1986 Miami Evert vs Graf

[@AmurTiger-vm5dy]

Chris is the more greatests woman players of all the Times

[@JSmith-zr2ve]

The last time Chrissie would beat Graf.

[@jpeyton62]

At 51:18...Evert was actually 15 when she beat world number 1 Margaret Court. Tennis Week magazine had some pictures. Court looked like a giant beside the diminutive Evert. Court said Evert's tennis acumen was already obvious.

[@ec5582]

Everts backhand was lethal in this match

[@BTURNER1961]

Evert always dominated the immature Graf. She had enough experience, power and speed to hang tough, and the best brain in the business. All Graf needed, was another inch in height a little more emotional maturity, to get her full strength /speed speed and this rivalry was essentially over. By the time Evert began to solve the tactical puzzle in 1988 early 1989 (evert was always the best problem solver on the tour) , time took a few of her pieces off the board.

[@MARKBPHARM]

+Brian Turner A really incisive analysis - agree completely. Had Chris been a little younger, I feel she would have developed a way of competing with Steffi. I don't say she would have been 'better' but she would have done 'better' post 1987. That is not to take anything away from Steffi either - she will always go down as one of the greats.

[@jonathankieranwriter]

Brian Turner ... Perceptive analysis. I always thought that Evert went through a brief period of uncertainty about her own game against Graf, and had become a bit hesitant, which resulted in a lot of uncharacteristic play when they met: short, midcourt balls; service nerves; strange errors. The fact is that whenever Evert was able to maintain strong backcourt depth against Graf, she could stick with her plan of hitting lots of balls to the backhand and opening up the court more often on Steffi's forehand. But, as you say, by the time Chris had regained her confidence against Steffi (which I believe happened in the second, tiebreak set of their '88 Oz Open final), she was truly on her way out of the game, and the week-to-week concentration required to keep the ball deep & booming against Graf, while ripping key crosscourt winners when needed, was gone. Still an intriguing rivalry: Graf beat Evert to win her first title ever, in 1986, and had to beat Navratilova and then Evert to claim her first truly premier trophy at this very event in 1987. It was a total, almost seamless changing of the guard.

[@BTURNER1961]

Keep in mind the unique dilemma Graf's game presented players as she grew faster and faster, stronger and stronger. Players were trapped trying to hit their shots in a smaller sliver of the court as they strove to keep Graf stuck hitting backhands just so that they could stay in the rally. they had to hit deep, and they had to hit close to sideline over and over and over and over without making an UF,while Graf used her steady skidding slice all over their court, just waiting to pounce with her lethal forehand. It was especially difficult for two handers who had more limited reach, and had to bend lower to come over those slices to that two hander. She had a big area to play into while their shrank to about three feet as she got quick enough to run around all be the most accurate shots and still cover her forehand side. This was not an easy problem to solve.

[@lenwelch2195]

Brian Turner totally agree with you about evert figuring out how to play Graf but Hera gets / body wouldn’t allow her . The first 6 matches Graf was weak in the tennis IQ and experience and the next 8 matches for Graf , evert came up short physicallymore due to age not from a lack of will. Here though , evert sure looks physically at her peak. Just a tournament later at Family circle cup evert looked slow , anxious, and tired losing 6-5, 7-5.

[@seanklingensmith7572]

Cool getting to watch a couple legends go to battle. Very high quality video as well. Thanks for sharing.

[@thomasschmitz9894]

ashe was ALWAYS the worst former player commentator.. very negative, rarely had anything positive to say about the players, the match, never contributed anything in regards to tactics or tennis history... his voice basically just took up space in the air, nothing more..

[@nickelwindow538]

My sentiments exactly

[@thomasschmitz9894]

***** true joanne russell was a female dick enberg (useless catch phrases and stupidity deemed excitement color play by play) and nagelsen was practically mute..... i just felt that arthur was ALWAYS negative, and too measured (boring) in his voice inflections....

[@gaberiel1366]

@Laurence Adams i gave you a thumbs up for originality but for the record I am doing a 190°, Carillo&Mac ok girlfriend you go!!! 😬🤣🤣🤣😂💥😙

[@alexj.4018]

@Laurence Adams I agree about McEnroe; he does know what he is talking about during the match. But Mary Carillo? Talks way too much and goes off topic. To me she was never one of the best.

[@fundhund62]

Really? I found Ashe´s commentary to be really insightful.

[@RachelDavisMatthews]

In less than a year Graf would beef up her serve, make less backhand errors, and be able to run around her background to blast more forehands, and we all know the success that would come to Graf.

[@jubbadupa]

She would also switch to a powerful wide body racket which made her forehand into the formidable weapon it became.

[@fuckurbody]

Steffi was holding on to that dunlop racket way too long while all her rivals had switched by 1989 … Steffi didnt switch to wilson pro staff until 1994!

[@lenwelch2195]

Everts last win and one of her very best. Hard hitting match She would win her last slam ( French ) - Evert . Arthur Ashe commentates here and likes to get Shriver goat about women’s tennis. Ashe had tremendous talent but didn’t have the discipline of Evert .he pays her a great tribute at the end.

[@wackybrinyc29]

Love how Shriver was preparing for her post tennis career while she was still at the height of her playing career! Awesome!

[@AK-fe4sq]

Funny to hear them debate on the future of Graf. Little did they know. LOL

[@lenwelch2195]

I haven’t watched this match in a while and boy is Evert hitting bombs .

[@beavertown2006]

Steff has a great body.

[@preciousjey]

Don't forget your Lipton Iced Tea. Climb Every Mountain Pam. That's how you do it.

[@lenwelch2195]

One of the last matches where Chris was quick and mean !lol - she’s moving incredibly well and bending low. She’s spanking that ball.

[@olaraay]

quick and mean lol

[@lenwelch2195]

olaraay Evert was meanest player competitively , ask BJK .she hides it well.

[@jubbadupa]

The truth about this rivalry and it's complexion is this. This is the top of February 1986, they would not meet again for 2 months - and then it would be another 11 months before they would meet again. The difference between this match and the one they would play 2 months later, would be Chris's knee (she suffered with a platella tendon issue throughout the year) which started in march at the WTA championships, and troubled her throughout the rest of the year. She only played 3 clay court tournaments before the French Open, and only one after her lost to Graf at Hilton Head at that beginning of April. She play at the beginning of May, and rested her knee for the French and requested and got a wednesday start. She only played 3 more tournaments after the French, (Wimbledon, LA, US Open) and Fed Cup. Evert was never one to let the press know about an injury, or one to complain - she just got on with it. After the Open she was off the tour for 6 months.

[@HunterBidenCocaineBag]

Which, ironically, allowed Graf to nudge past her to #2 in March 1987 before ascending to #1 in the summer of 1987. Evert-Lloyd had a lot of points to defend from 1985, which she could not do in 1986. Graf easily closed the gap.

[@lenwelch2195]

jubbadupa thank you for the breakdownbecause this is exactly what we see here. I’ve always said that this match was the last match chriS was 100percent physically. Here she moves to hit low backhands with ease and hardly ever misses. ChriS certainly looked leg weary in her Hana loss at 85 open but that was Hana’s tournament.

[@jubbadupa]

@Illya Kuryakin Exactly, so what's your point. The WTA championships was the 5th tournament, so she was ailing going into the clay season. IDIOT.

[@AmurTiger-vm5dy]

Evert the most greatests players of all the times

[@AmurTiger-vm5dy]

@Ilya Kuryakin you refuse the reallity, Chris don 't played 10 slams, if she playng all the slams, Chris now have 23-24 slams

[@zeddeka]

It's really interesting to watch Steffi in her earlier days. She was much, much less keen to run round her backhand to hit forehands. I wonder if was something that she was coached to do later on. I also wonder how her backhand would have developed if she hadn't run round it so much.

[@pierdomenicosommati443]

Of course her forehand was her main weapon. Yet, I just wonder why she didn't rely more on her backhand drive instead of slicing it all the time... against players like Chris, who was very accostumed to bending down and consistently return slices, it looked so much more effective.

[@user-be5qg7mr1s]

her inside out FH was so good and won her slams. One of the best at creating angles...thats why she don't need to roll over her BH. Yet her passing shot was deadly accurate

[@robertavies1969]

Graf is barely 25 per cent of what she becomes

[@vught2011]

very high quality video. thank you for posting

[@lenwelch2195]

Yes Pam Claudia is a great German o player and Steffi is a great doubles player because she reached the Mixed doubles final here at the Lipton - whatever Pam - it’s the Martina / Chris / Steffi show and the rest are filler.

[@lambielkwanfan]

So many errors from Graf! Really immature at this point. She would improve fast though.

[@binny25]

Thank you - a pleasure to watch two legends square off!

[@michaellane3017]

Love the great 80s commercials :)

[@lenwelch2195]

Evert strutting when won the 6 th game for 3 all

[@Dan-gw9dz]

steffi still looked very raw at this point. Who would have guessed just 2 years later she would win the golden slam and dominate the sport,,,eventually becoming the greatest female champion to ever play the game! I like seeing these early year matches to see how much her game eventually improved. thanks for posting.

[@joeyconvery2055]

Monica dethroned Steffi to become the new World Number 1...Monica beat her up pretty good. 😆

[@Dan-gw9dz]

@@joeyconvery2055 how many weeks was Monica number one? How many weeks was Steffi number one?

[@joeyconvery2055]

@@Dan-gw9dz Graf benefited from the stabbing....you know this. Everyone knows this. Graf did not stop Monica, an act of violence stopped her young career. From May 1990 French Open( Monica's first Slam) til Jan 1993 AO( Monica's last Slam before the stabbing), Monica WON 8 SLAMS. Graf lost 9 Slams during that same time period. Graf started winning Slams again only after Monica left the tour. Graf is a great champion but Monica was far superior.

[@Dan-gw9dz]

@@joeyconvery2055 Monica came back after that and had alot of success,, but she was clearly out of shape and had gained alot of weight. She was not the athlete Steffi was that's why she couldn't beat Steffi when she came back

[@Dan-gw9dz]

@@joeyconvery2055 clearly superior? Most of their matches were tight 3 setters,, check out the 92 Wimbledon final,, Steffi embarrassed her,,, and that was in the height of Monica's "dominance". Monica could not win on grass,, Steffi won on all surfaces,, and is still to this day the only female to win all 4 majors at least 4 times. THAT is dominance!!

[@michaellane3017]

Although I was more a Seles than Graf fan, to Graf's credit, I liked her top spin backhand. She should have used it more. It was well done. :)

[@pierdomenicosommati443]

It's quite stunning how she looked unable to realize how good her backhand drive was, especially against Evert who clearly showed having much more troubles vs Steffi's topspin backhands than vs her slice backhands (which she could easily play perfectly deep and crosscourt for hours). Evert was accustomed from 15 years to play on very strong opponents' slice backhands, it was so obvious that slice was not the right shot to play against her for a player like Steffi, who had a much more effective option.

[@pierdomenicosommati443]

Chris always suffered a lot on deep and fast crosscourt topspin one-handed backhands (from right handed players, a little less so from lefties like Martina who hit her forehand with that shot) , but few players in her era were able to consistently hit this shot, and even fewer were those able to really take advantage of the edge that this shot was likely to create in rallies vs Chris.

[@tomgraves3581]

Steff

[@tomgraves3581]

Steffi was actually respectful with her comments as opposed to later when she never gave credit to her opponents and was almost dismissive..Chris, as usual, gave her opponent credit and was professional...

[@carrerau7138]

@@tomgraves3581 To whom did Steffi not give credit or even was dismissive towards them, hater boy?

[@janeboylan-odowd159]

​@@tomgraves3581for sure. Steffi did not give credit easily if at all. She was all about herself.

[@HunterBidenCocaineBag]

Fran McDowell never pronounced Evert's name correctly. Evert, not Everette.