The Queen Ousts a Possible Heiress

The century will turn, the global tennis wars of the year 2000 will be played, and with luck Mary Joe--born Maria Jose--Fernandez will still be around, no longer obliged to engage the grande dame of the Grand Slams, Chris Evert Lloyd, in the first round at Wimbledon, or to pass that big ninth-grade geometry exam before the U.S. Open.

Fernandez will be 28 years old in her first summer of the 21st Century, and no doubt full of reminiscences about how she drew Lloyd, her personal goddess of tennis, as the first adversary of her first Wimbledon, and how she even put up a bit of a struggle before falling, 6-4, 6-1.

Perhaps Fernandez will be then as Lloyd is now--wealthy, worshiped and alternately carefree and unfulfilled. Perhaps her life will be an open book, a book full of professional memories woven with personal intimacies, of the kind Chrissie has been spilling of late, exposing secret fears and clandestine affairs with married men.

Of course, there is always the chance that by then Fernandez will be long gone or practically forgotten in tennis circles, a struggling trouper who continues to get eliminated in early rounds, or a budding heroine sidetracked by injury, like Tracy Austin, or by lack of interest, like Andrea Jaeger--still young, but devoid of long ago’s promise.

Young women keep swinging into Wimbledon, ever stronger, ever better, yet handicapped from the get-go by the great expectations placed upon them, the hopes that they will become heiresses to the legacies of Billie Jean King, Lloyd and Martina Navratilova. They could be good, they could be great, but what chance is there that they will go beyond great?

Once upon a time, little Chrissie Marie Evert was the newest brat in the pack. She learned the truth at 17, that life for her would be that of a tennis queen. She learned it when she played her first Wimbledon that July and reached the semifinals.

From there came endless 40-love: Appearances in the Wimbledon semifinals, at the very least, except for one miserable day of 1983, when, racked by stomach miseries, Kathy Jordan took her out in the third round. That experience remains the only Grand Slam tournament since 1971 that Chris Evert Lloyd has entered in which she failed to reach the semifinals--a preposterously splendid record, 45 of 46.

Now they thrust children at her, confront her with high school kids who have envied her and copied her style. Pony-tailed, braces-wearing kids like the 14-year-old Fernandez, who lingered back at the baseline Tuesday, smacking two-handed backhands, matching Chrissie ground stroke for ground stroke, losing only because she hasn’t yet shed a reluctance to volley.

“I haven’t played a 14-year-old in a long time,” Lloyd said later, flashing back to a 1977 third-round date here with Austin. “The caliber now is much better, the standard now is better. Mary Joe hits the ball very hard. And in 10 years you’re going to see a better 14-year-old.”

She was asked: “How does it feel, when you are out there playing someone half your age, and . . . “

(“Half my age? I’m 28?” Lloyd interrupted. “Hey, thanks.” She is 31.)

” . . . and people are talking about you like you’re the old woman of tennis, like you’re 50?”

She considered this.

“All I can say is, anybody who goes out there and chases those yellow balls around the court has to feel young,” she said. “Either that or you have to be crazy.

“I feel I’m in just as good a shape, if not better, than those young players they throw at me now,” she said.

Billie Jean King, working for an American TV network, happened to be standing nearby, and Lloyd caught her eye.

“I see Billie Jean there and I remember being 21 years old and saying no way I’ll be playing like Billie Jean was at age 30, no way. I said that every day.

“If anything, I have more of an understanding now of what it was like for her. It’s in your blood. We’re all very competitive. We’ve got something on the line out there every day. I can see that now, especially because the end is coming nearer.”

She was asked, half in jest: “If you win this one, will you retire?”

She replied, completely in jest: “If I lose , I might retire.”

Of late, Lloyd has seemed preoccupied with life after tennis, mostly because tennis-playing husband John Lloyd--who said Tuesday that he would play no more singles--keeps reminding her that her biological clock is ticking. And because she is still patching things together with him after a six-month separation and a fling with Adam Faith, a married British rock ‘n’ roller.

In not one but two biographies, Chrissie, once the “Ice Lolly” the British press parodied for her unexpressed emotion, has exposed a wide range of feelings and passions, tossing forth almost brutal truths about herself and John, talking publicly about indecision and indiscretion. What began with revelations about John being too shy on their first dates to kiss has led to stark, true confessions about the Lloyds of Florida and London.

In one instance Chris was moved to say:

I woke up recently in the night with palpitations. I couldn’t remember how old I was. I thought, “What the heck am I doing? Why am I still playing?” But settling down and having children is not my priority right now. I just can’t quit while my life is so unresolved. Adulthood and stardom have intervened in the life of Chris Evert Lloyd, whose biggest problems were once the size of Mary Joe Fernandez’s. Fernandez, born in the Dominican Republic--father from Spain, mother from Cuba--now attends the Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart in Miami when she is not asking permission to go outside and play.

Asked where she sees herself years from now, Fernandez said: “I want to be the best, but that’s pretty far away.” Asked what the more immediate future holds, she said: “If I pass my finals, I’ll be going to 10th grade.”

She still must take geometry, science and French exams before the U.S. Open in New York. The life of a tennis player can be very hard.