New York—Martina Hingis and Chris Evert had fans on their feet on Monday night at the World TeamTennis — for two very different reasons.

Hingis, playing for the NY Sportimes, brought her team back from the brink of defeat to seal a scintillating comeback on a do-or-die point, while Evert charmed the crowd with her rare appearance on the court, teaming up with youngsters to play a friendly mixed doubles exhibition.

"When Billie Jean asks you for a favor, you don't say 'no,'" Evert said in a press conference before the evening's events began. "I have great memories of World TeamTennis...The least I could do was say 'yes' when she asked. It just seemed like fun."

The entire night could have been characterized so, as a small but boisterous crowd watched Hingis almost single-handedly bring New York back from a deficit to win a winner-takes-all point in the tiebreak set against double specialist Liezel Huber, playing for the St. Louis Aces.

"At the end, I was just like, 'I'm not missing this!,"' Hingis explained. "Here the ball kind of flies so there's that added pressure not to miss. You have to be aggressive and patient — it's difficult, that kind of combination. She played smart. I took my chance on a match point and it paid off. I feel so much relief."

An ecstatic Hingis was rightfully relieved, helping the Sportimes come back from a 10-3 deficit to eventually win the team dual, 16-15.

American Jesse Witten also helped the New York cause, registering a 5-0 win in singles.

For Evert, who played against Witten in a hit-and-giggle with two talented QuickStart New York youths, WTT will only grow stronger as it continues to draw players like Hingis to its three-week season.

"I think [WTT is] going about it the right way if they can just get a Venus (Williams) or a Serena (Williams) for three or four nights," Evert said. "Or get (Roger) Federer during the last few years of his career. Those players are the ones that bring in the crowds. If that's the case, WTT can grow."

Evert looks back
"When I played it...was the era that (Bjorn) Borg, (John) McEnroe, Jimmy (Connors), myself, Billie Jean (King), Martina (Navratilova) (played)— it was a great era — we would pack 8,000 to 10,000 people in the stadiums every night," Evert recalled. "It was great to be on a team and it was great for the spectators to see all five kind of matches. It was great for the audience."

Evert understands that WTT has much more to compete with these days: prize money, a more crowded tennis players and a global cast of stars.

"As long as there are million-dollar tournaments in the summer and sponsors for these tournaments like there are now, it's hard to say [where WTT fits in]," Evert surmised. "There's not much time between Wimbledon and the U.S. Open when you figure in the rest and the training and then you have to put in the warm-up tournaments."

New faith in USTA to build champs
"There's no magic formula. I support the USTA. They get it now. They didn't for so long, but trust me, there are scouts at every single tournament at every single level trying to find talent in America."

How Evert Academy builds champs
"[My academy's philosophy] is focusing on the whole child. We have tennis, which we have both mental and physical training [for the kids]. We have an online school or if [the kids] want to go to school across the street, [they] can. We have activities for the kids on nights and the weekends so that they're not tennis machines. I'm so in awe of these kids at academies. They have discipline, commitment responsibility. You don't find a lot of kids like that.

"We ask them what their goals are. They vary: 'I want to be No. 1 on my high school team.' 'I want to be no. 1 in India.' 'I want to get a college scholarship.' We respect that."

Talent gap separates Americans pros from others
"When Venus and Serena are healthy, they still are the best players are the world. But yes, there is a gap. I think tennis is very global now. When I was playing, there was never a Chinese player. There were only four or five countries represented. Nowadays, tennis is so big that all of these European countries that tennis is the first or second most popular sport there. And they put millions of dollars into training facilities. In America, we're 10th or 12th as a sport — a lot of these kids go to team sports."

"We're suffering because of [team sports] now, especially on the women's side. When I was coming up none of those existed. I do not look at it as, 'What are we doing wrong?' I disagree with that philosophy. Most of our good athletes are going to team sports, while some of these other countries have better athletes going to tennis. And it's a ticket to get out of their country. I still think there is something to be said of, 'I want to get out of Romania, I want to go to America, I want to be Maria Sharapova and win a lot of tournaments and money.'"