"The tennis boom was the 70s, that's when it all started happening" - When Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova recalled having packed crowds for tennis matches at Madison Square Garden

Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova reflected on the peak years of their rivalry and respective careers and believe the 1970s was a watershed moment for the growing popularity of tennis. Evert and Navratilova reminisced about playing the WTA Finals at the iconic Madison Square Garden in New York City, back in the day.

The WTA Finals, the year-end championships on the WTA Tour, was played in Boca Raton and Los Angeles in the first half of the 1970s, before moving to Madison Square Garden, where it stayed until 2000. Evert and Navratilova, whose tennis rivalry began in the early 1970s, played each other 80 times in all, including 60 finals.

During a past interview with BT Sport, Evert and Navratilova went down memory lane and recalled how most of their matches, particularly at the WTA Finals in the US, always garnered a lot of interest from spectators. Evert credited the 1970s for the "tennis boom."

"The tennis boom was the 70s," Chris Evert said. "That's when it all started happening and it was a great start. I just can't believe that we filled those stadiums every single day."

Evert and Navratilova played two of their many tour-level finals against each other at the iconic Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. They reflected on their experience of competing at the venue and how it played an important role in driving crowds to tennis matches.

"It was unbelievable, Madison Square Garden. We filled that garden every night," Chris Evert said.

"It was New York and it was very exciting. Great arena to see the ball and not a bad seat in the house and the crowd was pretty into it. Those were the years," Martina Navratilova added on the same.

"Little did I know we were going to play each other so many times" - Martina Navratilova on seeing Chris Evert for the first time

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No two players in tennis' Open Era have faced each other as many times as Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. In the same interview with BT Sport, Navratilova reminisced about seeing Evert play for the very first time.

"I still remember the first time I saw Chris," Navratilova said. "She was playing backhand with Frank Hammond, who was a tour umpire. She was playing backhand in the club at Fort Lauderdale. I didn't know the game, I didn't know what they were playing, but they were playing backhand. I learned a couple of weeks later, I learned how to play backhand."

Navratilova then revealed that when she first played against Chris Evert on tour, her biggest goal was for Evert to remember her name.

"Little did I know we were going to play each other so many times. The first time we played against each other, my goal was just for Chris to remember my name," Navratilova said.

Evert won the duo's first head-to-head battle during a tournament in Akron back in 1973. Overall, Navratilova won 43 of her 80 matches against Evert, including 36 of the 60 finals they played in.