Thursday, September 16, 2010

30 for 30: Unmatched

This week's ESPN Films offering in the 30 for 30 series is Unmatched, a film reviewing the decade-and-a-half rivalry (and even longer friendship) between Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.

Beginning in the late 1970s and stretching to the end of the 1980s, these two women battled back and forth across the world and the tennis rankings to be the number one women's player. They met 80 different times, 14 of them being in Grand Slam final, and their rivalry and respect for one another defined their careers.

The information of this film is old news, but what made this film different was its method. The filmmakers put these two together in a North Carolina coastal bungalow, turned on the cameras, and filmed a weekend of remembrances. The people behind the camera edited out their questions, presenting a film with only two voices--those of Martina and Chris.

It was, undeniably, a film targeted at more of a female audience than any of the previous films in this series (and NOT just because of the women's tennis subject matter). But I liked it quite a bit--even though I am not a woman. The height of their rivalry, in the 80s, was when I cared about tennis the most as a spectator, so I was very familiar with the subject matter.

If you get a chance to watch Unmatched, I recommend you take the hour.

1 comment:

jack t. said...

i can't believe women are still allowed to play tennis. i hope the Tea Party fixes that.