Democracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion We did not help build women’s tennis for it to be exploited by Saudi Arabia

By
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January 24, 2024 at 5:45 p.m. EST
Residential and commercial buildings, viewed from the Kingdom Center, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday. (Jeremy Suyker/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
5 min

Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova are members of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Between 1974 and 1991, each won 18 Grand Slam singles titles.

Lately, we seem to be so inseparable that you might as well call us Evertilova. We have not always been so in step with each other; one of us is quiet, the other unquiet. But there is a matter on which we have always been perfectly united. Over many years we were opponents, sometimes in matches with an intensity that felt personal. Then we became friends, and then we met cancer together. Over the years, 50 of them now, no matter what occurred on the court or in our lives, we shared an understanding that we were engaged in a common cause, one that connected our hearts and amounted to our life’s work: the building of a Women’s Tennis Association tour founded on equality, to empower women in a male-dominated world.