The measure of greatness in tennis is based around the number of Grand Slam titles a player has on their record, but Chris Evert believes that marker is not entirely accurate.
Novak Djokovic is widely hailed as the best male player of all-time after he secured more Grand Slam titles than his great rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
Women’s tennis great Margaret Court is currently tied with Djokovic with 24 Grand Slam titles and like Djokovic, a large percentage of her Grand Slam successes in singles at the Australian Open.
While the opening Grand Slam of the year in Melbourne is now a tournament that all the top players compete it, that was not the case in the 1970s, 1980s and even into the 1990s
Speaking exclusively to Tennis365, Evert has reflected on her own career and the number of times she didn’t make the long trip to play at the Australian Open.
The absence of some of the biggest names in women’s tennis opened the door for Court to build up her Grand Slam title haul, with Evert telling this website that the focus was on building the women’s game rather than personal glory.
Driven by Evert’s fellow tennis great Billie Jean King, the Women’s Tennis Association was founded in 1973 and their drive to build a platform for the women’s game centred around the promotion of their new Virginia Slims Tour.
So playing what was very much the fourth most important major in tennis was not a key part of the agenda for players of Evert’s gravitas.
The great American won the Australian Open in 1982 and 1984 as she joined the ranks of players to win all four major titles, yet she told this website that the obsessive attention given to Grand Slam tournaments has shifted since her days at the top.
“Winning Grand Slams was not a priority for us at that time,” Evert told Tennis365 while she was working for TNT Sports at Roland Garros.
“We were trying to create a tour that could possibly allow 200-300 women to have a tour that would allow them to earn a living.
“I missed 12 Australian Opens and three French Opens because our priority was playing the Virginia Slims Tour and trying to build that into a platform that could sustain women’s professional tennis. The men had people doing this for them, building their tour. We had to do that ourselves.
“It is to the credit of Billie Jean King and the women who led the way with her that they created a professional circuit that gave women a chance to earn a good living.
“There wasn’t any other professional women’s sports then, so what they did created a legacy that had an impact not just in tennis, but in so many sports to this day. Our sport paved the way, no doubt about that.
“In the early 1970s, when I was coming through in tennis, we got equal prize money with the men at the US Open for the first time. That was a big moment. Now we have it for all the Grand Slam tournaments and I don’t hear too many people questioning it.
“Maybe you could ask whether the men should play best of three sets rather than five, but I’m not sure. Tennis has been there for a long time and you don’t want to change too much.”
Evert was not alone in missing the Australian Open and that story continued into the 1990s, with Andre Agassi one of the big names who opted out of the January trip to Melbourne as he preferred to spend Christmas at home rather than play the opening major of the season.
“I didn’t play the Australian Open because I wanted to do something normal and that’s called Christmas and New Year’s,” Agassi said on a recent edition of the Serve with Andy Roddick podcast.
They are comments that look out of place in a modern game, but it does put some perspective on the notion that tennis greatness can be measured by the number of Grand Slam titles on your record.
