‘Chris & Martina: The Final Set’ Knows the Joy and Brutality of Nurturing an Iconic Rivalry |
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Not enough credit goes to female tennis players from the ‘70s and ‘80s for shaping the discourse in our world. Staunch advocates for multiple issues, this generation of players always seemed to be battling much more than their on-court opponents. It began with a small contingent of players led by Billie Jean King, who demanded equal pay in Grand Slam (GS) tournaments shortly after they had been granted ‘professional’ status (they were considered amateurs before). The initiative culminated in the historic ‘Battle of the Sexes’, where King beat former player/compulsive gambler Bobby Riggs, thereby convincing even King’s most hardened critics about the ‘seriousness’ of the women’s tour.
It is chronicled superbly in Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff’s Give me the ball!, centered on King’s professional, social and personal life, having premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2026 earlier this year.
Its spiritual successor – Netflix’s Chris & Martina: The Final Set, follows Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova’s singular rivalry. Directed by Rebecca Gitlitz, the film dives deeper into a story I had read in a 2023 piece written by Sally Jenkins for The Washington Post. It’s such an incredible arc between two sworn competitors of their time that it almost sounds made up.
Delves beyond just the on-court battles
If I had seen this chain of events between what went down in Evert and Navratilova’s mercurial relationship over five decades in a screenplay, I would have dismissed it as a cloying, flight of fancy. And yet, to the credit of Gitlitz’s film (like most ‘good’ films) it delves not just into the on-court battles, but also the aftershocks felt outside the tennis........