Tennis rivals Chris Evert & Martina Navratilova team up against cancer

This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guests, Chris Everett and Martina Navratilova, were the greatest female tennis players of their generation. They were friends and they were each other's greatest rivals in the 70s and 80s. When Everett retired in 1989, they'd each won 18 Grand Slam victories, and they'd each been the top ranked female player in the world seven times.

Navratilova retired in 2006. Now they're the subject of a new Netflix documentary called Chris and Martina The Final Set. It tells the story of how they interacted as friends and as opponents, and how their friendship went cold for an extended period when their rivalry became more fierce. When they were each retired, their friendship deepened as they both faced cancer and were able to support each other. Everett was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2021.

Navratilova was diagnosed with throat and and breast cancer in 2022, the same year that Everett had a recurrence. When I spoke with them a couple of weeks ago, they were both in remission, but late last week Evert disclosed she'd just been diagnosed with a recurrence of ovarian cancer. Here's how the interview went a couple of weeks ago. Chris Everett, Martina Nevertilova, what a pleasure to have you on Fresh Air.

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