Last Waltz At Wimbledon

By Paul A. Witteman

In football it's the legs that go first, sapped of their spring and strength by season upon season of relentless battering. In baseball it's the eyes, diminished to the degree that a curve ball looks like a fast ball and there are too many called strike threes. In golf it's the nerves, causing a 3-ft. putt to look like three miles of bad road. In sports from archery to yachting, age steals away the skills, leaving nothing behind for the graying champion to embrace. Except heart.

Martina Navratilova brought her surgically repaired knees, prescription eyeglasses and fragile psyche this year to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club for a sentimental valedictory on tennis' most hallowed turf. No expectations. Just an opportunity to bask one more time in the genteel applause of the faithful at Centre Court. After all, Martina is 37, and the serve no longer sizzles. Wimbledon and its slippery green amalgam of fescue and ryegrass are now the domain of five-time champion Steffi Graf, 25. It's a surface for the young and the restless. On grass either you are quick or you are quickly dismissed.

Everyone forgot about the champion's heart. Martina packed hers along with her rackets and sweatbands and made her last dance the most memorable Wimbledon in years. Against all odds, she swept through to the finals, vanquishing veterans and prodigies alike. Meanwhile Graf fell out in the first round, and second-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, 22, was sent to the sidelines in the fourth. Navratilova could be forgiven last Saturday if she was overcome with the urge to pinch herself. For there she was on Centre Court again, playing for an unprecedented 10th ladies' singles title against third- seeded Conchita Martinez, 22, a baseline basher from Barcelona, Spain.

In a stadium as steamy as a Turkish bath, Navratilova parried top-spin forehands with crisp volleys. Martinez responded by hitting passing shots with precision; they found the lines unerringly. Martinez won the first set 6-4. Navratilova was leading 3-0 in the second set when Martinez called a time-out for a muscle injury. The delay seemed to break Navratilova's concentration, but she held on to win the set, 6-3. In the decisive third set, however, younger legs prevailed 6-3. But the warmest cheers after the match belonged to the runner-up, who magnanimously allowed Martinez a solo turn around her court with the trophy. Pausing as she left the stadium, Navratilova stooped and picked a tuft of turf as a last memento. "I wasn't so splendorful today," she said. And was this really the end? "Definitely. Enough."

Not that losing in her final Wimbledon appearance diminishes her achievement. Navratilova's record there stands as much as a testament to durability as well as talent. The once chubby player from Prague first showed up at Wimbledon as a junior in 1973. Over these 22 years she has played in 12 finals, losing only to Graf twice and now to Martinez. She has teamed up with various partners to win the women's doubles seven times. She fooled around in the mixed doubles too, winning that title twice. Navratilova seems to have been a fixture at Wimbledon almost as long as radio commentator and former champ Fred Perry, whose last title came in 1936 and who is still broadcasting for BBC Radio.

But Navratilova's contribution to the women's game goes beyond the nearly 170 singles titles and $20 million in prize money she has won in her career. She has left her mark as indelibly as Billie Jean King, who introduced emotion and brio to the game, and Chris Evert, whose legacy includes killer concentration and the two-fisted backhand. Navratilova's gifts may be even more significant. She elevated serve and volley tactics to a higher level on the women's tour and made it fashionable for women to display muscle tone. Even traditionalist Evert began to pump iron after Martina showed the way.

Along the way Navratilova revealed she was gay, became embroiled in spectacularly difficult relationships and displayed a knack for looking a bit foolish. Her affair with Judy Nelson came to an embarrassing end when Nelson sued her for palimony and the public was treated to their videotaped agreement. At another point she told her biographer that she wanted to have a child with hockey player Wayne Gretzky because the gene combination would produce a great athlete.

During Wimbledon she reiterated her desire to have a child. Parenting duties might be shared with current companion Danda Jaroljmek. Or they might not.

What makes Navratilova so refreshingly different from other athletes is that she says what she thinks. Ask a question. Martina answers. No punches pulled. About her sexuality, she has said, "I've shown a few homophobes that their prejudices were not well founded . . . I don't have horns on my head. I don't have a tail."

What she still has is a surgeon's touch with the drop volley and the ability to cut off return angles with quick rushes to the net. Her serve has diminished to a mortal 97 m.p.h. Mortal, that is, when compared with her serve of five years ago. But what's a flaw or two when the achievement itself can never be erased by the passage of time?