'Chris & Martina' shows how a tennis rivalry turned into a friendship

The Wimbledon women’s finals will yield a new champion Saturday, but right now on Netflix, you can go back in time to explore the saga of two of the sport’s greatest stars in “Chris & Martina: The Final Set.”

Chris Evert won Wimbledon three times among her 18 Grand Slams, and Martina Navratilova captured a record nine Wimbledon titles among her 18 Grand Slams. From 1973 through 1990, one or both were in the finals every year 16 times and they faced each other there nine times.

While the film devotes plenty of attention to their 80 showdowns (60 were in finals), this is not your typical sports documentary: Beyond the story of each woman’s rise to greatness, it focuses more on recounting their developing camaraderie, which then developed into an icy rivalry before being reborn as a friendship for the ages.

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And the documentary is framed around each legend’s recent battles with cancer: Evert was treated for ovarian cancer in 2022 and again during filming in 2023, while Navratilova faced a recurrence of breast cancer as well as throat cancer in 2023.

But the film’s hopeful ending has a bittersweet twist: In late June just before the documentary premiered, Evert stated she would not serve as an announcer at Wimbledon because her cancer had returned and she needed to begin treatment.

Just a few days later, Navratilova spoke by phone about the film, the friendship and their cancer battles. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sports

Chris Evert reveals she’s battling ovarian cancer a third time: ‘I will stay optimistic and determined’

Tennis legend Chris Evert is battling ovarian cancer for the third time. Former on-court rivals Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King are among those showing their support.

What do you hope the film conveys to viewers?

We wanted to talk about our rivalry, which has been kind of forgotten in modern time. But the biggest reason to do it was because of our cancers. We wanted to shine the light on it and get people, especially women, to pay attention to their bodies — don’t put off your mammograms — and, for Chris, the big thing was genetic screening. That’s what saved her. Cancer is not the death sentence it used to be, but the sooner you catch it, the better the outcome.

You send your wife home and face your treatment alone while Chris has her ex-husband Andy Mill by her side. Is it helpful to show viewers that contrast?

Everybody’s different and that’s the point. In those moments, you absolutely do what you have to do for yourself, and you cannot be worrying about other people. You have to get completely selfish about it in a good way — tell people what you need, whether it’s wanting 10 people in the room or for everybody to get out. And it can change from day to day. I would not do one thing differently. And I don’t think Chris would have either.

Chris gets her head shaved on camera during her treatment. How did you figure out what to show of what you were enduring?

Chris was more open about her treatment, and I was much more closed. I’m happy to share verbal news, but I didn’t want videos or photos of me trudging around. But with the documentary, we just were open and there was no pretense. That’s why it feels so raw and true. And I like that there’s no music because we don’t have music playing in real life so it feels more real. You can hear us breathing.

How did this shared experience change your friendship?

We definitely got closer. During our rivalry we could relate to what the other was going through but when one was happy the other was always sad. Now we’re in the same boat, feeling the same things and because of our history, our support for each other was unquestioned and rock solid. I think we gave each other the strength to keep fighting — we would have anyway, but this made us feel better about where we were, that sense that we can get through this together.

There’s a moment near the end where you say, you’re “done with this f—” And Chris rings the bell to finish her treatment. It feels so cathartic in the moment. Is it hard to watch that now, given Chris’ recurrence?

It’s hard to wrap my head around this because I thought we were both done with it for good. We felt lucky, but Chris now is dealing with it again, which is mind boggling and so depressing. My cancer was more treatable, although the cure was much rougher than hers. Her cancer is more insidious and the outcome is not as good, but she’ll come out on the other side once again.

She’ll have to do checkups every three months and it’s so stressful and takes so much out of you. But she’s just so tough.

If, like me, you’re tired of true crime documentaries whose investigations feel sordid and prurient, it’s a relief to find documentaries that deal with crimes but find new meanings in the stories.

The crimes in “Murder 101” were committed by a 1980s serial killer who strangled young red-headed women in rural Appalachia. But the story is actually a joyful one: An innovative and committed high school sociology teacher in Tennessee, Alex Campbell, teaches a class that reopens these cold cases and gives new life to the investigations.

The sweetly gawky and relentlessly determined students are inspired by Campbell to dig and dig, battling the bureaucracy for more information, but Campbell never lets his students lose sight of the real goal — not to solve the murders but to understand how society has devalued the lives of poor women on the fringe. They strive to turn Jane Does into real people and to give their stories meaning and dignity.

The question definitively answered here is whether more schools should be emphasizing project learning over rote memorization and teaching to the test.

The four episodes of “Abandoned” offer another gripping antidote. There are two crimes: Three children are ditched in a train station and their parents — including their gangster father — vanish forever. Despite that, this is ultimately a positive film about humanity and the way we tell stories.

In 1984, siblings Ramon, Ricard and Elvira were abandoned in a Barcelona train station with no luggage, no identification and no information about their family. Miraculously, the authorities find a couple to adopt the three children and they’re raised in a loving household. But decades later the three, prodded by Elvira, go on a quest to understand what really happened to them and their parents.

Their searching leads them to countless people, from journalists to police officials to a growing team of internet sleuths, who are compassionate and generous with their time. They also find biological family members who help put some puzzle pieces together and also create a new bond. These two threads, the warmth and help offered by strangers and the pull of family, and the trio’s relentless search to understand who they are and where they come from no matter what the answers are infuse the docuseries with a feeling missing from most true crime documentaries: hope.

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