A different serve
Tennis superstar Martina Navratilova on finally hanging up her Wimbledon racket
A DIFFERENT SERVE
TO MARK HER 50TH BIRTHDAY, ROBERT PHILIP LOOKS BACK AT THE LIFE AND CAREER OF MARTINA NAVRATILOVA. AS THE WINNER OF A RECORD NINE WIMBLEDON SINGLES CHAMPIONSHIPS AND A TOTAL OF 167 TITLES WORLDWIDE, SHE REIGNS SUPREME AS THE GREATEST FEMALE ATHLETE OF ALL TIME
words: robert philip
IT WAS IN the summer of 1973 that Martina Navratilova first came to Wimbledon as a wide-eyed 16-year-old. It was a time when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were working on the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post and a young student called Tony Blair was working towards his law degree at Oxford.
In sport, Muhammad Ali was preparing to win back the world heavyweight crown against George Foreman and Bobby Moore was bowing out as captain of England’s football team after 108 international appearances.
At Wimbledon that June, Ilie Nastase and Margaret Court were the top seeds but it was an unknown 17-year-old, long-haired Swede, Bjorn Borg, who captured the imagination and dominated the headlines. ‘Borgmania’ had arrived with all the hysteria of Beatlemania and the nation was far too busy studying the phenomenon to notice the chubby brunette from Prague who was making her debut against Britain’s Christine Janes on Court No.1.
“I’d never heard of her so I asked Ginny [Virginia Wade] if she knew anything,” recalls Mrs Janes, a losing finalist [as Miss CC Truman] against Angela Mortimer in 1961. “She’s that Czech girl everyone’s talking about, isn’t she?” came the less-than-detailed reply from Wade.
Seventeen years after beating Janes, Navratilova achieved sporting immortality on the Centre Court when she became the first ever woman to win a ninth Wimbledon singles title, thereby eclipsing the record of eight achieved by American Helen Wills-Moody, who had reigned supreme six decades before. The sense of occasion should have demanded something quite extraordinary – an appropriately epic victory against her greatest rival of the time, SteffiGraf, perhaps – but, just as the All England Club crowds could never quite bring themselves to love her in the manner of Chris Evert, when the gods decided to grant her a place in the pantheon of legends, they did so almost grudgingly.
With most of the planet otherwise preoccupied with football’s World Cup finals in Italy, the moment of her ultimate triumph proved somewhat anti-climactic. The record books indicate she defeated American Zina Garrison 6-4, 6-1 in what was one of the least distinguished finals of the post-war era, but the style of her success was a matter of complete indifference to Navratilova. She explained with a cheeky grin: “They don’t put an asterisk before your name to say, ‘she won, but she didn’t play very well’.”
Born Martina Subertova, at the age of nine she was already a rising star in the state-funded Czechoslovak tennis system when her father, Kamil (who had already left the family home), committed suicide in 1966. At 11, she saw her first Soviet tank, when the Red Army swept across the border and rumbled through the streets of Prague. Socially and athletically, it was a claustrophobic existence.
By 1973, when Navratilova was allowed to travel abroad (albeit in the company of a secret police ‘minder’), she had perfected a devastating left-handed serve, finely-tuned groundstrokes, a confident volley, unlimited ambition and a new surname courtesy of her stepfather, following her mother’s remarriage. “It was like looking in a toy-shop window and not being allowed to buy anything,” she said of her first trip to the West.
In 1975 she took the decision to defect to the United States, where she opted to spend, spend, spend and eat, eat, eat. “I Big Mac-ed across America,” she smiles at the memory of the 18-year-old who became known on the circuit as the ‘Great Wide Hope’. Economic and social freedom, coupled with the anguish of leaving her family behind the Iron Curtain, left her seeking refuge in chocolate bars and fast cars. Within 12 months of her arrival in the States, Navratilova owned a fleet of luxury cars including two Rolls Royce convertibles and a Ferrari with the number plate X-CZECH.
Her saviour – and the source of the moral majority’s outrage – was US Olympic basketball star Nancy Lieberman. Having previously conducted a discreet lesbian love affair with feminist writer Rita Mae Brown, Navratilova’s refusal to hide her sexuality caused a turbulent relationship with middle America.
As part of the metamorphosis wrought by Lieberman, the Great Wide Hope re-emerged as a sleek, muscle-honed athlete. Cheeseburgers headed a list of banned items, replaced by vegetables and daily weight-training.
Already winner of two Wimbledons, the newly-improved and newly-bleached-blonde Navratilova proceeded to win a remarkable six finals in a row between 1982 and 1987.
There always seemed to be something missing, however. In her craving for affection, the tennis star surrounded herself with an entourage which, at times, threatened to engulf the Wimbledon VIP box.
After Lieberman, her support came from a series of different mentors, coaches, practice partners, and friends including Billie Jean King. Boxer Sugar Ray Leonard was among a posse of celebrities rooting for her in the Centre Court VIP box when she beat Graf in the 1987 Wimbledon final. Still she was not happy. “It came to me during the French Open in ‘86,” says Navratilova. “Here I was in Paris for the 10th year and I had only ever seen the Eiffel Tower through the rear window of a courtesy car. I’d never seen the Mona Lisa, or sat in a pavement cafe, or stood under the Arc de Triomphe. In reality, I’d never been to Paris at all. Suddenly I knew there was a life beyond tennis. I wanted to see whales, I wanted to go where penguins come from. I guess I wanted a life.”
And what a life it has been. Navratilova has emerged as a great champion both on and off court, where she is a passionate campaigner in the fight for conservation and the fight against poverty, racism and intolerance. She supports numerous charities including the Rainbow Endowment and the Save the Rhino foundation. “I do what I can do. Sometimes it helps being Martina Navratilova, sometimes it turns people away. I have never knowingly hurt anyone, I can only live my life in my own way. I have some wonderful Wimbledon memories and some sad ones – ones I try to forget.”
Among the latter would presumably be the sort of headlines which announced, “Come on Chris – let’s have a real woman champ”, when she played her Wimbledon final against Evert, after news of her lesbianism had entered the public domain.
“She plays like a man” became the popular refrain of those who blithely chose to overlook the fact that Navratilova did anything but; she played in the style of the best female players who had come before her, displaying complete all-court mastery allied with the new female weapons – awesome power and athleticism. Compared to those who would follow, such as the Williams sisters, Navratilova was peaches and cream.
What other people meant by “She plays like a man” was that they believed she behaved like a man because of her sexual orientation. Dignified, humorous and gracious, she would never appease those who reviled her by apologising for it.
It was in the summer of 2006 that she made her last visit to Wimbledon as a competitor, contesting the women’s and mixed doubles in the hope of winning a 21st title at the All England Club and thereby breaking the record she shares with Billie Jean King. At the age of 49, however, it was not to be and she will not be returning with a racket in hand. “Now that I’ll be collecting my AARP (American Association of Retired People) discount card when I reach 50, it is time to move on to my next life.” As part of that ‘next life’, Navratilova has recently published a health and fitness book entitled Shape Your Self containing work-out routines and recipes.
She may have hung up her racket but we have not heard the last of Martina Navratilova.
