Two+Great+Champions

30 for 30



Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert



No two athletes have met in as many matches or world championships as Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. While Ali fought Frazier all of 3 times and Borg faced McEnroe a total of 14 times, Evert and Navratilova met on the tennis court 80 times over the course of 16 years. The individual narratives of these two star athletes who carried women’s tennis through the 1970s and 1980s could stand on their own as significant sports stories in the past 30 years. However, what is truly amazing is how two fierce competitors who provided fans with some of the most memorable moments in the history of tennis could simultaneously forge such a strong and lasting friendship, bonding them to this day.

Their performance standards and personal convictions influenced female athletes for years to come, especially us. For 12 consecutive years, from 1975 to 1986, either Evert or Navratilova finished the season ranked number one in the world.

By: [[image:http://30for30.espn.com/uploads/film_19_director_photo.jpg caption="Lisa Lax & Nancy Stern Winters, Hannah Storm"]] [[image:http://30for30.espn.com/uploads/film_19_director_photo2.jpg caption="Lisa Lax & Nancy Stern Winters, Hannah Storm"]]

**Assignment:**
Please go to the discussion board and answer the following questions:

1. In this era, two champions came from two distinctively different cultures. What influences did their cultures have in making them champions?

2. How are games, sports, and wars representative of the cultures from which they stem?

They still compete. :)