A portrait of the artist as a tennis champion

Melissa Kite

5 July 2008

Melissa Kite meets Martina Navratilova, nine times Wimbledon singles champion and now pioneer of ‘tennising’ — an artistic technique that creates Jackson Pollock-style patterns

Despite changing the women’s game forever during those great battles with Chrissie, Navratilova suddenly reveals that she has regrets. ‘I think I did make it more physical and forced the players to become better athletes. But I wish I had made more of a mark on the way the game is played, in that I did serve and volley and come to the net a lot but they don’t anymore.

‘It’s the rackets, they make it more difficult to come to the net, a lot easier to do ground strokes. That’s the way it is unless they go back to wood or something. They sort of let the cat out of the bag.

‘It’s just more one-dimensional, more similar. There’s not as much variety and that’s what I miss, that’s what a lot of people miss, the variety of the games. And perhaps even the personalities are more alike as well, they all sort of go to the same school and talk the same way.’ She looks a bit disappointed.

I ask why she thinks there hasn’t been a British singles champion for 30 years.

Ms Navratilova, who lives in Colorado but has duel Czech–US citizenship, says, ‘The problem with America and England, you have a lot of choices. In America the girls have so many other options, and then there’s the mentality — we are coddled, there’s no question, we are.

‘You know, I had it tough growing up. I used to walk for miles and miles with my tennis gear in a big bag and was running after trains and trams and walked and it was ridiculous, the schedule that I kept.

‘But I wasn’t on the court that long. Now they play six hours a day, and they get driven to the court.

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Fergus Pickering

July 5th, 2008 5:10am Report this comment

Everybody loves Martina and so do I. I suppose it would have been ungallant in a man to say the pictures are rubbish. But then you aren't a man. No I haven't seen them (the pictures). Jackson Pollock's rubbish too, don't you think? Pont Martina in the direction of Jenny Saville. That's proper art.

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