As a child, Chris Evert, daughter of tennis pro Jimmy Evert was encouraged to spend a great deal of time practicing tennis. At the age of eighteen, Chris joined the professional tour, where, between the years 1973 and 1979, she played 125 consecutive matches on clay without a single loss. By 1976, Chris had not only been inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame but had become the first female tennis pro to make $1 million in prize money. She was also the first player ever to win 1,000 matches and 157 tournaments, which included two Australian Opens, seven French Opens, three Wimbledon championships, and six U.S. Opens. Chris held her number one ranking for seven years before being defeated in 1981, by Martian Navratilova. Chris Event holds the highest winning percentage in professional women's tennis, .899%. In 1989, while walking off the tennis court for the last time in her professional career, Chris gave a small goodbye wave to her cheering fans while her opponent, Zina Garrison, looked on in tears.
