TIME Magazine

Evonne v. Chrissie

Posted Jul. 17, 1972 A tidy oasis of trim turf and ivy-covered buildings, the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club has stood since 1877 as a monument to British upper-class imperturbability. But last week Wimbledon, as the club is more commonly known, lost its haughty heart to the dusky daughter of an Australian sheepshearer and to a fair young girl from the middle-class groves of Florida. Evonne Goolagong, 20, as bubbling as the sound of her Aboriginal name, met cool, calm Chris Evert, 17, in the most publicized women's match since the glory days of Suzanne Lenglen and Helen Wills Moody. The fact that Evonne eventually lost the championship to California's Billie Jean King (6-3, 6-3) did little to diminish the excitement of her encounter with Chris in the semifinals.

Evonne Goolagong had stunned the world of women's tennis early last year when she defeated Grand-Slam Queen Margaret Court in the Victorian Championships at Melbourne; at Wimbledon last July she beat Mrs. Court again, winning the tournament in her second try. Chris Evert emerged as a strong contender last summer when she scored upset after upset to reach the semifinals of the U.S. Open at Forest Hills; then in a tournament in her home town of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., she trounced the redoubtable Billie Jean. Remarkably, last week's semifinal match at Wimbledon was the first time that the two young stars had faced each other across a net. Scalpers got up to $75 a ticket.

The two young ladies took the court before 14,000 spectators with no more visible signs of emotion than if they had been attending a high school prom. "How do you curtsy?" asked ponytailed Chris before they walked toward the royal box for the traditional pregame touch of pomp. "Just bob, that's all," replied curly-locked Evonne. Bob they did, quickly, with a wobble at their knees and a giggle in their throats. Then, on the court, each became herself again —the casual, smiling Australian against the intense, impassive American; the imaginative but sometimes erratic Evonne against the consistent but predictable Chrissie; a jazz drummer playing against a metronome.

Chrissie's relentless base-line drives helped her to win the first set and take the lead in the second, 3-0. Then Evonne, attacking her opponent's two-handed backhand with short, angled shots, swept seven games in a row to win the second set and move ahead in the third. Again Evonne fell behind; but again she came back, mixing the depth and direction of her shots to throw Chrissie off stride. On overhead and volleys, Evonne was clearly superior. In the end, she won the first meeting of the tennis princesses 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. But there are sure to be more. Said Chris: "I'm very satisfied with my first Wimbledon and, in a way, relieved. The next time I play Evonne, the pressure will be on her."

As for the men's singles championship, it was somewhat tarnished before it began. Wimbledon's snooty refusal to accept entries from the 32 professionals under contract to Dallas Promoter Lamar Hunt meant that such topflight players as Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, John Newcombe and Arthur Ashe were absent. As lesser lights scrambled over the Wimbledon courts, Newcombe was pursuing his sideline career as a commentator, Laver was vacationing in New Hampshire and Ken Rosewall was reposing in Sydney. The finalists—Corporal Stan Smith and Ilie Nastase of Rumania—did mount impressive performances as they volleyed their way into the finals. Smith wiped out the pride of Russian tennis, Alex Metreveli, and Czechoslovakia's Jan Kodes, while Nastase defeated the young American hopeful Jim Connors and Spain's Manuel Orantes. Still, after the show Chrissie and Evonne put on, the men's finals were clearly an anticlimax—underscored by a postponement at week's end because of British summer showers.