Great athletes are often measured by their ability to permeate beyond the realms of their own sport, as much as what they can do on the field of play. Having influence on popular culture, dominating the business world or even coining a phrase is enough to make a sportsperson’s legacy stick.
When former tennis player Chris Evert did the laugh, she had no idea of the impact she was set to have on the fashion world. It started with a broken clasp on her diamond bracelet. When she felt it drop, Evert did what any person would do and dropped to the ground to search for it. At the time, though, she was mid-point on the show court at Flushing Meadows, New York, in the 1978 US Open.
“I’m 67 years old so I can’t remember every single detail,” she laughs, recalling the incident 44 years ago. “But I was playing on the center court at the US Open and the bracelet pretty much dropped down on the court, it broke. So I kind of put my hand up and stopped playing. I had to go find it.”
When she realized it was broken, she jogged over to her chair to leave it for safekeeping and then returned to the court to continue her match. Two here, it wasn’t that big a deal. “I remember thinking and feeling embarrassment for breaking it,” she says. “Having to stop play, go over and put it down [at my chair] – it was more of a hassle.
“I never, at that point, thought, ‘Ooh, this could be something very special or develop into something iconic’.”
She went on to defend her title but, unknown to Evert, it was from that throwaway comment that the “tennis bracelet” moniker was born and the fashion world jumped on it. Jewelery brands launched chain-linked diamond bands and called them tennis bracelets, some retailing for tens of thousands of pounds. Whether those who bought the coveted accessory were sporty or not, the name entered fashion parlance that lives on to this day.
Alongside her 18 major singles titles and prolific on-court rivalry with Martina Navratilova, Evert says she has been asked about the bracelet incident many times.
“Over the years I definitely have, because articles periodically pop up about the tennis bracelet and they mention me,” she says. “I was referenced a lot at the beginning, but I think other players were wearing jewelery at the time too – Billie Jean [King]Martina.
‘It’s not called the golf bracelet, is it?’
“A lot of the women players were, it just happened that after that match was when they coined the phrase. I’m not responsible for being the only athlete that’s ever worn a tennis bracelet but it’s not called the golf bracelet, is it?”
Like any sporting folklore, some of the details have been lost to history. There was debate around what date it occurred and even if it happened at all. But Evert is sure it was 1978. “When I looked back at all the pictures of me, with the diamond bracelet, I knew it was 1978,” she said. “I don’t remember everything, but I remember a green court, white lines, sweat – and I remember diamonds.”
She is setting the record straight now as she has decided to capitalize on the event through a new collection of tennis bracelets bearing her initials, created with jewelery designer Monica Rich Kosann.
The likes of Maria Sharapova and Emma Raducanu may never have scored lucrative endorsement deals with Swarovski and Tiffany & Co respectively, if not for Evert and her cohort of female tennis players making accessorising a part of their process.
Empowering as that may be, to Evert it was always about feeling like herself on the court: “Jewellery has always been an important component of women’s sport. At that time basically it was all about men playing sports,” she said.
Aside from the Olympics, tennis was really the first women’s sport that became successful.
“For me, and I don’t apologize for it, I always wanted to look feminine on the court, whether it was wearing braids and putting a ribbon in my hair or wearing nail polish or a diamond bracelet.
“I always felt like you could still maintain that femininity and still be really strong and tough and athletic on the court. And have all those components. I feel like that is the modern woman.”
Monica Rich Kosann’s Tennis Bracelet-CE Collection will be exclusively available online at www.monicarichkosann.com