Chris Evert documentary revives the tennis bracelet’s spotlight

Netflix’s Chris & Martina: The Final Set, which premiered on June 26 after a world debut at Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on June 10, has pushed the tennis bracelet back into the jewelry conversation. The film centers on Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova’s rivalry, friendship and later cancer battles, but the accessory tied to Evert’s name is emerging as the subtler story: not a loud piece of court-side glamour, but a pared-back line of diamonds that reads as everyday jewelry.

The scale of that story is hard to overstate. Navratilova spent 332 weeks at world No. 1, while Evert held the top ranking for 260 weeks. The two met 80 times over 16 years, including 60 finals, and each won 18 major singles titles. Britannica places their rivalry among the greatest in tennis history, and the documentary gives that competitive history a more intimate frame, one shaped by a friendship that survived the scoreline and the harder years that followed.

The bracelet’s origin story remains the hook that keeps it alive. It is widely tied to Evert’s 1978 U.S. Open match at Flushing Meadows, when a diamond bracelet broke or slipped from her wrist and play briefly stopped so she could recover it. The year 1987 is still the most common misremembered version, but Evert’s publicist later clarified that the incident happened in 1978 at the first U.S. Open in New York. Even so, the design itself was already part of jewelry history, with line-bracelet versions dating back at least to the 1920s.

That older lineage is what makes the style feel newly relevant now. The revived interest is not really about replaying a celebrity moment; it is about how a historically glamorous category can be softened into a minimalist staple. Slimmer profiles, uninterrupted diamond lines and restrained styling give the tennis bracelet a different register today, one closer to a quiet heirloom than a statement flourish. Evert’s bracelet became famous because it flashed in motion; its modern appeal lies in how neatly it disappears into a clean cuff, a monochrome look or a wardrobe that favors polish without spectacle.