{"id":107373,"date":"2026-06-25T14:13:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T18:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=107373"},"modified":"2026-06-25T14:13:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T18:13:44","slug":"chris-evert-ovarian-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/06\/25\/chris-evert-ovarian-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Evert Announces Cancer Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2020\/05\/06\/chris-evert-greatest-of-all-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Chris Evert<\/a>, on Thursday, announced a recurrence of her battle with ovarian cancer. The 71-year-old, who dominated tennis alongside <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2022\/04\/26\/chris-evert-martina-navratilova-amelia-island\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Martina Navratilova<\/a>\u00a0in the middle of the 1970s running into the 1980s, had endured a running battle with ovarian cancer since 2022. The former player, who spent 260 weeks as the World #1 during her career, had already lost a sister to ovarian cancer following a two-year battle.<\/p>\n<p>The 18-time Major champion underwent a preventive hysterectomy after soon discovering she also carried a mutation that put her at risk. Unfortunately, cancer was discovered in her resected fallopian tubes, which meant she had to undergo chemotherapy. She suffered a relapse in December 2023, prompting further treatment to become cancer-free again.<\/p>\n<p>However, in what is more tragic news, the former player, who has remained active in various capacities in the sport, took to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/chrissieevert\/p\/DaA18KYvJCi\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Instagram<\/a> to announce the return of ovarian cancer.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I have always believed in being open and honest about my health journey.<br \/>\nThis past weekend,after undergoing CT and PET scans,I learnt that my ovarian cancer has returned.<br \/>\nI have already undergone surgery as the first step in my treatment and recovery,and will begin chemotherapy in the coming weeks.<br \/>\nBecause of this I will not be attending Wimbledon this year,and I will step back from my professional commitments over the next few months to focus on my health.<br \/>\nOvarian cancer is relentless,but I will stay optimistic and determined in continuing to fight this battle. I am deeply grateful to my medical team,my family,friends, everyone who has reached out with kindness and encouragement.I look forward to see everyone again soon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The news means she will be unable to take part in the upcoming Wimbledon Championships. It comes as a dampener after some initial positive news, as it was announced that another former player, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/06\/21\/serena-williams-wimbledon\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Serena Williams, will be making her singles return at Wimbledon. <\/a>The main draw kicks off on Monday, June 29. Everyone in the tennis world will be wishing her a speedy recovery. And hopefully she&#8217;ll be back soon.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"zxx\" dir=\"ltr\"><a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/y7iVpLjoRU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/y7iVpLjoRU<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chris Evert (@ChrissieEvert) <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ChrissieEvert\/status\/2070163987837391078?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 25, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chris Evert, on Thursday, announced a recurrence of her battle with ovarian cancer. The 71-year-old, who dominated tennis alongside Martina Navratilova\u00a0in the middle of the 1970s running into the 1980s, had endured a running battle with ovarian cancer since 2022. The former player, who spent 260 weeks as the World #1 during her career, had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5743,"featured_media":107391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9,4],"tags":[329,201,25],"class_list":["post-107373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-wta","tag-chris-evert","tag-martina-navratilova","tag-serena-williams"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5743"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107373"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107392,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107373\/revisions\/107392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}