"Very sensitive to criticism and judgment": Chris Evert opens up about positive parenting role on players

Former world number one Chris Evert has cited the role of positive parenting on players. The 70-year-old is often regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of women’s tennis in the singles category, having won as many as 18 Grand Slam titles.

Evert has been recently quoted in a report where she talked about the role of positive parenting on players. The Florida-born legendary tennis star cited the support received by the former world number one Serena Williams, which, according to her, played a key role in her success. Evert also lamented about not receiving similar support from her parents during her playing days.

"Very sensitive to criticism and judgment,” she said. “Again, trying to navigate that from the age of 15 when I started to be successful worldwide. It's not an easy thing to be famous and successful when you haven't developed your personality or your character yet at 15, 16 years old. I think you see that in every business. Whether it's the movie business or athletes, it's very polarizing. That was challenging. I think that comes a little bit from also not feeling we didn't have, in our day, parents nowadays, because I remember always reading about Richard Williams and all of the tennis parents basically saying, always telling their kids how great they were, and you can be anything you want to be and just totally having positive reinforcement all the time. But again, in our culture, it wasn't that way. It was more like don't do this, don't do that, be a lady in public.”

Serena is regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of women’s tennis in the singles category in the Open era. The former world number one, who retired from the sport in September 2022, finished her playing career with 23 major titles, the most by a women’s player in the Open era in the singles category.