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That is the traditional lament of the woman athlete trained from childhood to win games rather than beaux. In Evert's case, the drill started so early that she could barely hold a racket. Her father, Jimmy Evert, a onetime touring tournament player, is the tennis pro at the Holiday Park Courts in Fort Lauderdale. "One day when I was six," Chrissie recalls, "my dad took me to a park. He put a racket in my hand and threw balls to me. I missed them all. We did this every day. After a few weeks I started hitting a few of them back. Then I remember liking it a lot. My dad made fun out of it. He'd say, 'Okay, ten over the net and I'll buy you a Coke.' I'd wake up at 8 a.m. and be over at the courts at 8:30. Some other girls and I would bring our lunch and stay till about 5. Until I was about eight, I just usually hit. After two years, I started playing games."
She was a nationally ranked player at eleven. At 15 she went alone to a tournament in Char lotte, N.C., scored a stunning upset over Wimbledon Champ Margaret Court and burst into happy, astonished tears. At 16 she journeyed to Forest Hills, pro nounced herself "petrified" and then won one dramatic victory after another to become the instant darling of the galleries. Billie Jean defeated her in the semifinals, but Chrissie had made her mark. The next year she took her re venge in Fort Lauderdale by humiliating King 6-1, 6-0.
It is one of the ironies of the King-Evert rivalry that the younger woman has benefited heavily from King's zeal ous campaign for bigger purses and in creased recognition for women's ten nis. Yet Evert, a traditional type from a devoutly Catholic family, pooh-poohs Women's Lib and has criticized King's break from the male-dominated U.S.L.T.A. The cash, however, is nonideological. So far this year, Evert has won $70,050. With endorsement mon ey from Puritan and Wilson Sporting Goods, she figures to earn around $150,000. Most of the offers to lend her name to everything from leg lotion and deodorants to toothpaste and soap pow der have been turned down. Explains Jimmy Evert: "It takes time to do these things. When Chrissie's not playing ten nis, I'd rather she not be doing things that will tire her out. This is still a game with us. It's not a business."
So far, Chrissie's only luxuries are an expanded wardrobe and a new Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with a stereo tape deck, a gift from a tournament sponsor. Otherwise, says her mother, "the most notable difference is that in stead of buying $1 souvenirs for her brothers and sisters when she travels, she'll spend $5."
Serious Sessions. Chrissie has four brothers and sisters, tennis devotees all.
Drew, 19, plays for Auburn University; Jeanne, 15, recently turned pro and is ranked No. 16 among U.S. women play ers; John, 11, is ranked No. 2 in Flor ida in his age group; and Clare, 5, fresh from a season of warming up with a flyswatter, is already out on the courts with her sawed-off racket.
The family's modest seven-room bungalow, just six blocks from the Holiday Park Courts, is a kind of Evert hall of fame, a storehouse for 250 trophies that the children have won over the years. Chrissie still shares a small bed room with Jeanne. It is typically teen: