Sharing the pinnacle

One-to-one conflict injects adren- alin into sport. For a period, inevitably finite, a pair of rivals will elevate themselves above their contemporaries, and produce contests which will divide not only cognoscenti, but also the community at large, into two camps. This book is about one of the most magnetic of such contests for primacy waged over a decade and a half, between Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova for the unofficial title, Queen of Women’s Tennis.

What makes such a rivalry truly memorable? The talents of the pair must be equal but separate — equal because otherwise the outcome would be predictable; separate because even if unpredictable it would be tedious. The boxer must confront the fighter (Ali v Frazier); the calculator, the risk-taker (Nicklaus v Palmer); the powerhouse, the stylist (Ovett v Coe); the urbane tactician, the rough-hewn motivator (Wenger v Ferguson). Evert, the ultimate baseline player, and Navratilova, quintessentially the server and volleyer, fulfil this condition; the former dominant on clay, the latter on grass.