Word: evert
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...finished. I had to save up to make a phone call." Later, while coaching tennis at the University of Toledo, he played in professional tournaments with a group of six stars (Jack Kramer and Pancho Gonzalez, among others) and, in Braden's words, six "donkeys," including himself and Chris Evert's father Jimmy. "The donkeys made a lot of people famous," Braden recalls. "The stars would beat us fast and then go out and see the city...
...Evert's popularity has far transcended tennis. She may be the most famous woman athlete in the U.S. and is almost certainly the most respected. She is admired by her peers, who last week re-elected her president of the Women's International Tennis Association, the players' governing body, and by corporations, twelve of which have signed her as a spokeswoman. She is adored by fans...
...dieted, lifted weights and practiced against men. Her career, launched at a time when many still professed to find something unfeminine in getting into shape and wanting to win, has helped legitimize running and sweating as suitable activities for two generations of women. Moralists hail her sportsmanship. In victory, Evert is exultant but not arrogant. In defeat, she congratulates opponents; she does not whine about maladies and misfortune. She has delighted feminists by regarding herself as a career woman and traditionalists by caring so openly about marriage and future babies...
With nothing left to prove, Evert has made her final year a kind of royal circuit. Yet she remains competitive enough that she nearly derailed the yearlong stately procession. After losing in April to 15-year-old Monica Seles, Evert feared her skills and toughness were eroding so rapidly that she should quit at once. Bypassing her beloved French Open, she watched at home as Seles proved herself no fluke but a budding superstar by reaching the semifinals; then losing to her seemed less shameful and ominous. Evert went on to Wimbledon, a tournament that had been her nemesis...
Many people thought Wimbledon should be Evert's last bow. But after half her life encircling the globe on the tour, Evert wanted to exit at home, with the Stars and Stripes aflutter. She foretold an eventual defeat, if not disaster. Yet from the moment she took the court in the opening round, dressed in royal purple, her departure, like all that had gone before it, was triumph, triumph...