A PAIR BEYOND COMPARE
The most curious thing about rivalries in sports is how few pure ones there really are. Most, like Harvard vs. Yale in The Game, are institutional, and though the fans and the uniforms remain constant, the players do not. The Celtics and the Lakers may indeed be a great rivalry on the printed pages, but how does Bill Russell vs. Elgin Baylor compare with Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson of another generation? So often, too, legendary rivals actually faced off against one another on far fewer occasions than memory tells us. How many times, please, did Snead and Hogan really go hole to hole? Dempsey and Tunney squared off only twice.
Besides, the trouble with great rivalries is that while we like to think they seesaw, they don't. Oh, to be sure, every Alydar has his day, but one or the other is usually better. Not necessarily by a whole lot, but just enough. Jimmy Connors couldn't have caught up with Bjorn Borg if they'd played till the cows came home, and Borg knew the jig was up as soon as John McEnroe got his number, so he hung it up. In that heated Celtics-Lakers rivalry, it took Los Angeles a quarter of a century to take Boston's measure.
Probably that is why people like to speculate endlessly on questions about rivalries that never were. Who was better, Ruth or Mays, Man o' War or Secretariat, Baugh or Unitas, Julius Caesar or Napoleon? Rivalries of that kind tend to be better than the real ones. You can always order another round of beers and go on proving the unprovable. Listen, if Carl Lewis had been running in 1936, Jesse Owens would have blown by him. Hey, two more drafts over here. Are you kidding me? If he were in his prime today, Sugar Ray Robinson would knock Marvin Hagler's block off. And get this straight: Chris Evert Lloyd couldn't have stayed on the same court with Martina Navratilova if they'd ever played each other. Yo, bartender, a couple more.
Chris and Martina are like that. Chris and Martina have played each other for so long and so well and so often it doesn't seem real. Chris and Martina. Like cabaret singers: NOW APPEARING NITELY—MARTINA! DIRECT FROM VEGAS TO OUR PIANO BAR—CHRIS! Even Ms. magazine did a long article on Chris and Martina and called them, throughout, Chris and Martina. They first met back in 1973 and they've played 67 matches since then, in 14 consecutive calendar years, in 31 cities on four continents, squaring off 13 times alone in the finals of Grand Slam championships. And they're a good bet to show up in the finals of the French Open on June 8. During all but a minuscule portion of their rivalry, one or the other has been No. 1 in the world, and by now they are inextricably, symbiotically bound in history. Yet curiously, wonderfully, although they have competed for so long, they have carved out somewhat different universes, so no one could fairly say, for posterity, who might be the better. Chris, the more consistent, casts the longer shadow, while Martina, the more sensational, shines the brighter light. Together, they form a complete whole. There has never been a rivalry like it in women's sports.
You could even leave out the qualifying gender and be correct.
Although Evert Lloyd, 31 last Dec. 21, is less than two years older than Navratilova, and Navratilova, a perfect size 8, stands a modest 5'7½", only one dress size larger and one and a half inches taller than Chris, many people are under the illusion that Evert Lloyd is much older, and that Navratilova is a gruff Amazon who could jam little Chrissie into her pocket. Circumstances conspired to create these misconceptions.
The first time Martina ever laid eyes on the older woman was at the Fort Lauderdale Tennis Club in March 1973. Although only 18, Chris had been one of the top players in the world for two years, while Martina, at 16, had been breathlessly following her career, mostly through the pages of World Tennis, which a cousin in Canada mailed to her in Czechoslovakia. Everything about the tour, everything about America, left Martina gaga. Sure enough, one day, outside the clubhouse in the fabled Florida sun, there sat Christine Marie Evert playing backgammon. Martina's Czech escort said hello and Chris responded in kind, also tossing a polite smile to the young stranger. "I can remember it like it was yesterday," Martina says.
Chris has no recollection of that day whatsoever. "I'll bet Martina says she got goose bumps," she says.
Exactly. And shivers.
As for Chris, her first remembrance of Martina is from an occasion a few weeks later. The tour had gone north from Florida, and in Akron on March 22, 1973, before a crowd of a few hundred unsuspecting sentinels of history, Evert had beaten the unknown Czech 7-6, 6-3 in a first-round match. Martina was "thrilled to death" to draw Chris and even more pleased with her own performance. Back in Florida, in St. Pete, the week following, Chris glanced up from where she was sunning herself and saw this chubby vision approaching the pool.
Martina, 20 pounds overweight, was wearing a hideous bathing suit—wild-and-crazy-guys stuff, distaff division—and worse, she had all the wrong tan marks. To heighten the effect, she was sucking on a Popsicle. Chris shook her head and chuckled to herself: "This girl must have guts. She's got to have guts to walk around like that."
But Evert came to understand, soon enough, that Navratilova was "oblivious to everything because she was just so happy to be in a free country." It was only 29 months later, in September 1975, that they met for the first time in the U.S. Open. By then they had played each other a dozen times since Akron, and Navratilova had won twice. They had faced off for the first time in the finals of a Grand Slam event, the '75 French Open, with Evert winning, and they had even won the doubles at the French together. In fact, they had become fast friends, and Chris was one of only a handful of people who knew what Martina planned to do. After Chris beat her 6-4, 6-4 in the semis of the '75 U.S. Open, Martina went to Manhattan and defected.
By contrast, Chris was comfortably located on the Baseline of Life from an early age, tutored by her father, dressed in frilly jumpers by her mother, constitutionally disciplined by an unwavering will. Even now she estimates that more than three-fourths of her wins can be attributed to her concentration. And, Chris admits, it has been only in the last couple of years, as she has tried to broaden her game, that she has come to appreciate how much more difficult it is for a serve-and-volleyer like Martina to develop.
Chrissie was brought up on the court in clockwork gray—the Ice Lolly, the British quickly tabbed her—the totally safe and predictable game from the child who grew up in the Brady Bunch, surrounded by the most loving of families. She was so perfectly responsive to all the right things off the court (as on) that her mother took to calling her Hiddy, which came from Hideous Creature, which, of course, she never was. Neither as a person nor as a player did Chrissie have to grow up. She slid up. And everything was hunky-dory "as long as I was in control."
No two rivals could have evolved along more different lines. Martina not only had to develop a more complex game and adjust to the faster courts that favored her style, but, in leaving her home, she had to abandon a culture, learn a new language, fathom new mores, adapt to a different (and free) society...and, to boot, lose weight. As if all that weren't enough for any child-woman, Martina also began to realize that, sexually, she was attracted to women.
Her performance on court was erratic, to say the least. It's amazing that it ever rose above the level of frenzy. Stories abound of Martina wiping away tears after some traumatic episode, then going out to play the match of her life. "Yes," she says, "there have been times when the court had to be my sanctuary. But people are wrong to say I need turmoil to succeed. Just because it had to be a sanctuary sometimes doesn't mean I want it that way."
Unlike Martina, Chris never uses the court to rise above vicissitude. Chris has said that if the burdens of life are too great, "my heart isn't in tennis, and I don't even want to go on court." In 1978 Navratilova won her first Wimbledon and beat Evert Lloyd in an important match for the first time because Chris had just met John Lloyd. The imperturbable Miss Concentration, daydreaming about her beau, chucked the championship in the last set. "If you've ever been in love," she says, "you'll know how that match didn't mean all that much to me."
She tosses that off matter-of-factly, in no way trying to alibi or diminish the winner's reward. Perhaps no victory in their series meant so much as Chris's at the French Open last year. She had not beaten Navratilova in a major championship since 1982. At one point Martina had won 13 matches in a row. At one point she had won 16 sets in a row. Friends had suggested that Chris do the honorable thing and fold her tent. John spoke of how "the biological clock was ticking." One of her advisers, Dennis Ralston, says, "It was obvious she didn't have any confidence."
But when she did win the French in three exquisitely excruciating sets, Chris was able, coolly, to glance over at Martina when they stood on the victory stand and assess her reaction. "I thought to myself," Chris says, " 'How well she's taking this.' And then I knew, for sure, that she hadn't been as up for this as I was. I mean, after all those wins, and then she'd lost the Grand Slam in Australia, the streak. Yeah, she didn't really care that much—and that took something off it."
Chris shrugs at the memory. The two have played each other so often under so many circumstances that they are much better at accepting the uneven reality of each situation than are most of the experts around them. Nobody ever said it was going to be fair 68 times running. Supporters of one or the other are forever saying that the loser wasn't at her best on such and such a day. Well, of course. The chances of both players coming up to a big match in the pink in every way is remote. The very first time they played in a Grand Slam final, in Paris in 1975, one of them got her period moments before they went out on court, and both of them spent what time was left searching the locker room for a tampon.
It is not just that they have met each other 68 times—and most of those in big finals. They dress together before the matches, wait together, and then, when it is done, return together to the same locker room, to wind down, even to shower and dress alongside one another. "We don't know any better," Martina says with a laugh. That's just the way the sport works—forced intimacy that is perhaps even harder for the winner in that she can't be allowed to exult in victory.
They talk easily before their matches. Sometimes they exchange snacks; Martina shared a bagel with Chris when the men's semifinal at the 1984 U.S. Open ran on interminably. "We joke around some," Martina says. "You see, we're both secure within ourselves, so we don't have to play any games.
"I think we can relate because it takes a certain mentality to do what we do on that level. I think we're more alike than we know, and I think we've drawn even closer in the last year. I guess we both sense it's getting toward the end."
Chris: "When you think about it, when Martina and I play, we're there, before and after, stripped of everything. Literally naked. But more than that, we've both seen the other be so vulnerable. We've seen each other hurt and crying. That draws you so close. It almost takes the fun out of winning. We both have to be so considerate of the one who has lost. But you know, maybe the most revealing thing of all about how we feel about each other is that never once, no matter how tough the loss, never once has one of us said to the other, 'I'm sorry, but can you leave me alone?' Never once."
The last time they played in a Grand Slam final, in Melbourne in December, the No. 1 ranking for the year was on the line, and so when Chris lost in three sets, Martina found her especially devastated. But the match had built up so much tension that they both ended up crying.
"I know how you feel, so I can't enjoy this," Martina said.
"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine," Chris said.
Once or twice a year they find themselves having an involved heart-to-heart conversation. They don't schedule it; it just happens. "Last year it was at Wimbledon," Chris says. "It's always a very meaningful talk, and it's deep, and I know that because it carries over. Ten years ago we were closer, because we were hanging out together, but we know each other better now. We're opponents on the court, but in the locker room, then, the way I see it, we're part of something. Martina and I are linked, whether we like it or not."
Two years ago, when Navratilova finally caught up with Evert Lloyd, tying their match record at 30-all, the first thing she said was, "I wish we could quit right now and never play each other again, because it's not right for either one of us to say we're better."
The extended rivalry has three fairly distinct phases. Evert dominated the first, winning 20 of the 25 matches, from Akron to the falling-in-love Wimbledon of '78. The middle stage runs from that tournament through the Australian Open that Chris won at the end of 1982—a period in which Martina took 13 of their 23 matches. They were closer competitively during those years than the figures indicate, for Evert Lloyd actually won more Slam titles and posted a better overall record than Navratilova. Both of them wandered a bit in the wilderness during this time, as Martina's personal life fell into disarray under public scrutiny. But even Chris suffered some uncharacteristic distractions of her own, what with love and marriage and doubt.
Finally there is the third stage, Navratilova Rampant, which extends through today. Martina leads 18-2, their last meeting being a 6-2, 6-1 shellacking of Chris in Dallas in March that both competitors think was as powerful a match as Navratilova has ever played. Martina is now ahead of Chris 36-32 in matches, 86-75 in sets, 775-730 in games (which, estimating 6.5 points a game, means they've played 9,782 points against one another). Navratilova also leads 18-14 indoors, 8-5 on grass and 8-5 on cement; Evert Lloyd leads 8-2 on clay. Martina has won six of the 11 tiebreakers they've played (they've never played two tiebreakers in the same match), while Chris has won 13 of the 24 matches that have gone three sets. Navratilova is dramatically ahead in Grand Slam finals, 10-3 (including all seven of their Wimbledon and U.S. Open meetings), but Martina acknowledges that that figure is a bit misleading, inasmuch as in the early years, when Evert dominated, Navratilova only made one final against her, while in the recent past Chris consistently beat everybody else to get to the final. Martina has played in only six other Grand Slam finals (she's 3-3), while Chris has gone 14-5 in Grand Slam finals. "They always used to say I choked in the big ones," Martina says, "but the real truth is I had trouble getting to the finals."
Against all comers, Martina tied the record in 1983-84 with six straight Grand Slam titles, and her 74 consecutive winning matches broke Chris's mark of 55. Martina also won eight straight Grand Slam doubles tournaments and 109 doubles matches (with Pam Shriver) and a total of 19 Grand Slam doubles titles. Doubles have been no more than a bagatelle to Chris, though she has won three Grand Slam doubles. Two of those were partnered by Martina a decade ago before they amicably broke up because Chris wanted to concentrate on singles.
Consistency, of course, is what sets Evert Lloyd apart from almost any other athlete, and she boasts two achievements either of which could make even students of Joe DiMaggio pay attention. From 1971 through 1983 Chris made no less than the semifinals in Grand Slam championships 34 straight times before she suffered a debilitating stomach virus and was upset by Kathy Jordan in the third round at Wimbledon. "Unbelievable," Martina said with awe when the defeat caused statisticians to reexamine the record. (Since then Chris has made another 10 straight semis or finals, going 44 of 45 over 15 years.) Perhaps even more incredible, Evert Lloyd has won at least one Slam title in each of the last 12 years. Chris generously credits Billie Jean King with "making us celebrities" and Martina with "making us athletes," and, she says, "I'm never going to be listed as the greatest player or anything like that," though her longevity is perhaps an even more remarkable phenomenon. In a national poll conducted recently by the Women's Sports Foundation, Evert Lloyd was a runaway choice as the outstanding female athlete of the past 25 years.
But there is something, well, unjust in the way that, no matter how accomplished Martina may be, her ability is verified only through Chris. In years past it was not uncommon for Martina to start off a year indoors with a string of victories, while Chris drifted into the season, picking her spots. But no matter how many matches Martina won—and as early as 1978 she took 37 in a row—everybody would yawn and say, well, so what, Chrissie's not here—or this isn't Chrissie's best surface, or Chrissie's getting married, or Chrissie's getting separated—so we can't take any of this Martina stuff seriously.
By contrast, Chris hardly needed Martina to certify her talent. She had been paired with all sorts of rivals: with the Old Lady, Billie Jean King (youth vs. guile); with her winsome contemporary, Evonne Goolagong (machine vs. whimsy) and with her baby clone, Tracy Austin (Betamax vs. VHS), before the public acknowledged that Martina could be a proper co-star for Chrissie.
Even then Martina had to accept the role of the villain. Although Chris had gone through a time when she was considered tediously too good for her own good, it was Martina's bad luck to come into the act when Chris was appearing as vulnerable and as human as the girl next door. At their terrific match at the U.S. Open in '84, when Martina was in her juggernaut year, the crowd came off as nothing less than a hanging jury.
Of course, Martina's private life caused her some public disaffection. Tennis boys can be controversial; tennis girls are left with the apple pie image. On top of everything else, it was Navratilova's misfortune that she hooked up with Chris when the conservative tide was running. Martina would have fared better, say, as an antihero in the 1960s. And while she has (if grudgingly) been accorded full marks for her talent, qualities such as her wit and kindness have been overlooked. "I never get enough credit for being a good sport, gracious in defeat and victory," she says—and she's quite right.
The two are extremely popular among their colleagues and divide active leadership in the Women's Tennis Association. Their affection for one another is genuine and was tested only briefly a few years ago, when Martina's friend and trainer, Nancy Lieberman, kept roiling the waters in the belief that there should be no such thing as friendly rivals.
Pressed to find fault with her friend, Chris will say that Martina's cocky body language—strutting and slapping her thighs, all that neo-Connors stuff—once piqued her. But Evert Lloyd says, "The only thing about her that's ever really bugged me" is Navratilova's penchant for "telling the press how great she is, instead of letting the record speak for itself. But, there's not so much of that stuff anymore, so she must be more secure now."
Like Chris, Martina has to struggle to cooperate and be critical of her foe, though she wishes that Chris could be more forthcoming in distributing praise to other players. "It was only a couple of years ago in Dallas," Martina says, "that I ever beat Chris in a match and she agreed that I played well to beat her—rather than her just not playing very well."
It's hardly the hair-pulling and backbiting stuff of Dynasty. "Chris and Martina promote themselves very well," King says, chuckling. They're also such good friends that they make sure to check out any personal remark that the other is alleged to have made. They long ago pledged not to take the bait from reporters and respond to anything the other was supposed to have said—like the obvious fomentation stirred up in the previous couple of paragraphs. They also stay in contact to coordinate their playing schedules, not so much to avoid facing each other too often, but to spread themselves as thin as possible at the box office for the good of the game.
Curiously, away from tennis, it is Martina, the bleached blonde Czech bisexual defector, who leads the more homey, traditional suburban American life. Settled in Fort Worth near her beautiful and supportive friend, Judy Nelson, she is a happy part of Nelson's extended family and of the community. She has hopes that her own parents might leave Czechoslovakia and join her in Texas. "I have much more peace now," Martina says—and those who know her well, Chris included, agree. It is also true that after being wounded by the public and the press in the past, she has become more guarded about her personal life.
In comparison, Chris exhibits a more expressive and confident public persona, and while she is the precious little parochial schoolgirl from the Sunbelt who married one of the five or six best-looking men in the English-speaking world, her everyday life is much more atypical than Martina's. Chris and John are away at different tournament venues for much of the year, and even when they are together they don't have a place they think of as their home.
This particular day they are sunning at their vacation condo near Palm Springs. John has found some London newspapers and, to be devilish, holds up page three of The Sun, where a choice bare-breasted beauty resides every day. Chris makes a suitable noise in response. Until so rudely interrupted, she was talking about the future. "Whenever I do quit—"
But you can't quit until at least a year goes by when you fail to win a Grand Slam title.
"I can't quit till then?"
No, it would be unconscionable just to give up that record.
"Oh, thanks. Well, when I do quit, I don't want to be pregnant two months later. I want to have some real time with John. The way it is now, with our schedules, I feel like we're still dating. This isn't real. But I know that. It's got to be grown-up time soon."
She closes her eyes for a second, and then opens them and looks at her husband across the pool. "I'm restless," she says. "I'm never satisfied. Maybe I have too much pride. Or is that really ego? It's only when I put everything on the line when I feel most complete. So restless. Look at Martina. Or Jimmy [Connors] or McEnroe. We're all very different people, but we're all restless, all perfectionists, all with a lot of pride...."
Ego?
A smile. "We probably don't have a lot of peace inside. Look at John. He knows exactly what makes him happy. He always tells me I'm looking for things that just aren't there." But that's why she's still playing Martina. If Chris wasn't that way, she would have heard the biological clock ticking and packed it in a couple of years ago, when Martina was beating her time and again, when "Martina had become a goddess, and I was just like all the other girls."
It is Navratilova's aggressive domination of the game that has pushed the rivalry to higher and higher levels of proficiency. When, during a rain delay at Wimbledon last year, the BBC ran a tape of the '78 final, both women laughed with embarrassment over their championship play of only a few years ago. "When I was Number One for five years in a row, all I wanted was to stay the same," Chris says. "I was very cautious. But even as Number One, Martina has been striving for a new plateau, and I really give her credit for that."
Of course, as King points out, the two champions have stood so far above the hoi polloi that they have the luxury to experiment. "When you've got four or five real contenders, the way we used to," King says, "you don't feel so comfortable."
Martina has also been blessed with two coaches—Renee Richards and, currently, Mike Estep—who have encouraged her to be strategically and athletically innovative. "When I first started playing, it was easy," Chris says. "I just hit it to the other girl's backhand. Now you can't do that, because they're prepared for that, and they'll return it crosscourt on an angle, and you'll have to come in, and all of a sudden you've got to think four shots ahead. Martina computerized tennis. I used to look up in the stands, and there was [Robert] Haas, her nutritionist, and he was typing stuff out while we played. But if I laughed, it worked for her."
Navratilova's regard for her rival's game has increased in proportion to how her own game has leapt ahead. Simply put, Martina has no concern that any other baseliner can stay on the court with her, so that to her, Evert Lloyd is like some cavalryman sallying forth against a tank—and actually holding his own. Estep, the coach, puts it most succinctly: "Martina has really made this game very simple for anybody who plays her. You either come to the net and attack Martina—or you lose. Now you won't necessarily win if you come in—in fact, you'll almost surely still lose—but it's your only chance. What Chris does is phenomenally difficult: just go out there and never miss a ball for hours and have the nerves to know you have to pass your opponent every time she comes in."
Chris has worked with weights and she has changed her practice habits to shore up the weak elements of her game—serve and overhead, a better backhand down the line; and she'll even attack off more short balls now—but she still comes to the dance with the same steps that made her a champion. It's much more in Martina's nature to be novel and adventuresome. "Usually Martina studies tapes and patterns and all that," Chris says, "while Dennis [Ralston] and John just sort of pat me on the back and send me out there with one sentence: 'Now, don't worry, Chris, the pressure's on her.' Gee, thanks, guys."
Generally speaking, their matches used to be longer, with Chris dominating the tempo, but even she is not quite the patient figure she once was. As Martina says, "We play much more of a cat-and-mouse game now." In recent years, Martina has been more prone to hit wide to Chris's backhand, trying to take her out of the court, while Chris is more likely to hit to Martina's powerful forehand. Even if that's Navratilova's stronger side, Chris knows that it's more natural to chip and charge off the backhand, so she tries to hold her rival back from the net.
Martina possesses the psychological advantage of having walked in Chris's shoes. "I used to feel that I had to play my best to beat her, but that she didn't have to play that well to beat me," Navratilova says, "but now it's the reverse, and I know exactly how much pressure she feels when she steps on the court." Beyond that, Martina has even convinced herself that she's under less tension when Evert Lloyd is the opponent. "Sure," she says, "the pressure's off with Chris because she's such a great champion, so there's no disgrace in losing to her, and I can open it up."
That notion leaves Chris flabbergasted. "Oh, no," she says, "I feel much more pressure against her. First, I know her and her game so well and all that our matches mean. And number two—and maybe you can forget number one—I know how happy I'm going to be if I win."
Still, Martina never forgets how special a match with Chris is, and according to Estep, even now, whatever the surface, "Martina never forgets what Chris can do. So all during a tournament she keeps in mind that Chris will be there in the final." By now, of course, if one of them doesn't win a major tournament, it's almost as if it isn't for real. Of course this doesn't happen very often: exactly once in the last 17 Grand Slams, when Hana Mandlikova won last year's U.S. Open. As Martina puts it: "The easiest thing about Chris or me winning a tournament is that we don't have to beat both Chris and me to do that."
There are, ultimately, a number of factors that account for why this particular rivalry has endured. On the simplest level, they are two athletes who rarely get hurt, who have a shared determination to survive. That they possess opposing styles and complementary personalities no doubt has made the competition more attractive and their own rivalry more tolerable. It is also crucial that, while they are contemporaries, they have taken turns ruling, so they have not knocked each other out, but have served, in turn, to carry each other ahead.
Above all, they have developed a shared-foxhole mentality that is otherwise absent in big-time sports today. "Martina and I have a relationship exactly like the old days on tour, when the guys were together, playing a different city every night," Chris says. "We've been through so much together, some tough times, a lot of ups and downs."
"I know, whatever, I'll always stay in touch with Chris," Martina says. "It'll be easier for us when the tennis is over. It's always good with us, though, and because she's such a good person, I feel that much better when I do beat her. This past year meant more to me than the year before, because she was playing so much better, and I had to come through against Chris to win."
There is something special about having to dress for action beside your opponent, to have to come back with her, to console her in the defeat you caused, or to salute her in the victory she took from you, to cry and hug, and then go in the shower area together, to maybe trade perfume, to stand side by side in a mirror, seeing yourself and your alter ego together. Any triumph means more because, win or lose, and whatever the record books say, both of you have come to be a part of each victory and each defeat and never all of one or the other.
PHOTO
GERARD RANCINAN/SYGMA
When Chris won the 1985 French Open, even the loser joined in the celebration.
PHOTO
ART SEITZ/GAMMA-LIAISON
The '85 French win was Evert Lloyd's first defeat of Martina in a major since 1982.
PHOTO
STEVE POWELL/ALL-SPORT
Martina is 10-3 against Chris in Slam finals, including her Wimbledon victory last year.
PHOTO
PAUL TOPLE/AKRON BEACON JOURNAL
Chris (above) first met—and beat—her rival in '73; Martina was plumper in '75.
PHOTO
RUSS ADAMS
[See caption above.]
PHOTO
ART SEITZ/GAMMA-LIAISON
As a doubles team, Chris and Martina took Wimbledon in 1976 and one other Slam title.
PHOTO
ART SEITZ
As her husband John can attest, Chris's work with weights has given her new strength.
PHOTO
MICHEL COLOMBO/GAMMA-LIAISON
MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: "Mar"
PHOTO
MICHAEL BAZ
CHRIS EVERT LLOYD: "Hiddy"
PHOTO
KATHRYN DUDEK/PHOTO NEWS
Martina has adjusted to being the villain...
PHOTO
WALTER IOOSS JR.
...while Chris has seemed vulnerable.
PHOTO
ART SEITZ
A familiar Wimbledon scene: The rivals curtsy before vying for another championship.
MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: "Mar"
Born: Oct. 18, 1956
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Libra
5'7½", 145, lefthanded
When Martina escapes, she likes to go "into the mountains"
Favorite color: RED
Favorite expression: "HOLY MACARONI!"
Favorite food: MANDARIN DUCK
Favorite actor: HARRISON FORD
Favorite actress: KATHARINE HEPBURN
Pet peeve: getting into tournament parking lots
Hobbies: WATCHING OLD MOVIES, SKIING, GOLF
Favorite song: "MEMORY"
Where Mar hopes to be in 2001: "In one piece"
CHRIS EVERT LLOYD: "Hiddy"
Born: Dec. 21, 1954
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Sagittarius
5'6", 120, righthanded
When Chris escapes, she "gets a massage"
Favorite color: TURQUOISE
Favorite movie: "THE SOUND OF MUSIC"
Favorite book: "THE THORN BIRDS"
Favorite actor: MICHAEL KEATON
Favorite actress: MERYL STREEP
Pet peeve: pilots who don't come on the intercom and reassure passengers when the plane starts bumping
Hobbies: DECORATING HOUSES, WRITING
Favorite song: "EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE"
Where Hiddy hopes to be in 2001: "At peace with myself, fulfilled, stimulated and a happy mother"