Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Martina Navratilova had the physical edge. As a child she was selected by the Communists as a potentially prize-winning athlete, based on bone structure and musculature. She was a fighting machine who quickly mastered any sport she was exposed to, and when she was willing to concentrate no one could beat her on Center Court. Chris Evert by contrast was all concentration. She didn't have the latent strength and pounding ability of her most famous rival, but she had a mental game that wouldn't quit. She knew how to be efficient with every shot, she was patient, she could come back to win slowly after initial defeat, and do it with a little-girl innocence that made her the press's darling.
Martina was the woman the press loved to hate. They hated her for saying she was a lesbian (others were but no one said so, and Billie Jean King famously tried to cover up her sexual history when confronted with a palimony suit). They hated her for looking mannish and acting like a bully against pretty girls like Chrissie and Tracey Austin. They hated her for her big mouth and her uncompromising kookiness.
No one suspected that Chrissie, as tall and dominant as Martina, was not all Pollyanna. She had her affairs, her rages, and her wild moments on tour. The women, thanks in large part to ground broken by Billie Jean, were superstars. They were as adored as many rock musicians. Chris had only to pen a short note on a napkin to land a date with Burt Reynolds, known in his heyday as a Hollywood sex machine. Martina was coached by a woman who had been a man, Renee Richards --- dated by the mercurial author Rita Mae Brown --- who put a bullet through her car windshield, and was followed by the secret police when she went on a world tour.
They were grand figures living in grand times. Martina appears in photographs beginning with her fluffy hair and youthful chubbiness and leading on to her militant bangs and sepulchrally thin look, all muscle and long bones. Chris never really changed. They were of similar height, blondish, handsome women. They both had a steely gaze and gave up not one point that they didn't have to. They paved the way for the ones who came after and lifted women's tennis off the fourth page of the sports section to the front page, with some notable appearances in the scandal sheets.
Johnette Howard, a sports columnist, has examined their lives in rich and believable detail, revealing the moments when each on separate occasions collapsed in tears after a match, when each had shocking love affairs, when each beat the other stroke by grueling stroke, and when both supported the other. No one but Chris could truly understand what Martina went through, and vice versa. They were, for a few bright years, all there was to watch.
--- Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Rivals: Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova Their Epic Duels and Extraordinary Friendship
0 comments:
Post a Comment