Tennis rivals Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert reunite at docu screening

LONDON - Tennis rivals Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert have reunited - 37 years after their first match against each other.

They met at the screening of a documentary about their famous rivalry.

Navratilova, 53, and Evert, 55, who played each other 80 times, posed for pictures together on the red carpet at the New York premiere of ‘Unmatched’.

Retired Czech player Navratilova looked healthy and happy at the TriBeCa Cinema after bouncing back from her recent cancer battle, and she looked glamorous in a beige jacket, trousers and sequinned top.

And newly divorced Evert, who split from golfer Greg Norman last year, looked glamorous in a little black dress and vertiginous heels.

‘Unmatched’, an ESPN documentary directed and produced by Lisa Lax and Nancy Stern Winters, tells the story of the two athletes’ long rivalry on the court and their views on tennis.

Their rivalry, which started with a game in Akron, Ohio in 1973 and ended in Chicago 12 years ago, is widely recognised as one of the greatest in sports history.

But despite battling each other on the court - with Navratilova currently holding the 43-37 advantage - they have managed to establish a close friendship.

The pair has become such close friends, that Navratilova asked Evert to join her on a charity trek up Mount Kilimanjaro for Laureus Sport For Good Foundation in December, but the latter declined.

“I said ‘What, are you nuts..? Martina, I’ve got three kids, I don’t have time to train… Martina, it’s what, 16,000 feet, I’m bad at altitude?’” the Daily Mail quoted Evert as saying. (ANI)