Instead of Farewell, Martina Simply Makes It Final

Sarah Bernhardt had so many “farewell tours,” the phrase became synonymous with her. But she was the best in the world at what she did. She said goodby one investment at a time. She was the “Divine Sarah” to the end.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had a farewell tour that brought him everything from a motorcycle to a Picasso to a Rolls. Because he was the best in the world at what he did.

There have been other triumphant final tours. Babe Ruth never had one. But a lot of lesser players did. Mad Russian dancers had them. Aging tenors.

Which brings me to my question--why not Navratilova? The Divine Martina. No one ever did what she did any better--play tennis. No one ever dominated a game any more thoroughly than she did.

Watching her play tennis was every bit as transcendent as watching Ruth bat or Nijinsky dance or Caruso sing. Martina on the court was a poem of power and grace. The other player on court might as well have been wearing a mask. I mean, does anyone look at the piano when Horowitz plays Chopin?

An important element in any appreciation of a performer has to be a belief in her invincibility. Martina had this in greater measure than almost anyone who ever played tennis--and I include Tilden, Budge, Gonzales, Borg or whomever, male or female. You could root for Martina without fear of failure. You could bask in her glory. It’s the essence of fandom: “Watch this! We’re going to blow Goolagong right outta here!”

To be really great, you have to revolutionize the way your game is played. Martina did this to an extraordinary degree. When she came along, women’s tennis was a nice polite baseline game played by Chrissie Evert and Evonne Goolagong at longer range than the Battle of Midway.

Martina went on the attack. She was more like Dempsey with his man on the ropes than someone playing telephone chess. She went for the knockout. She didn’t jab you to death, she slugged.

It’s doubtful if she could even have played the game in skirts, the way Helen Wills and Suzanne Lenglen, the other Wimbledon legends, had to. Martina’s game could not have been hobbled. Martina was embarrassed if it took her three sets to polish off an opponent. She won Wimbledon once, 6-0, 6-2.

Wimbledon was her turf. Helen Wills Moody had won it eight times. So Martina won it nine. One by one, she destroyed existing records. She once won Wimbledon six consecutive years. No one had ever done that before. She won 96 matches in a row. She went through Grand Slam tournaments without losing a set.

So, why isn’t somebody giving her a motorcycle, an oil painting, a year’s supply of shampoo, a gold watch? Why no Bernhardt farewell tour?

“Mostly because I don’t want one,” she acknowledges.

It’s not the emotion Martina fears. She has never been afraid of her feelings. When she came in the game, Evert was the Ice Queen. She beat you without getting her hair mussed. Her mascara didn’t even run. But Martina scrambled, screamed, scratched. She even occasionally told the crowd to shut up. She was the Lava Queen.

It’s probably hard to think of a farewell tour for someone who recently made the final at Wimbledon. For some, that would be the apex of a career, not the finale. Most never make a Wimbledon final. For Martina, that was No. 12.

In a sport that has combatants looking for an escape hatch at the age of 25, pleading burnout, Martina, nearing 38, is still rifling unreturnable backhands. A big factor in legend-making is longevity. To be consistent is necessary but to be persistent is essential.

“I have felt the tug of burnout,” Martina says. “Back in 1986. I didn’t want to play. So, I know the feeling.”

The feeling evaporated when she saw an opponent leaning the wrong way on a return of serve, when she felt the exhilaration of putting a forehand down the line past a schoolgirl at the net. Then, she was Bernhardt with a good script, Ruth with a hanging curve.

She did not grow up in south Florida and get a tennis racket and a tricycle for her 4th birthday. Martina grew up in the harsh shadow of the Carpathian Mountains and the Red masters of Czechoslovakia. It had one plus.

“The Communists encouraged girls to become athletes,” she says. “They felt it reflected favorably on the regime.”

Maybe so. But it reflected unfavorably on the regime when the young Miss Navratilova got a look at Western freedom. No Russian tanks rolled through those capitals, and Martina had a Prague spring of her own and defected.

It was a brave but not foolhardy decision for the young athlete.

“I talked to my family and they told me, ‘No matter what we say to you on the telephone, don’t believe it and don’t come back. It might be a trick.’ ”

Martina took the advice.

“There were some repercussions,” she says. “My father didn’t get promoted to a job, in fact, took a minor demotion. My sister got thrown out of the tennis club.”

But there was no gunfire. The tanks didn’t roll. And Martina became a world-class celebrity who finally did reflect glory on her benighted native land.

Martina is a child of the century, a part of history that will probably become incomprehensible to those who come after her.

She should have farewell tours. At least as many as Bernhardt. Instead, she is still entering stage left with a racket in her hand. She will be on the court at the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles at the Manhattan Country Club this week and she might get another final to add to her collection.

You will have no trouble recognizing her. She’s the one who looks as if she was born with a racket in one hand and a ball in the other. Even if she loses, her opponent will feel as if she has been locked in a room with a lion. Martina does not go gently into that good night.

When Martina played her last set point on Centre Court, she reached down and plucked a clump of grass as a memento of her happy youth in English summers amid cheering royalty. The notion here is that Wimbledon should get a lock of her hair in reciprocity.

Martina was lucky to have Wimbledon. And Wimbledon was lucky to have Martina.