Chris Evert was born on 21 December 1954 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Her father Jimmy, a teaching professional at the local Holiday Park who had won the men's singles title at the 1947 Canadian Championships, began coaching her when she was five, and her brother and sisters all played. She was too small and weak to hit a backhand with one hand, so she used two, and because it worked her father never changed it. The shot became her signature and was copied by players everywhere.
At 15 she beat Margaret Court, the world No. 1, who had just completed the Grand Slam. At her first major, the 1971 US Open, aged 16, she saved six match points against Mary Ann Eisel and went on to the semifinals. Her first major title came at the 1974 French Open, followed by Wimbledon that same summer, during a 55-match winning streak.
From August 1973 to May 1979 she did not lose a match on clay: 125 wins in a row across 24 tournaments, a streak nobody has come close to. She won at least one major every year for 13 years, from 1974 to 1986, and finished with 18 major singles titles: a record seven French Opens, six US Opens, three Wimbledons and two Australian Opens. She won 157 singles titles, and her record of 1,309 wins and 145 losses, a winning percentage above 90, is the best in professional tennis. From 1972 until she retired she was never ranked lower than fourth.
Her rivalry with Martina Navratilova began on 22 March 1973 and grew into a long friendship. She was president of the Women's Tennis Association from 1983 to 1991, and she was the first woman to earn $1 million on the tour. She retired in 1989; her final match was a win over Conchita Martínez in the Federation Cup final. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1995, and in 1996 she opened the Evert Tennis Academy with her father and her brother John.