Chris Evert to Retire When Season Ends

Chris Evert says she will retire from women’s tennis after this season and is considering an international farewell tour, British newspapers reported today.

Evert, 34, who has won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, said she was concentrating on this year’s Wimbledon championship, a tournament she has won three times.

“I’ll be preparing especially hard for Wimbledon because I want to go out on top--or very close to it,” Evert was quoted as saying in four British dailies.

Formerly the top-ranked women’s player in the world, Evert has slipped to fourth and has talked with increasing frequency about retirement in recent years.

She married for the second time last year, to former Olympic skier Andy Mill, and has said that she would like to have children.

In the interviews in the British papers, Evert said she finally had decided to quit after 1989.

“I told the Women’s International Tennis Assn. that this would be my last year and to let me pick and choose my tournaments,” she said.

Evert said she would skip several U.S. tournaments in which she usually competes but definitely would play Houston, Hamburg and the Italian and French opens as well as Wimbledon.

“After Wimbledon, there is some talk that I’ll play 10 matches in 10 countries and meet the top player from each one,” she said. “It would take two weeks in late November and December.”

Preliminary discussions have been held between Evert and NBC-TV about her becoming a tennis commentator for the network, the British stories said.

CHRIS EVERT: TWO DECADES AT THE TOP Since bursting on the scene in 1971 as the two-fisted backhander who reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open at age 16, Chris Evert has been the sweetheart of American tennis. Her methodical style of play has won Evert three Wimbledon crowns and six U.S. Open titles.