Childhood
Chris Evert was born Christine Marie Evert on December 21, 1954, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida — the second of five kids in a family where tennis was the family business. Her father, Jimmy Evert, was the teaching pro at Holiday Park, a public tennis facility, and her mother Colette played too. All five kids learned the game; all five would eventually earn college tennis scholarships or turn pro (sister Jeanne played the tour; her three brothers each played No. 1 for their colleges).
She started lessons with her dad at around age 5. In her own words, from a Fantastic Tennis podcast interview: “I didn’t have any choice. I had a pretty strict father. You couldn’t answer back to him… he taught every single one of them, starting five years old.” She remembers being pulled from her best friend’s pool at 5 to go hit at Holiday Park, and being furious about it — and suppressing it, because she was afraid of getting spanked.
The Evert childhood is a useful corrective to the academy era: it happened on public courts, at no cost. As Evert has said about the family finances: with five kids playing at scholarship or pro level, “my dad didn’t have to spend a cent.”
What set them apart EARLY
Jimmy Evert was a pragmatist, not a romantic. When 6-year-old Chris couldn’t generate power with a one-handed backhand, he just said, try it with two hands. She kept it forever. Asked about it decades later (in a 1971 interview), she said it simply: she didn’t have the strength for one hand, two hands gave her more power, and she’d used it ever since. That improvised fix became one of the most influential shots in tennis history — Evert was among the first to use the two-handed backhand as a weapon against the world’s best, and it kicked off the revolution that made two-handers the modern default.
The other thing was composure — or the construction of it. At 12, Evert started cussing and breaking rackets in practice. Her father stopped her cold: “If you show your opponent that you are upset, they are gonna be really happy about that and they are gonna go uh-huh, I have her. Don’t show your opponent any emotion and I promise you that will give you like two games a set.” She took the advice so completely she was nicknamed “The Ice Maiden,” and she still calls it good advice today.
But Evert herself credits something less coachable: “The hunger that I had… I wanted it more than anybody.” The fire was internal.
How they trained as juniors
No academy, no boarding school, no six-figure budget. Evert trained at Holiday Park’s public courts under her father, alongside her siblings and a local group that included future pros like Harold Solomon and Brian Gottfried. Tennis writer Peter Bodo later called it “perhaps the premier junior-development program in Florida” before Bollettieri’s — and it was a public park.
Her junior-to-pro bridge came fast: at 15, in an eight-player clay-court event in Charlotte, North Carolina, she beat world No. 1 Margaret Court — who had just completed the Grand Slam — 7–6, 7–6 in the semifinals. She was the youngest player ever selected for the U.S. Wightman Cup team. At 16 she debuted at the 1971 US Open and reached the semifinals, saving six match points in the second round — ending a 46-match winning streak she’d built through junior events.
The through-line to pro success
Evert became the first-ever WTA world No. 1 when computer rankings launched in 1975, and she spent 260 weeks there. She won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, at least one every year from 1974 to 1986. From 1973 to 1979 she won 125 consecutive matches on clay, dropping only eight sets. Her career record was 1,309–146 — still the best win-loss percentage in professional tennis history. She retired in 1989.
What tennis parents can take from this
1. You don’t need the expensive path — but you need a great home court. Evert’s whole career was built on public courts and a father who was a genuine teaching pro. The lesson isn’t “do it yourself”; it’s that coaching quality and reps matter more than facilities. If you have access to a good local pro and consistent court time, that’s a real development path. Don’t let marketing convince you otherwise.
2. Teach the between-points game early. Jimmy Evert’s advice — don’t hand your opponent your emotions, worth “two games a set” — is something a 10-year-old can practice today. Composure isn’t personality; it’s a trained habit. If your kid melts down, that’s a coaching problem to solve calmly, not a character flaw.
3. Parent-coaches: give them the phone treatment. Jimmy Evert deliberately didn’t attend many of Chris’s matches, following results by phone instead. If you’re coaching your own kid, sometimes not being there is the most valuable move — let them problem-solve alone. A kid who learns to think for themselves at 12 has a weapon at 16.
Sources: Britannica; EssentiallySports (Evert interviews); Tennis.com; WTA records.
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