Navratilova and Evert, a 50-year rivalry. The double battle against cancer - Corriere.it

Navratilova and Evert, a 50-year rivalry.  The double battle against cancer - Corriere.it


Of Gaia Piccardi

On March 22, 1973, in Akron, Ohio, Martina and Chris played each other for the first time 80 times over a fifteen-year period. The anniversary on the day in which the queen of 18 Grand Slams announces victory over cancer, also badly defeated by the American

I feared not making it to Christmas, I jotted down a list of things to do in case I was told I'd only live one more year, like what luxury car I'd like to drive. Instead I can say that I am healed. Two more weeks of radiotherapy, and I'm done.

Interviewed by British TV presenter Piers Morgan, Martina Navratilova is moved. The two tumors (throat and breast, the latter already diagnosed and treated in 2010) discovered at the beginning of the year (It all started from an enlarged lymph node, which I had attributed to vaccination against herpes zoster...) are in remission, the comings and goings between Florida (where he lives with his wife Julia Lemigova, Miss Ussr '90: the couple was about to adopt a child when Martina entered her path of illness, the project only postponed) and New York (where curing) at the terminus. It is no coincidence that the announcement of the recovery of the champion of 18 singles Grand Slam titles, 66 years old, comes on the eve of the anniversary of the longest rivalry in the history of tennis: on March 22, 1973, that is exactly 50 years agoin the round of 32 of the Akron (Ohio) tournament Martina Navratilova faced archrival Chris Evert for the first of 80 times (43-37)a challenge that would last until 1988, the last act of the Chicago tournament, one of the 60 finals (14 in Grand Slam trials) that the two great former enemies shared in their careers.

At the antipodes at the beginning — a Czech from Revnice in the middle of the Iron Curtain, the other American from Florida, daughter of a good tennis teacher, immediately elected America's sweetheart and destined to marry Jimmy Connors -, inseparable in the end, when Navratilova had already been American for years having defected from the communist regime of her country of origin, very different in style (serve and volley Martina, counter-attacker from the baseline Chris, bearer of a textbook two-handed backhand) but united by a similar fate. Both healed from cancer, Navratilova even twice, one architrave for the other: Navratilova and Evert were each other the mirror in which to look at each other's reflections to scrutinize strengths and weaknesses, white hair and cellulite, strong points and weak points, joys and sadnesses, victories and defeats. Without Navratilova there would have been no Evert, and vice versa.

When I started chemo – says Martina -, my agent asked close friends to send me an encouragement song. Billie Jean King chose I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor; Chris sent me Lean on Me by Bill Whiters. When I think about the text, I get chills: lean on me when you don't feel strong enough, I'm your friend, I'll help you move forward.... So it's no wonder that Evert was Navratilova's shoulder on cried during the bloody divorce from Judy Nelson (it was 1991) and Martina the friend Chris first confided in failure of marriage to Andy Millformer skier, father of her three children, left for golfer Greg Norman.

As a bridesmaid, Chris put the finishing touches to Martina's white tuxedo the day he married Lemigova and Martina held Chris's hand during the six rounds of chemotherapy to force the ovarian cancer to surrender. At the beginning she was just an opponent: I had to beat her – explained Chris -. And Martina had a coach (Nancy Lieberman, ed) who told her that to defeat me she would have to hate me. So it's hard to be friends. But as our career progressed we relaxed, the Federation Cup for the USA brought us together, we did the rest. When my sister Jeanne died, Martina never left me alone for a moment. And the moment the competition faded, we became inseparable.

March 22, 2023 (change March 22, 2023 | 09:05)



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