A portrait of the artist as a tennis champion
Melissa Kite meets Martina Navratilova, nine times Wimbledon singles champion and now pioneer of ‘tennising’ — an artistic technique that creates Jackson Pollock-style patterns
The jet set are strolling across the manicured lawns of corporate Wimbledon. Glistening white marquees filled with champagne and canapés await them at the Fairway Village and Wimbledon Club, just over the road from the All England Club where the tennis championship is taking place. Inside the tents, amid water sculptures and flowers and wine glasses lined up on trays, are some unusual paintings.
The pictures, which range in price from £1,500 to £126,000, are Jackson Pollock-like splatters of paint on canvas, which on closer inspection turn out to be the marks made by tennis balls at speed. As the guests begin sipping their pre-match aperitifs, the artist herself arrives in a silver Mercedes, drives straight across the lawn and pulls up as close as she can to the clubhouse.
Martina Navratilova hasn’t changed a bit. She looks exactly as she did in the heady days of her epic clashes with Chris Evert which captured the imagination of a generation of tennis fans. The nine-times Wimbledon singles champion sits down on a wooden bench outside the clubhouse and promptly tells an autograph seeker ‘No!’
If she acts like she owns the place, it is because, spiritually at least, she probably does. ‘I know this neighbourhood as well as the people who live here. I did an interview on centre court on Sunday and I had to sneak under there and put my hand on the grass. It’s like coming home.’
She still looks incredibly fit and indeed is due to play in the veterans’ tournament. She will be ‘hitting’ later on, which means practising.
‘I was lucky that I left on my own terms. I could still keep playing, my body would allow me to. How lucky can you get? I’m 51 years old and I could still play if I wanted to, but I have too many things to do.’
More articles from: Melissa Kite | this section
Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
Advertisement
Labour’s U-turn on social housing for non-immigrants is welcome but too late
Rod LiddleRod Liddle says that metropolitan liberal ideology is too deeply ingrained in local councils, social services and the judiciary to be overturned by one panic measure driven by Labour’s sudden fear of the BNP
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with
Cass SunsteinCass Sunstein — co-author of the hugely influential Nudge and an adviser to President Obama — unveils his new theory of ‘group polarisation’, and explains why, when like-minded people spend time with each other, their views become not only more confident but more extreme
Who would have thought a herd could moonwalk?
Mark EarlsThe acclaimed web theorist, Mark Earls, says that the death of Michael Jackson unleashed the extremes of collective action: mass mourning and sick jokes
A splendid lunch with Jimmy McNulty
Deborah RossIn the first of an occasional series of interviews over meals, Deborah Ross talks to Dominic West about The Wire and the challenge to an Old Etonian of playing an American cop
What Jacko needed was someone to say ‘No’
Uri Geller
My defining memory of Michael Jackson — vulnerable, brilliant, otherworldly — is of watching him dance to the soundtrack of a movie.
Moscow Notebook
Pablo Ganguli
Before boarding the flight to Moscow, it dawned on me that I might have somehow contracted swine flu from Michael Nyman.
The rise of British racism may be horribly close
Fraser NelsonAs the June elections draw close, Fraser Nelson goes on the stump with the BNP and is struck by a troubling paradox: the less racist Britain is, the more popular this racist party becomes. As Westminster implodes, far Right politicians are posturing as the tribunes of working people
Latvian Notebook
Douglas HurdDouglas Hurd on his recent trip to Latvia
Is Oxford voting for a celebrity or a poet?
Olivia ColeLiterature and scandal have often gone together, writes Olivia Cole. But the withdrawal of Derek Walcott from the race to become professor of poetry reflected misplaced priorities
‘Solution Focused Therapy’ is only the worst of the delusions in the Baby P case
Rod Liddle
Rod Liddle says that the insane therapeutic methods used by Haringey Social Services typify the ideological determination of these ‘experts’ to accentuate the ‘positive’ and ignore social reality
Latest blog posts
sponsored links
BIG SAND STEEL BAND
IF YOU ARE PLANNING A CHAMPAGNE RECEPTION and looking for some light entertainment, you can now hire London's busiest steel
BOSC LEBAT, Tarn et Garonne.
BOSC LEBAT, SW France. Only 45 minutes from Toulouse Airport with daily flights from most provincial airports avoiding the horrors
ROME CENTRE
PORTA METRONIA, ROME Standing high on the top of one of the seven hills of Rome- the Coelian- this unique
Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine
Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms
Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP
All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved
Fergus Pickering
July 5th, 2008 5:10amEverybody 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.