Evert crafted a revival on red clay, recalibrating her unerring baseline game into an all-court attack. In doing so, she edged Navratilova in suspense-filled final. While it wasn't a tennis version of trading places, the arch-rivals played some role-reversal points, collaborating on a thriller with twists and turns, climaxing with Evert sealing her sixth French Open crown with her signature shot.
Reviewing the match is a reminder that the Evert-Navratilova rivalry was much more nuanced than it’s sometimes remembered. On the surface, it’s the classic stylistic clash pitting the left-handed Navratilova’s serve-and-volley attack vs. the right-handed Evert’s measured baseline strikes. The reality is, by the time they squared off for this 65th meeting in their head-to-head series (Navratilova led 33-31 entering this final), they knew each other’s game so thoroughly that both women attempted to alter preferred patterns of play to gain an edge.
Navratilova, who mixed the height and spins of her shots effectively, sometimes dragged the baseliner to net with the short slice. Evert, who had resculpted her physique in an effort to close the competitive gap on her athletic adversary, sometimes responded with aggressive net play. Twenty seconds into the above video, watch Navratilova lure Evert forward with a sharp-angled dropper—and watch Evert anticipate and run it down. Or fast forward to the 1:20 mark to see Evert, standing inside the baseline at times, make repeated runs to net, then back track to run down Navratilova lobs, before working her way forward again to angle off a smash winner.
Navratilova beat Evert in 13 consecutive finals, including victories in the 1984 French Open, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open finals, before the Fort Lauderdale native stopped the streak with a 6-2, 6-4 win in the 1985 Key Biscayne final. Drawing confidence from that match, Evert took a 3-0 lead in the French Open final, only to see Navratilova rally to level at 3-all. Evert won the final three games to seize the first set and continued to find the corners in opening a 4-2, 15-40 lead on the champion’s serve. Evert eventually served for the match at 6-5, but Navratilova, relentlessly moving forward, refused to yield and broke to force a tiebreaker. Serving with authority and mixing baseline exchanges with well-time trips to net, Navratilova took the tiebreaker, 7-4.
Evert, who won a record 125 consecutive clay-court matches between August 1973 and May 1979, hit a stirring running pass to break for 5-3 in the final set. Though Evert repeatedly landed her first serve, Navratilova slammed a smash to break back for 4-5, held at love to level and had triple break point in the 11th game. As the pressure spiked, Evert fought off all of the break points to hold. Navratilova, who had been on the verge of serving for the title moments earlier, found herself serving to stay in the match. Evert drove her trademark two-handed backhand down the line for a clean pass to punctuate a classic, two-hour and 52-minute final.
"The '85 French Open is my favorite Grand Slam win," Evert told TENNIS.com. "I was in my 30s and basically everybody had counted me out as far as winning Grand Slams. It was a very see-saw match. I was serving at 5-all, love-40 knowing I was one point away from Martina serving for the title, and for some reason I will never forget that game. I had lost to her 13 times in a row over a two-and-a-half year period, so it was a very rewarding win."
Navratilova, who won the doubles title with Pam Shriver and mixed doubles crown with Heinz Gunthardt in 1985, came within a few points of becoming the first woman to sweep all three Roland Garros championships since Margaret Court in 1964.
Evert was 31 when she won the last of her seven French Open titles in 1986, and remains the last woman older than 30 to reign at Roland Garros.
No. 5: Graf d. Hingis (1999 Final)
No. 4: Gaudio d. Coria (2004 Final)
No. 3: Seles d. Graf (1992 Final)
No. 2: Lendl d. McEnroe (1984 Final)
No. 1: Evert d. Navratilova (1985 Final)
