Martina Navratilova: Tennis

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I was an intern at the 2006 NASDAQ-100 Open in Key Biscayne, Florida, where I was taking a short cut to the concession stands for lunch. As I walked by the player drop-off and pick-up, I passed right by Martina Navratilova for the first and only time in my life, where she was waiting to be picked up. She was sitting on a bench talking to a group of guys standing around her. She looked relaxed and young even as she was only a few months away from turning fifty. A big part of me wanted to stop and introduce myself to just say hello because there were a number of players I saw that week, all of them much younger, but not one of them was as striking or as fit as Navratilova.

When I was as young as nine years old, my father told me about Navratilova and the other great tennis players he grew up watching and reading about. To me, those players were just images of the past on the television—characters in a different dimension. Every week, I was allowed to check out two books from my elementary school library. One time I decided to read about Navratilova and to see her in the pictures in the book. To see her at the NASDAQ was a validation of my childhood sports fandom. The legend was only a few feet away from me, and in that moment, the legend had become real.

Many believe Navratilova is the greatest women’s tennis player ever. Billie Jean King, one of the greatest, said of Navratilova, “She’s the greatest singles, doubles and mixed doubles player who’s ever lived.”¹ Navratilova made her first mark as a singles player in 1978 when she captured the Wimbledon title, the first of a record nine Wimbledon singles titles. All told, Navratilova won eighteen Grand Slam singles titles, an all-time record thirty-one Grand Slam women’s doubles titles, and 10 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles.

In a 1973 match in Akron, Ohio, Navratilova caught the attention of Chris Evert, another tennis great with whom she would begin a tremendous rivalry. “She was overweight, but eager and gifted,” Evert remembered. “It was a close match. Even though I’d never heard of her, and couldn’t pronounce or spell her name, I could tell she’d be trouble. Especially if she got in shape.”²

Navratilova defected from the former communist Czechoslovakia shortly before her 19th birthday in 1975. At the time, it was strictly a tennis decision. Navratilova felt as if the government in Czechoslovakia was trying to stifle her tennis career. The year before she defected, the government demanded that she return home from a tennis tournament in Amelia Island off the coast of Florida. Shortly after that incident, she defected at the 1975 U.S. Open.

While setting up residency in the United States, the 5-foot-71/2-inch Navratilova struggled with her weight, getting up to 167 pounds. But beginning in the 1980s Navratilova concentrated on her fitness, and as Evert had predicted she was trouble for the rest of the field, becoming the most dominant tennis player of the decade. With her dominance, Navratilova ushered in a new era in tennis. With her weight down to 145 pounds, her tightly wound physique, cut and muscular, was in sharp contrast to that of the women tennis players of her day, many of whom kept the curves and round shapes of their bodies associated with femininity.

“I’m not saying she’s the first to do it,” said Mary Carillo, a former player who is now a television commentator. “Margaret Court did it and Billie Jean King did it. But when Martina did it, everybody followed her lead. Martina soared so far beyond everybody else the only thing to do was to follow her lead. She did more than dominate the early 1980s. She set a whole new standard. She changed her diet and her fitness status. She made it scientific. She made it specific.”³

The year 1983 would be a banner one for Navratilova. After dropping a match in the fourth round of the French Open, Navratilova went on to claim the other three Grand Slam titles that year, bringing her record to 86-1, a year-long winning percentage that has never been matched. She was named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year in 1983. Navratilova was named WTA Player of the Year seven times, including five times in the 1980s. She was named the Female Athlete of the Decade of the 1980s by the national Sports Review, Associated Press, and United Press International.

Navratilova’s star shined brightest at Wimbledon, where she used the grass surface and her aggressive, quick-paced game to her advantage. She reached the Wimbledon singles final 12 times, including nine consecutive years from 1982 through 1990. Navratilova is tied with King for the all-time record in Wimbledon titles with 20. Her Wimbledon triumph in 1990 was her last Grand Slam singles title, but she made two more Grand Slam finals appearances, including her final appearance in 1994 at Wimbledon, when she made headlines by losing a hard-fought three-set match to Conchita Martinez, who was more than 15 years younger. Shortly after her bout with Martinez, Navratilova retired from full-time competition in singles play. At that point in her career, she was receiving standing ovations from adoring fans, both before and after her matches. The fans were cheering for her to stay, they were cheering for her to win, and they were cheering to thank her for all the masterful tennis.

The International Tennis Hall of Fame inducted Navratilova into its halls in 2000, the same year she came out of retirement to play doubles events and, on occasion, singles matches. In 2003, she won the mixed doubles events at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, making her the oldest Grand Slam champion ever at 46 years and eight months of age. She capped off her illustrious career with a win after capturing the mixed doubles event at the 2006 U.S. Open. Navratilova said her retirement in 2006 was absolutely final.

She finished as one of just three women to have accomplished a career Grand Slam by winning the singles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles at all four Grand Slam events. She holds the open era records for most singles titles with 167, and doubles titles with 177. She also recorded the longest winning streak in tennis history at 74 consecutive matches. Navratilova, Margaret Court, and Maureen Connolly Brinker share the record for the most consecutive Grand Slam singles titles with six. Navratilova reached 11 consecutive Grand Slam singles finals, second all-time to Steffi Graf’s 13. In women’s doubles, Navratilova and Pam Shriver won 109 consecutive matches and won all four Grand Slam titles in 1984. They also tied Louise Brough Clapp’s and Margaret Osborne duPont’s record of 20 Grand Slam women’s doubles titles as a team.

Since her final retirement in 2006, Navratilova has been an ambassador not just for tennis but for a number of different communities to which she has emotional connections. Never one to shy away from her sexuality for fear of the public’s criticism, Navratilova has been at the forefront of promoting the Rainbow Endowment and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. In 1999, she was ranked #19 on ESPN’s Sports Century Top 50 Athletes. Navratilova remains in tennis as a commentator for both the Wimbledon and French Open tournaments, and she has also worked in the art world through her Art Grand Slam project with fellow tennis player Juraj Kralik. In 2007, Navratilova accepted the role of AARP’s Health and Fitness Ambassador. In April 2008, she was able to get her Czech citizenship back and gained dual citizenship with the United States. Thinking back to when I saw Navratilova, I wish I could have stopped and said “hi” to her to at least make myself, and only in my mind, a part of her growing legend.

Navratilova

Notes

1. DeSimone, Bonnie. 2006. Act II of Navratilova’s career ends with a win. ESPN.com. http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/usopen06/news/story?id=2578105(accessed December 2, 2008).

2. International Tennis Hall of Fame, “Martina Navratilova,” http://www.tennisfame.com/famer.aspx?pgID=867&hof_id=219 (accessed December 2, 2008).

3. Answers.com, “Who 2 Biography: Martina Navratilova, tennis player,” http://www.answers.com/topic/martina-navratilova (accessed December 3, 2008).

This excerpt was written by Horacio Ruiz.