Chris Evert speaks exclusively to Woman's Day, as Dylan Howard in Florida investigates the clash of wills that doomed the star couple.
With its nine huge bedrooms, guest wings, wine cellars and $US60 million price tag, Greg Norman and Chris Evert's estate, ironically named Tranquility, hardly seems a house worth ending a marriage over.
But this Florida waterfront mansion has emerged as the final tension that severed the highly passionate – and public – love affair between sporting super couple Greg and Chris.
Even Greg's recent addition of tennis courts to the sprawling waterfront palace, a final peace offering in the effort to keep the 15-month marriage strong, was not enough to keep the couple together.
Gone were the physical fireworks – the long embraces, the dip and kiss, the adoring gazes. Instead, while they sat close together at the US Open tennis tournament in New York, the closest onlookers got to witnessing their famed chemistry were some shared smiles and a lukewarm declaration from Greg that he'd "been a big tennis nut for my whole life".
It was a long way from April, when the twosome hugged and kissed like teenagers in love at the Masters Augusta National tournament, with Chris even acting as her husband's caddy.
In fact, throughout the couple's very public courtship, their displays of affection have been almost as noteworthy as the way they got together – through the dramatic break-up of their long-time marriages.
Little wonder then that two of those hurt most by the Norman-Evert implosion – his former wife of 25 years Laura Andrassy and Chris's Olympian ex-husband of 18 years Andy Mill – remain bitter.
"They had been telling everyone how much in love they were, so everybody thought it would last a little longer than this," Laura says.
"I said to Andy [Chris's ex-husband] when I spoke to him today, 'It's like a bad movie – and we're in it!'
For his part, Andy was barely able to hide his disgust, exclusively telling Woman's Day, "The culmination of our marriages is over 50 years, and to break up two families for a three-year fling is just horrible.''
Did stepchildren kill off Chris Evert's 'life match' with Greg Norman?
Her fairytale marriage has ended after only 15 months.
But Chris Evert seems determined to show the world she is doing just fine.
Brave face: Chris Evert gives a tentative thumbs-up at the weekend
Dressed in black shorts, a vest and a navy baseball cap, she was pictured taking her children shopping near her home in Boca Raton, South Florida.
Last night, it was claimed that tensions between Miss Evert and Norman's two adult children, 26-year-old Morgan and Greg, 23, were partly to blame for the split.
The golfer's ex-wife said her son and daughter 'did not like Evert at all'.
The pair married in a £500,000 ceremony in the Bahamas last year after an affair that ruined both their marriages.
Narcissistic? Evert and Greg Norman, pictured last year, have separated after fifteen months of marriage
At the time, Miss Evert claimed the couple would stay together for the rest of their lives.
'At our age, over 50, it's not like you're 18,' she said. 'Both of us have lived long enough to know what we're doing.'
But last night, friends claimed the sports stars, both 54, had split because they 'were just too set in their ways'.
They revealed the pair had been living separately because they could not even agree where to live.
Rift: It has been alleged that Greg Norman's daughter Morgan, pictured, did not get on with her stepmother
It is understood that although Norman wanted Miss Evert to move into his £ 35million mansion on the exclusive Jupiter Island, Miss Evert refused to give up her £1.5million home an hour's drive away.
Norman's ex-wife Laura Andrassy, who was awarded £60million after their divorce two years ago, yesterday claimed the couple were 'narcissistic people' who wed 'in the throes of lust'.
The 59-year-old said: 'Here were two people very much alike - high-profile and narcissistic - and that would make a relationship difficult.'
