Winning Grand Slams wasn't our priority," admits Evert on differences between her era and modern tennis
Chris Evert is one of the legends of women's tennis, having won 18 Grand Slams during her career, 157 titles in total, and unsurprisingly held the world No. 1 ranking. The American notably holds the record for most titles at Roland Garros (7) and shares another with Serena Williams at the US Open (6).
During her time in Paris for TNT Sports, Evert gave an interview to Tennis365 in which she discussed the differences in how Grand Slams were managed and the priorities of her generation compared to today:
"Winning Grand Slams wasn't our priority. We were trying to build a tour that could allow 200 or 300 women to make a living from this sport. I missed 12 Australian Opens and 3 Roland Garros tournaments because our priority was playing the Virginia Slims Tour and making it a platform that could support professional women's tennis.
The men had people who built their tour. On our side, we had to do it ourselves. Credit must be given to Billie Jean King and the women who worked with her. They managed to create a professional women's circuit that gave women the opportunity to earn income.
In the early 70s, when I started, we had equal prize money with the men for the first time at the US Open. That was a big moment. Now, it's the case everywhere, and I don’t hear many people questioning that.
Perhaps we could ask whether men should play best-of-three sets instead of five, but I’m not sure. Tennis has been around for a while, and we shouldn’t change it too much.
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