5 - The Kingdom Before the Queens: Evert, Navratilova, and the Lost Heirs

In this episode of Steffi & Monica: The Greatest Rivalry That Never Was, we hit pause on Graf and Seles and step back into the kingdom they inherited: the long, sprawling era of Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.

For more than a decade, women’s tennis is basically a two-woman empire. Evert, the icy, error-proof baseline queen, and Navratilova, the explosive lefty serve-and-volleyer, build a rivalry that defines the sport. They win most of the majors, meet in 14 Slam finals, and become the template every little girl with a racket grows up watching — including a young Steffi in West Germany and Monica in Yugoslavia.

Episode 5 is the story of the queens who ruled before Steffi and Monica, the prodigies like Tracy Austin and Andrea Jaeger who flared and vanished, and the trap we fall into when we use “quality of competition” to erase what women actually did against the fields in front of them. It sets the stage for what comes next: Steffi’s first title, Monica’s arrival, and a rivalry that should have changed everything.