How the Tennis Bracelet Got Its Name and Its History
Jewellery Journal · Diamond History
Part of our Lab-Grown Diamond Tennis Bracelet Guide
Ask most people why a diamond tennis bracelet is called a "tennis bracelet" and you'll get the same story: a tennis star lost hers mid-match. That part is true. The year everyone repeats along with it? Almost always wrong.
The bracelet-drop that named the style happened in 1978, at the U.S. Open's first year in Flushing Meadows — not 1987, the date most articles (including some jewellery retailers) still repeat.
How the Tennis Bracelet Got Its Name
The player was Chris Evert, one of the most dominant names in women's tennis. Mid-match, the clasp on her diamond line bracelet gave way and it slipped off her wrist onto the court. Play stopped. Evert asked officials for a moment to recover it before continuing. Asked about the delay afterwards, she referred to the missing piece simply as her "tennis bracelet" — and the name outlived the match itself.
The bracelet in question was a diamond line bracelet made by jeweller George Bedewi: a single row of similarly sized, similarly cut stones set edge to edge in a flexible band. That construction is exactly what defines a tennis bracelet today, decades on.
Why Almost Everyone Gets the Year Wrong
Most retellings — and no shortage of jewellery brands — place the incident at the 1987 U.S. Open. It's an understandable mix-up: Evert played in the tournament for over a decade, and photographs of her wearing diamond bracelets on court exist from several of those years. But Evert's own publicist has since clarified the timing: the clasp broke during the U.S. Open's inaugural year at Flushing Meadows, which was 1978, not 1987.
It's a small correction, but it matters if you're the type of buyer who likes their facts straight rather than recycled from the last blog that copied the last blog. We'd rather tell you the version that holds up.
Before "Tennis Bracelet": The Line Bracelet's Art Deco Roots
The style itself is older than the name by half a century. Diamond line bracelets — sometimes called eternity bracelets — were already an Art Deco staple in the 1920s, when platinum was the metal of the moment and old European-cut diamonds were set in continuous rows for evening wear. What Evert's on-court moment changed wasn't the design. It was the context: diamonds, worn not to a ball but onto a tennis court, during a physically demanding professional match.
Platinum diamond line bracelets — "eternity bracelets" — become an Art Deco evening staple.
Chris Evert's clasp breaks mid-match at the U.S. Open. The phrase "tennis bracelet" is born.
Diamonds-with-sportswear becomes a genuine trend; the bracelet's popularity surges through the decade.
Lab-grown diamonds make the same line-bracelet silhouette accessible at far larger carat totals.
From Centre Court to Every Jewellery Box
What made the story stick wasn't just the mishap — it was the pairing. Before Evert, high jewellery and competitive sport rarely shared the same wrist. Through the late 1970s and 1980s, that changed: diamonds moved out of evening-only territory and into daily rotation, worn under blazers, with jeans, and yes, occasionally onto a tennis court. The tennis bracelet became one of the first "everyday diamond" pieces, decades before that idea had a name.
That's still the appeal today. A tennis bracelet isn't a special-occasion piece you take out twice a year — it's designed to be worn constantly, which is exactly why the clasp that started this whole story matters so much.
The Lesson Still Worth Learning From a Broken Clasp
Evert's bracelet didn't fall because the diamonds were poorly set — it fell because of the clasp. That's the part of the story buyers should actually take away: a tennis bracelet lives or dies by its closure. A secure box clasp with a safety catch, checked periodically by a jeweller, is worth more than an extra half-carat of stone.
It's also where lab-grown diamonds change the maths in a buyer's favour. Because the stones themselves cost a fraction of natural equivalents at comparable clarity and colour, more of the budget can go toward a heavier, better-secured setting — a double-locking clasp, a safety chain, thicker prongs along the line — rather than being spent entirely on carat weight.
It's why MadisonDia builds every tennis bracelet as a pavé setting, with each diamond placed close against the next so the line reads as one continuous run of sparkle rather than individual stones. Every stone is graded VS–VVS clarity and D–F colour, and we use CVD-grown lab diamonds exclusively — a deliberate choice, since it avoids the faint phosphorescence that can appear in HPHT-grown stones under UV light. If you're weighing up clarity, colour, and setting for your own piece, our lab-grown diamond tennis bracelet guide walks through exactly how to choose.
It's also worth remembering that Evert wasn't just an athlete when this happened — she was, in effect, one of the earliest style icons to make fine jewellery look natural in an unexpected setting. MadisonDia's own KOL partnerships across Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan follow a similar idea: jewellery worn the way real people actually live, not just how it's photographed in a catalogue.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is it called a "tennis bracelet"?
Because tennis champion Chris Evert lost hers during a U.S. Open match when its clasp broke, and referred to it afterwards as her "tennis bracelet." The name stuck to the entire style of diamond line bracelet from then on.
Did Chris Evert really lose her bracelet during a match?
Yes. The clasp on her diamond bracelet broke mid-match and it fell onto the court; she asked officials to pause play so she could retrieve it. Her publicist later confirmed this happened in 1978, though the story is frequently misdated to 1987.
What was a tennis bracelet called before 1978?
Simply a diamond line bracelet, or sometimes an eternity bracelet — a design that dates back to the Art Deco era of the 1920s, long before it had any connection to tennis.
