Happy Birthday, Chris Evert

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Chris Evert and President George H.W. Bush
play tennis at Camp David in 1990.

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It may come as a bit of a shock if you're old enough to remember when she was squaring off regularly with Martina Navratilova in Grand Slam tennis tournaments.

But today is Chris Evert's 55th birthday.

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Chris Evert made her Grand Slam debut in the 1971 U.S. Open.

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In the mind's eye, of course, she is still young, still the teen–age Chris Evert who burst onto the sports scene with her famous two–handed backhand in the 1970s.

Evert dominated that decade; according to the Women's Tennis Association, she was the top–ranked singles player in 1975, 1976, 1977, 1980 and 1981. Depending upon the source, she was the top–ranked singles player in 1974 and 1978 as well.

Many young boys of that time had crushes on Evert, but her heart went, initially, to Jimmy Connors, also a star tennis player. It was dubbed a "love match," and the two even competed in mixed doubles in the 1974 U.S. Open, but the relationship did not last. In 1979, Evert married a British tennis player, John Lloyd, and began going by the name of Chris Evert–Lloyd. That marriage ended in 1987.

The next year, Evert married a downhill skier named Andy Mill. The marriage lasted until 2006 and produced three sons.

Evert married for a third time in 2008. Her third husband was golfer Greg Norman, but it was announced a couple of months ago that that marriage, too, was ending.

These days she runs a tennis academy in Boca Raton, Fla., helps coach a high school tennis team and contributes to Tennis Magazine.