EVERT ABOUT TO JOIN TENNIS ELITE TODAY HALL OF FAME INDUCTION TO CAP CAREER.(SPORTS)

Byline: BOB GREENE Associated Press

NEWPORT, R.I. Chris Evert, the winner of 157 tournament titles, will be enshrined in the International Tennis Hall of Fame today. She enters with style, just as she played the game.

Evert will be the 44th woman and 163rd person to be inducted into the tennis hall, but only the sixth chosen unanimously. In fact, she was the only candidate this year, making 1995 the Class of Chrissy.

Evert will receive her induction certificate during today's stadium court ceremony from former President Bush, a frequent tennis partner of the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., native while he was in the White House and at recent charity events.

Taught the game by her father, Jimmy, Chris first gained notice when, as a 15-year-old, she beat Margaret Court, then No. 1 in the world, in a tournament in Charlotte, N.C. Today, she says that's ``where it all started for me.''

At the time, the world's top players all played a serve-and-volley game.

``No one could hit three straight ground strokes without hitting one into the net or out of the court,'' Evert remembers.

But consistency was her game. She could hit stroke after stroke, finding all the lines, winning as much with her temperament and confidence as with her racket. And along the way, she begat a world full of baseline-hugging, two-handed backhand-stroking Chris Evert clones.

``I came along at a time when Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors were coming up. We all had a baseline game and a two-handed backhand,'' Evert says, trying to play down her imprint on the sport. ``I was very one-sided, one-dimensional.

``It was all timing. I came along at a great time.''

In 1971, as a 16-year-old high schooler, she reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open. She went on to win six U.S. titles, as well as seven French Opens, three Wimbledons and two Australian Opens. And the ``Ice Maiden'' so dubbed because of her poker face while deep into concentration on the court became America's tennis sweetheart.

She had a remarkable string of reaching at least the semifinals in 16 consecutive U.S. Opens before falling to Lori McNeil in the quarterfinals of the 1987 tournament.

An even greater accomplishment was reaching at least the semifinals of 32 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments before falling to Kathy Jordan in the third round at Wimbledon in 1983.

``She came in as a winner and stayed that way,'' 1977 Wimbledon winner and fellow Hall of Famer Virginia Wade said of Evert.

Ranked No. 1 eight times throughout her career, Evert won at least one Grand Slam tournament title every year for 13 years 1974 to 1986. She reached the semifinals or better in 52 of the 56 Grand Slam events she played.

Evert's 125-match win streak on clay from August 1973 to May 1979 endures as the best record of any player for any single surface. Never ranked lower than the top four in her 18-year career, she became the first player, male or female, to win 1,000 singles matches, accomplishing that feat in 1984.

``When I was No. 1 in the world and I was beating everybody easily, I should have tried to incorporate more variety in my game,'' Evert said, showing her only remorse. ``I should have come to the net more, tried different shots. Instead of winning 2 and 1, I would have won 4 and 4.

``But that was my pride, my stubborn streak. I should have dropped my pride a little bit and become a better all-around tennis player.''

It would have been scary.

``I didn't have the abundance of physical talent,'' she said. ``But I used what I had to the best of my ability.''

Evert also has been a winner off the court.

She served as president of the Women's Tennis Association a record nine times and received numerous awards for her sportsmanship and charity work. In 1985, she was named the Greatest Woman Athlete of the Last 25 Years by the Women's Sports Foundation.

She is married to former Olympic skier Andy Mill, and they have two sons.

Besides Evert, others since 1980 to be selected unanimously to the International Tennis Hall of Fame were Rod Laver in 1981, John Newcombe in 1986 and Wade in 1989. Two others ``builder'' Lamar Hunt in 1993 and journalist-television commentator Bud Collins in 1994 were unanimously elected by a special masters panel.

Founded in 1954 by the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association, the International Tennis Hall of Fame inducted its first honorees in 1955. In order to be eligible for induction into the Hall, a player must not have been a significant factor during the previous five years.

CAPTION(S):

Associated PressCHRIS EVERT FIRES HER RACKET (above) toward MartinaNavratilova during a 1987 celebrity tennis tournament in Florida. In photos at left, Evert celebrates winning the 1974 French Open, 1976 U.S. Open and 1981 Wimbledon championships. Evert, a winner of 157 tournament titles, was to be enshrined into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I., today.