that good, what did it do to your sense of self? You know, I mean, whether it's ego or pride or whatever it is, I wasn't happy about it. I hadn't played anybody like that before. Nobody had come along with that versatility and the strength of the power that Martina had and it was tough to swallow, to tell you the truth. But after a while, I kind of
came to terms with it and realized she's just too good and you can continue to work hard, go in the gym like she does, and train like she does, and you know, just try to become a better athlete and you started training and change my strategy. Yeah. You took a break for a while from tennis.
“I think it was the first one to take them. It was a mental break at that time,”
because the way I described it was like, I'd wake up in the morning, I didn't want to get out of bed, and the thought of competing, you know, made me, I just didn't, I didn't have the burning desire, I didn't have the killer instinct. Were you burned out, and were you also discouraged because you weren't winning as much? No, no, no, no, I was burned out. I mean, you know that they call that the seven year-inch in marriage. Well, there's this, to me, there's a seven year-inch
and as being an athlete, and I just was mentally drained, and I need, I wanted just to live life like a normal 24-year-old. Yeah, I was 78, I played 21 tournaments and Chris played 10 tournaments. My team did you go through that seven year period? I was burned out at the end of 86, and I did not know it either. It should have been red flags flying everywhere, because I asked
“my then coach, my step, how few tournaments can I play and still stay number one?”
Hello, but I didn't know to take a break. I did not take any vacations, and I played for three years, burned out, and I still kept trying, and the results weren't there, then stiffy-graph comes along, and starts beating, beating botalas, and I have some ended up talking to Billy Jean, I said, Billy, I don't know what's going on. This is not 89 in the spring, so I don't know what's going on. I'm, you know, I'm trying hard, but the results aren't there,
and this and that. So she advised me to take a week off, just do nothing except what I want to do,
See if I still feel like the love of the game that I had when I was a little ...
the wall. So I did that. I took a week off, did nothing, and I'm like, yeah, I still want to play. I love the game, and I still feel like I can get better or improve in some ways, and I want to play. And so that, and I played six more years after that, so all it took was one week of self-reflection. But I didn't know to take the break. I wonder if this contributed to feeling burned out. You talk about, and in the documentary, you talk about how Chris was like considered like the girl
next door, everybody loved her, and the stands, but for you, people saw you like, well, she's the communist, and she's a bully, and then at some point after you were outed, and she's a lesbian, and that you would get some booze. You wouldn't get as many cheers as, as Chris did.
“And that sounds a little demoralizing. Did that contribute to your feeling of burnout?”
I'm sure that didn't help, because I always felt like I was the visiting team. No matter what I played,
you know, they were cheering for the other guy to win or for me to lose either way. You take it personally, and it was tricky, and playing Chris was difficult, because how can you not like Chris? It was not too admire, you know, she was like the epitome of cool, and I was not, but then coming from a communist country, coming from a slavic country, then of course being gay didn't help either. And then, you know, had visible muscles,
and you know, it was physically stronger, imposing, and all of this, and unapologetic, I never apologized for who I was, and you know, as a woman, you're supposed to be more demure,
and I certainly never was that. So it was just a whole bunch of stuff, and when you really think,
think back, I was still kind of alone, because I was not getting the help emotionally or mentally, that I could have used back then, and the pressure never goes away, really. And then there was also the pressure of not being able to come out, because it wasn't done, you know, no, no, no, I couldn't come out because it would have been a disqualifying, could be disqualifying for getting my citizenship, so I couldn't come out, I couldn't get my citizenship anyway.
Yeah, it was on there. It's up to the final officer, which what I think always meant, who did the final interview to approve you for citizenship, they can ask you whatever they want, and if they ask you, are you gay, and you can't lie, right? Because then that could be a disqualifier,
“you have to tell the truth, you under oath, and if you say yes, and if that officer deems that”
a disqualifying answer, then you will not get your citizenship, and you're done. And so I couldn't come out for that reason, and then once I got my citizenship, I didn't want to come out because
it would have hurt the tour. So it was always something, I was never ashamed of who I was,
but I was kind of in the closet because of these circumstances. That's a lot to keep in when you're in the public eye. It is, it is. Especially when you're being booed. You're just up against so much, and had so much you had to keep inside inside yourself. So what you were outed in the New York Daily News, do you know how that happened? Yeah, so I got my citizenship, I think it was July 20th, I go next two days later, I got my passport. The next day I fly to France to play in an exhibition in
Monaco, and that reporter who had been asking me, are you gay or are there any of us being so I can't talk about it until I get my citizenship, I can't message and she calls me, he finds me, and are you ready to talk now? I said no, because I gave him the reason about the women's tennis tour, because by the King King was outed about her, let's be in relationship, and she was trying to save herself and you know, from losing all the sponsors, sponsorship, she lost them anyway, and then the
people in charge of WTA said, you know, we cannot have another scandal, because they knew I wanted to come out once I got my citizenship. So you can't come out because the sponsors said they will leave the women's tour if there's another scandal. So I explained this to him, and I said, I can't come out because, and then I said, you know, going to print this story, right? And he said, no, if you don't want me to, I said, of course, I didn't want you to. Bam, the next day or two days later, it's in the
daily news, Martina comes out as bisexual, so there we are. If you're just joining us, my guess, a tennis champion's Chris Everett and Martina Navartolova, they're the subject of a new Netflix documentary called Chris and Martina, the final set. We'll be right back after a short break. This is fresh air. Every story from shortwave and pure science podcast starts with a question.
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This is fresh air and if you're just joining us, my guests are tennis champions who
spent most of their careers as friends and rivals, Chris Everett and Martina and Everettelova. They're the subject of a new Netflix documentary called Chris and Martina, the final set. It's about their friendship, their rivalry, and then years after they both retired, having cancer at the same time. So I want to ask you briefly about retirement. Chris, you retired in 1989. How old were you? 34 years old. Yeah. How did you know it was time and how did it
affect your identity when you were no longer the tennis star? I mean, you were still a celebrity, but you weren't playing anymore. The reason I retired was because the mental side of the game was my strength and the focus and the determination and the hunger to win was my strength. I used it in my advantage and I didn't have it anymore. I just wanted to relax. I didn't want to have pressure
“and I wanted to start a family. So the nice thing was, I had something to go to and I think that”
made it, you know, not only bearable, but attractive to me to retire. So after I retired, I was married to a great guy, Andy Mill, and we had a great life. And a couple of years later, we started a family. And I remember every morning waking up after retirement felt like a vacation because I had the freedom to do whatever I darn wanted to do. Because since I was six years old, I had a plan and I had a routine and I was on the court every day. So that was that. And you had three children in five years.
You could not have done that if you were playing. Now, I really threw myself into motherhood and nurturing and it was so nice not to think about myself. It was so nice to care for somebody else besides myself. It was just the time for me to start to be a little unselfish and not be selfish. Martina, you played for like nine, eight or nine years after that, right? I retired in 94, then I didn't play for five years and then I played doubles for six years because I really enjoyed it.
But yeah, 94 was my last year. And so I played my last match in the garden in New York, in November. It was a Tuesday. And my parents were with me. And on Friday, my mom said,
“I looked 10 years younger because all that stress was finally gone. So I think it's fair to say”
that you both contributed a lot to the state of women's tennis, the popularity of women's tennis,
because the rivalry between the two of you, these two amazing tennis players playing against each other.
That really attracted a lot of crowds. And it was a thing like your friendship and your rivalry together. It was a thing. It was a story in the press. People wanted to see it. And I'd like you each to talk a little bit about how you saw the state of women's tennis changing and what you think you contributed to that. Well, for me, I could sense that tennis was becoming more global after the Billie Jean King generation. Billie Jean,
we have to give full credit to her and the original nine for really working hard to to create a tour and provide that provide a good living for women's tennis players. And, you know, equal prize money, and she was the pioneer. But we were the next generation. And they needed us also to carry the torch. So when Martían and I came along, I think our rivalry brought it to another level, whole new level, because Martían and I brought our own
set of fans to the plate. And Martían, we were so different. She came from a communist country.
I came from America.
calm. So we both had our own set of fans. And I think we brought more eyeballs to the TV.
And we brought more bodies into stadiums. And that would, you know, in enhanced the game of women's tennis. What about younger players? No. You watch a lot of tennis. And you think that
“they're bringing something new to the table on helping to expand women's tennis?”
Yes. So both Chris and I do commentary for different channels. So we work at all the majors. So we're still, you know, have the finger on the pulse of the game. And yeah, because of TV tennis has become much more international. And then when you have a player from that country, then they, that that excels, then they, you know, they bring it to the new generation in their country and expand the map again. When Lina won the Australian Open, or the French Open,
was the first major. She won first Chinese player, first player from Asia, to win a major.
Oh my god, tennis exploded in China. And now you have a lot more players playing as Chinese players because of the of Lina paving the way for them. So every time you get, you get a player from a different country, the kind of expense the map in that way. And when the Williams sisters came along, we have now more women of color, playing and they were great influence to women all over the world.
“I think the players nowadays have more of a social conscience also. So they're good,”
they're very outspoken about what's going on in the world. And they're really good at,
at, you know, bringing these issues to their platform and talking about whether it's the mental
health or, you know, whatever, you know, it's not going to be a good topic. Exactly. Exclusion, you know, all this, that they tackle these subjects with class. And so I think that they're very bright that way. And you know, I think it's in a good state right now. Thank you both so much for being on our show. And thank you for participating in that documentary because it's really good. Thank you. Thank you. Chris Everett and Martina Neverita Lova
are the subjects of the new Netflix documentary Chris and Martina, the final set.
“We recorded our interview a couple of weeks ago, late last week,”
Everett disclosed she'd been diagnosed with a recurrence of ovarian cancer. We send her our best wishes. Tomorrow on fresh air, we'll talk about the conflicts between politics and the arts. Our guests will be Isaac Butler, author of the new book, the perfect moment. God, sex, art, and the birth of America's culture wars. Butler said the conflict had a transformative effect on him because at the same time the culture wars hurtled toward their climax, art saved his life.
I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh air is executive producer Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Stanachewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Philis Meyers and Rebuildenado, Lauren Crenzel, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thayachaliner, Cisinducundi,
and Abalman and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Sivine Esper. Rebuilder Shorap directs the show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. For instant clarity on world events, in just five minutes, listen to NPR News Now, new episodes drop every hour with the latest on US politics, international news, the economy, health, science, technology and more, five minutes is all it takes to get fully caught up
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