The Fever star faced some negative reaction to being voted as TIME Athlete of the Year.

Caitlin ClarkLAPRESSE

Chris Evert has rushed to back Caitlin Clark after the owner of the Washington Mystics played down her impact on the WNBA as the 22-year-old Indiana Fever star is voted TIME Athlete of the Year.

After graduating from the NCAA as the overall first pick of the 2024 draft, Clark has taken professional basketball by storm and was eventually voted as the Rookie of the Year after averaging an impressive 19.2 points, 8.4 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game.

And alongside those performances, attendances spiked by 48% from 2023 whilst the Fever began to sell out the Gainbridge Fieldhouse and venues across the United States as fans wanted to catch a glimpse of the budding star.

But for Sheila Johnson, the 75-year-old suggested that it was the collective wider draft class rather than just Clark as she highlighted another talented player in Angel Reese, who picked up the only other vote in the WNBA Rookie of the Year contest.

Johnson has picked up her fair share of criticism for the comments and now Chris Evert, the former world number one in tennis, added her voice to back the 22-year-old’s recognition as Athlete of the Year.

“Caitlin Clark deserves this award,” Evert, who won 18 grand slams from 1974-1986, posted to X.com (formerly Twitter). “Because of her talent and her contributions both on and off the court…”

Clark’s popularity and subsequent decision by the WNBA to make her the face of the league is a pretty obvious one from a commercial point of view considering the interest that has followed the youngster form her time with the Iowa Hawkeyes to Indiana Fever.

However, there has been a big suggestion that the main reason she is so popular is because she is white. That the hype around her is no more deserving than that of Reese or A’ja Wilson, and that’s something Johnson appears to buy in to.

“Well, I want to be very diplomatic about this,” Johnson told CNN. “It’s just the structure of the way media plays out race. I’m going be very honest.

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“I feel very bad because I’ve seen so many players of color that are equally as talented, and they never got the recognition they should have. I think, right now, it is time for that to happen.

“Why couldn’t they have put the whole WNBA on the cover and said, ‘The WNBA is the League of the Year,’ because of all the talent that we have.”

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