When Chris Evert was 16 years old, she took center court at the 1971 US Open.

An amateur at the time, Evert was the youngest player to ever reach the semifinals of the US Open. She upset three seeded players to set up a meeting with Billie Jean King, already a five-time Grand Slam winner and the eventual US Open champion that year.

“That was like my coming out story,” Evert told Just Women’s Sports of her first Grand Slam appearance. “I lost in the semifinals to Billie Jean King, but it was a fairytale tournament for me.”

Evert became an instant American icon and embarked on one of the most storied careers in sports. Later dubbed “The Ice Maiden” for her stoic and powerful drive, Evert was a symbol of the 1970s tennis boom that showed young women they could achieve their dreams of playing and succeeding in professional sports.

By the end of 1974, Evert was the best women’s tennis player in the world — a title she would hold six more times. She became the first player, male or female, to win 1,000 singles matches and she compiled the second-most career match wins, behind only Martina Navratilova. When she was finally ready to step away from the court in 1989, Evert had won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, tied for the fifth-most in women’s history.

Exactly half a century since Evert’s Cinderella debut, the 2021 US Open begins Monday in New York. The women’s draw features some of the fiercest young talent and current legends of the game.

“The US Open is an innovator,” Evert said. “I think they’re the leader of all the Grand Slams.”

New this year at the tournament is technology from IBM, the digital partner of the USTA, that will keep fans informed about the players and matches with real-time player rankings and insights.

“It’s trying to bring the audience and fans interest in a little bit more,” Evert said of the AI-powered innovations that will be featured on the US Open app, USOpen.org and the ESPN broadcast.

The women’s singles draw opens with several intriguing first-round matchups. World No. 1 Ash Barty will square off against former world No. 2 Vera Zvonareva of Russia, defending champion Naomi Osaka will face Marie Bouzkova and two-seed Arya Sabalenka will meet Nina Stojanović. The first round also features Sloane Stephens versus fellow American Madison Keys in what will be a rematch of the 2017 US Open final.

The US Open will be Osaka’s first Grand Slam since she withdrew from the last two major tournaments for mental health reasons.

Like Evert, Osaka made her Grand Slam debut at the US Open, winning the 2018 tournament in an epic showdown with Serena Williams. When Osaka spoke up about the consequences of media scrutiny on players’ mental health earlier this year, Evert reflected on her own experiences of dealing with stardom at a young age.

“When this mental health situation came up with Naomi, it brought me back to analyze how I felt at that point,” Evert said.

“Sometimes, I didn’t come out of my hotel room for two days. There was depression, but it wasn’t labeled back then. We didn’t know what it was. It was ‘Oh, Chrissie’s taking her losses hard.’”

Evert empathizes with Osaka but acknowledges that the attention she received was likely not as extreme.

“In my day and age, they weren’t camping out on your lawn,” she said. “If you went to a restaurant, you’d get your picture taken, but it wasn’t as intrusive.”

America’s major was without fans in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. During the tournament’s two-week run this year, spectators will take their seats, but they will be without several familiar stars.

Last week, Venus and Serena Williams withdrew due to injuries, making it the first time since 2003 that both sisters will miss the US Open. Serena, who has been on a four-year chase for a 24th Grand Slam singles title, which would tie her with Margaret Court for the most ever, hasn’t played since retiring from her first-round match at Wimbledon in June.

“It’s unfortunate because she loves playing in New York,” Evert said of Serena’s withdrawal. “When you do get older, the body doesn’t respond as quickly to injuries as it once did. But one thing’s for sure — she has a lot to go on to after tennis.”

Off the court, Williams and Osaka have led the way as the highest earners in all of women’s sports this year.

Evert credits the collaboration between the Women’s Tennis Association and other top athletic organizations as more women in sports — beyond professional tennis players — pursue higher compensation.

Evert also mentioned her longtime competitor and friend, tennis great Billie Jean King, as a brazen force behind the monetary success of professional women’s tennis.

“I don’t think other sports had a Billie Jean King. I feel very lucky that she was in tennis,” Evert said. “We could not have made the advances and the progress as quickly as we did if we didn’t have Billie Jean to be our spokesperson.”

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.

On Tuesday, FIFPRO announced the launch of Project ACL, a three-year research initiative designed to address a steep uptick in ACL injuries across women's professional football.

Project ACL is a joint venture between FIFPRO, England’s Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), Nike, and Leeds Beckett University. While the central case study will focus on England’s top-flight Women's Super League, the findings will be distributed around the world.

ACL tears are between two- and six-times more likely to occur in women footballers than men, according to The Guardian. And with both domestic and international programming on the rise for the women’s game, we’ve seen some of the sport's biggest names moved to the season-ending injury list with ACL-related knocks.

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Soccer superstars like Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead, Catarina Macario, Marta, and England captain Leah Williamson have all struggled with their ACLs in recent years, though all have since returned to the field. In January, Chelsea and Australia forward Sam Kerr was herself sidelined with the injury, kicking off a year of similar cases across women’s professional leagues. And just yesterday, the Spirit announced defender Anna Heilferty would miss the rest of the NWSL season with a torn ACL. The news comes less than two weeks after Bay FC captain Alex Loera went down with the same injury. 

Project ACL will closely study players in the WSL, monitoring travel, training, and recovery practices to look for trends that could be used to prevent the injury in the future. Availability of sports science and medical resources within individual clubs will be taken into account throughout the process.

ACL injuries in women's football have long outpaced the same injury in the men's game, but resources for specialized prevention and treatment still lag behind. Investment in achieving a deeper, more specialized understanding of the problem should hopefully alleviate the issue both on and off the field.

With recent transfers Talia von Oelhoffen and Kiki Iriafen joining first-team All-American JuJu Watkins and the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class at USC next season, the Trojans look to transition from an up-and-coming squad to a legitimate title contender. 

Former Oregon State graduate student von Oelhoffen is the latest collegiate talent to commit to the program, announcing her transfer Monday via ESPN. She follows ex-Stanford leading-scorer Iriafen in the jump to the pair’s one-time Pac-12 rival.

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The 5-foot-11 Washington native was a two-time All-Pac-12 guard during her time at Oregon State. But after the recent dissolution of the Pac-12, the Corvallis side found themselves without a permanent home conference going forward. Many big name players opted to take their skill elsewhere as a result, with von Oelhoffen’s fellow ex-Beaver Raegan Beers announcing her own departure to Oklahoma on Monday.

According to DraftKings, USC is now tied with UConn for the second-best betting odds to win the 2025 NCAA women’s tournament. Dawn Staley’s tested South Carolina side, poised for a repeat performance, holds down the number one spot.

Last year, LSU loaded up in the transfer portal after beating Iowa to win the 2023 national championship. The Tigers were clear favorites coming into the 2023-24 season, but were bounced in the Elite Eight by Caitlin Clark’s Hawkeyes. Shortly thereafter, star transfer Hailey Van Lith opted to transfer a second time, this time signing with TCU. 

Yet while history proves that an excess of star power doesn’t always translate to on-court chemistry, on paper, USC sure looks ready to hold their own — in 2025 and beyond.

The United States and Mexico have withdrawn their joint bid to host the 2027 Women’s World Cup, per a Monday afternoon release from U.S. Soccer and the Mexican Football Federation.

According to the statement, they will instead focus on developing a "more equitable" bid for the 2031 tournament, with the ultimate goal of "eliminating investment disparities" between the men’s and women’s tournaments.

The federations went on to cite the upcoming 2026 Men’s World Cup in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico as an opportunity to build support for local infrastructure, improve audience engagement, and scale up media and partnership deals in preparation to "host a record-breaking tournament in 2031."

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"Hosting a World Cup tournament is a huge undertaking — and having additional time to prepare allows us to maximize its impact across the globe," said U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone. "Shifting our bid will enable us to host a record-breaking Women’s World Cup in 2031 that will help to grow and raise the level of the women’s game both here at home as well as across the globe."

The decision leaves just Brazil and a joint bid from Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands in the running for the 2027 host spot. Brazil — the rumored frontrunner — has never hosted a Women’s World Cup, while Germany hosted the 2011 tournament as a solo venture. 

Furthermore, this postponement doesn’t mean the U.S. is a shoo-in for 2031, as it's been previously reported that 2022 UEFA Women's EURO host England is considering their own Women's World Cup bid. FIFA is scheduled to confirm the winning bid after the FIFA Congress votes on May 17th.