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There are several interesting stories in this month’s HBO Real sport with Bryant Gumbel (Premiers Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HBO), including former figure skater Keri Blakinger’s journey from Olympic hope to incarceration to prison reporter, divers in Panama working on crime scenes and Gumbel himself who is confronted with him New York Times Crossword editor Will Shortz in Wordle. But one of the most notable in the media space sees Mary Carillo interviewing former tennis star and current ESPN analyst Chris Evert about her ongoing battle with ovarian cancer.
The 14-minute feature includes a notable early comment from Evert (seen above left with Carillo) on how this fight differs from her sporting career, where she says, “In tennis you have a lot more control over the situation. But you can’t control that kind of thing.” Moving on to a discussion of some of the early press coverage of Evert’s career, she reflects on the unflattering coverage she received: “There was ‘Little Miss Metronome.’ … They wondered why I wasn’t a giggling schoolgirl. ‘She’s 16, 17, why isn’t she smiling?'” And then it’s about how Evert and her frequent rival Martina Navratilova lost a remarkable doubles match to Evert’s sister Jeanne and her partner, and what that led to, Evert said “I did not spoken to my sister for three days. …And I shared a room with her. I hated losing and I probably wasn’t the nicest person.”
Jeanne Evert passed away in February 2020 after battling ovarian cancer herself, and in this feature Chris Evert talks about watching her sister struggle to get through an airport shortly before her death. But Jeanne’s death proved important to the rest of the family, as it was revealed that she suffered from a rare genetic condition that made her more susceptible to ovarian cancer. That prompted Chris to get tested, and her family doctor (David Grossman of the Cleveland Clinic, who also treated Jeanne) says in this section that Jeanne’s testing information helped them spot Chris’ cancer earlier, saying, “Without the Genetic test of Jeanne, we never would have found it until it was very advanced like Jeanne’s.”
What’s remarkable about this segment is that it’s not about the “life and death stakes” we often see in cancer coverage. There isn’t much evidence that this is ultimately life-threatening for Chris Evert, although it might have been had it not been caught early. But the segment shows how difficult it can be to deal with chemotherapy, even with early-stage cancer, with Evert speaking to Carillo about her extensive library of wigs, which she uses to avoid showing how much hair loss the treatment has caused her .
This segment is also interesting because it shows Evert’s relationship with ex-husband Andy Mill, a former US Olympic skier. Despite their divorce in 2006, they have remained friends and Mill drives and sits with Evert for her treatments. He tells Carillo, “We have three great kids together, and we’ve always said to each other, even after the divorce, ‘If anything happens, I’ll have your back.'”
The five-year survival rate for the type of cancer Evert has is only 90 percent. But, as Carillo notes, that’s close to Evert’s career winning percentage, so she’ll take those chances. And towards the end of the segment, Evert talks about how lucky she was to find out about it early thanks to her sister Jeanne, saying, “I was so lucky, I was so lucky.” And towards the end, Evert says, “I know, she would want me to survive.” It’s certainly positive that Evert feels like she has that kind of support and it’s positive that she’s getting the treatment she needs here.
This month’s episode of Real Sports, starring Bryant Gumbel, premieres on HBO on Tuesday, June 21 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT. It can also be streamed on HBO Max. This segment features Mary Carillo as a correspondent and Nick Dolin as a producer.
[Image from HBO’s Real Sports]