TENNIS : Martina Not Ready to Give Skiing a Thumbs Down

Back in December, at the Virginia Slims Championships in New York, Martina Navratilova talked to Steffi Graf about skiing.

“I asked her if she was going skiing because I knew she had done downhill skiing before,” Navratilova said. “She said no, she was just going to do cross-country because she didn’t want to get hurt.”

But last week in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Graf was unsafe on any skis. She chipped her right thumb in a cross-country skiing accident and will miss six weeks of competition.

To Navratilova, an accomplished downhill skier, Graf’s injury seemed a little eerie. Navratilova has just about recovered from a broken finger, which she caught in a garage door at her home in Aspen, Colo., on Christmas Eve. Navratilova considered herself lucky, since she holds her racket with her left hand and could still play tennis.

Is there a lesson here?

“I’m going 40 or 50 m.p.h. down the mountain in Aspen and I break my finger on a garage door,” Navratilova said. “So I think the moral of the story is that you should do what you want to do without being afraid of getting hurt because you could get hurt walking down the street.”

When Graf does return to the tour, Navratilova will be waiting for her. Navratilova has been trying to come up with a way to unseat Graf since Graf took the No. 1 ranking from her on Aug. 16, 1987. Since then, Navratilova has one Grand Slam victory, the 1987 U.S. Open. She beat Graf in the final, a match that was also her last victory over Graf.

But all that seems sort of like foggy history to Navratilova. She is still chasing Graf and the No. 1 ranking, but there is also the business of winning a record ninth Wimbledon.

“Chances are if I win Wimbledon, I will be No. 1, so for me, definitely, Wimbledon is the priority,” Navratilova said.

Navratilova has won a lot of money, $15.3 million, and a lot of titles, 146, but she feels as if she is capable of still more at 33.

For the first time since she turned pro in 1975, Navratilova took an extended off-season, seven weeks. She did not play the Australian Open for only the second time in 11 years and instead began an extended training program to prepare her for chasing down Graf, who is 13 years younger.

In addition to weight training and working to improve her cardiovascular system, Navratilova spent time on her footwork. She also tinkered with her serve.

“I don’t start from a dead start, I sort of rock into it, like I used to,” Navratilova said. “It makes for a smoother transition of weight.”

The new, improved Navratilova is the featured player in the $350,000 Virginia Slims of Indian Wells, Feb. 26-March 4, at Hyatt Grand Champions. Other top players in the draw are seventh-ranked Mary Joe Fernandez, ninth-ranked Conchita Martinez, 11th-ranked Helena Sukova and 16th-ranked Hana Mandlikova. Navratilova will play doubles with Gigi Fernandez. She plans to team with Zina Garrison at the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles.

Last year, Navratilova won eight tournaments, but for the second consecutive year, none of them were Grand Slams.

This year?

“I always start out the year thinking I can win Wimbledon and be No. 1,” Navratilova said. “I think realistically I have a very good chance, as good as anybody out there.”

More Martina: Chris Evert, a neighbor of Navratilova in Aspen, said it’s too early to concede too much to Graf.

“Steffi is dominating now, but don’t tell Martina she is tapering off because I’ve seen her the last three months in the gym,” Evert said. “I don’t know how she’s going to do, but she’s prepared to challenge Steffi. That’s her goal this year, so she might surprise a lot of people.”

Navratilova is 7-7 against Graf, but has lost the last four matches.

Tense? Retire: Since she retired at the U.S. Open, Evert has found one thing missing from her life. It isn’t tennis, either.

“Stress,” Evert said. “I really feel the last three years I really pushed myself emotionally, mentally and physically. I worried a lot when I lost. I thought I was going down hill. Now I wake up in the morning and I have no stress.”

Evert, who will be the hostess of a charity pro-celebrity exhibition during the Virginia Slims of Indian Wells, still practices four times a week to wean herself from tennis. She says she hasn’t yet missed tennis, although she expects that time to come.

“Around Wimbledon time, I’ll probably be depressed,” she said. “But so far I’ve been very happy.”

Evert makes her debut as a featured tennis commentator for NBC at the Family Circle Cup in Hilton Head, S.C., the week of April 2. Her most important dates are the French Open and Wimbledon, where she replaces Joanne Russell. Evert said she plans to be candid.

“I’m going to be watching these matches and, you know, if some of the girls are playing bad, I’m going to say, ‘Gosh, I should be down there in the semis or finals,’ ” Evert said. “Hopefully, as an ex-player, I can bring something new into the broadcasting booth.”

M-O-N-E-Y: The men’s professional tennis tour made a left turn last week at the Volvo/San Francisco tournament when appearance fees were legally paid to players for the first time.

Promoter Barry MacKay paid two players $200,000 just to play in the tournament that was worth only $35,000 to the winner. Andre Agassi got a reported $155,000 and Brad Gilbert $45,000 to play in the event, the first stop on the new ATP Tour. Agassi defeated Todd Witsken in the final and Gilbert lost in the first round.

The Volvo/San Francisco tournament is a lesser event on the ATP Tour, meaning that unlike the Grand Prix tour, no top-10 players would be required to play. The ATP Tour decided that such World Series level events as Volvo/San Francisco and Volvo/Los Angeles of July 30-Aug. 5, could offer players guarantees to attract them.

Of course, there is a huge downside to all this.

“Players should play for prize money, not appearance money,” said Bjorn Ahlstrom, president and chief executive officer of Volvo North America, which is the title sponsor of eight tournaments on the ATP Tour calendar. “I hope (guarantees) don’t detract from the competitive aspect of the tournament.”

Ahlstrom fears that guarantees cheapen the matches. A player could make more money just by showing up and losing in the first round than by winning the tournament.

Bob Kramer, promoter of the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament, went to San Francisco to study how his event might be affected.

Kramer’s assessment?

“It’s not a happy thing,” he said. “Now that the circuit’s on and it’s part of the system, away we go. Our view has always been pretty clear, though. We think there’s a much better concept. But even though we don’t agree with (guarantees), we’re part of the ATP Tour.”

Is it A-OK?: The ATP Tour agreed to take on IBM as a title sponsor for a reported $9 million over two years, a deal negotiated by IMG as the ATP Tour’s brokering agent. This is news Vanna White would love--IMG gets IBM and ATP together to form the IBM/ATP Tour. All concerned hope this arrangement will help the ATP ASAP.

Tennis Notes

Third-ranked Stefan Edberg’s wild-card entry in the $1-million Newsweek Champions Cup means that eight of the 10 top-ranked players in the world are scheduled to play. Missing are No. 1 Ivan Lendl and No. 5 John McEnroe. Second-ranked Boris Becker, a two-time champion, tops the list of entries for the tournament March 5-11 at Hyatt Grand Champions. . . . Angelica Gavaldon, the 16-year-old from Coronado whose ranking jumped from No. 196 to 97 after reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, has accepted a wild-card berth in the Virginia Slims of Indian Wells.

The Volvo/Los Angeles tournament of July 30-Aug. 5 is looking for volunteer ushers. Those interested should contact Arlene Barco at (213) 208-3838. . . . The 101st Pacific Coast men’s doubles tournament will be held March 2-4 at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club. Teams from Stanford, UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, California and UC Irvine are expected to play. Previous winners included teams with John McEnroe, Rick Leach, Stan Smith, Alex Olmedo, Ted Schroeder, Tony Trabert, Jack Kramer and Bobby Riggs.

Billie Jean King, 46, is playing doubles with Jennifer Capriati, 13, in the Virginia Slims of Florida, March 5-11 in Boca Raton. . . . Four tennis players from Southern California are part of the USTA 1990 U.S. national team. They are Jonathan Leach of Laguna Beach, Nicole London of Rolling Hills Estates, Nicole Hummel of San Marino and Michael Joyce of Los Angeles.