‘Narcissists’ Chris Evert and Greg Norman break up

When Greg Norman made his extraordinary comeback and very nearly won the British Open at Royal Birkdale in July last year, he attributed his new-found form to his recent fairytale marriage to the tennis star Chris Evert. Now, only 15 months later, the couple have stunned fellow sportsmen by announcing they have broken up.

News of the split was released on the eve of the President's Cup tournament at the Harding Park Golf Course in San Francisco where Norman will captain the International team against the US this week and a captain's missing wife would be noticed.

According to friends, Evert and Norman were both so set in their ways they couldn't even decide which of their homes to live in together. He wanted to stay in the mansion on Florida's Jupiter Island where he had lived with his wife of 25 years, Laura Andrassy, and where his neighbours include Tiger Woods and Celine Dion.

But Evert, winner of 18 singles grand slams, including three Wimbledon titles, wanted to stay at the sprawling home she had shared with her Olympic skier husband Andy Mill in a horsey community an hour's drive south. Neither of them was prepared to budge.

"Greg's place is an absolute dream," a friend told the Mail on Sunday. "He has spent a fortune on renovations recently and couldn't wait to enjoy it with Chris ... But Chris hated the idea of living in the same place Greg shared with Laura. So they just spent a few days in each other's places."

According to Andrassy, who won a $100m settlement from Norman when he left her for Evert, he should never have married the tennis star. "I didn't think it would last because they are both too alike," she told the Australian paper, the Sunday Telegraph. "They are both high-profile narcissistic people. But even I am shocked that it ended so quickly."

Andrassy, a former air hostess, went on: "Both he and Chris are adults and they were supposed to know what they were doing. But they were in the throes of lust and weren¹t thinking." ·