International Tennis Hall of Famer Martina Navratilova has this week been named as the first legend set to compete in the inaugural WTA Legends’ event in Singapore this October.
The 18-time grand slam singles champion sat down with a small group of journalists this week in Paris to discuss the WTA Finals latest stop and talk everything about the ongoing French Open.
How important is it that the WTA Finals are going to a new place like Singapore?
Hopefully, we can bring new fans to the game. Who knows, maybe 10 years from now we might be writing about a Singaporean player winning here because they came to the matches when they were eight-years-old and fell in love with the game.
Is it refreshing to see the young players breaking through in the French Open?
Yes, it is refreshing to see. Garbine Muguruza took out Serena Williams – the other players got beaten earlier but it’s always nice for the players to think ‘I have a chance now’.
Of course, once Serena lost everybody thought they had a chance to win because she’s the one that very few have been able to beat the last few years. And then Li Na lost in the first round, Agnieszka Radwanska lost in the third round, so it’s anybody’s ball game.
It’ll be a matter of who can rise to the occasion of saying ‘I have this great opportunity’.
Should we expect Serena Williams to come out blazing in Wimbledon after losing early here?
She lost the first round two years ago here and then she didn’t lose a match practically the rest of the year. Right now, she’s enjoying herself in Miami, but I’m sure she’ll come back with some renewed vigour to defend her crown at Wimbledon.
She feels special on grass, plays a great game, her serve pays off a lot more for her there so it’s a lot easier for her to win and she’ll be extremely determined.
She’ll be hard to beat, no matter what happened here.
What is better for women’s tennis right now, to see the big stars in the semi-finals or to see new faces?
You need both. It’s nice to see new faces and a new infusion, you see it on the men’s side as well as you’re got Ernests Gulbis and Milos Raonic, some new faces at the end of the tournament and a mix of old and new.
The new generation will find their way eventually and this might be the turning year for that and this tournament might really spring somebody into the forefront.
Simona Halep made the quarters at the Australian Open, Eugenie Bouchard got to the semis and she’s on track here as well.
You need both, and we’ve had maybe too much of the old, so it’s nice to see the new generation coming through.
What about the men’s, do you see anyone new winning or is it Rafael Nadal’s all over again?
Nadal is still the favourite but I tell you Novak Djokovic is playing such great tennis. It’s hard to find openings and I think Nadal is used to finding the openings with the big forehand, but Novak defends so well that it’s harder for Rafa to find those openings.
We’ll see how his back is, but still this is Roland Garros, so I wouldn’t bet against Rafa until he loses here. It’s only happened once in nine years, so good luck.
Do you think the fact that Djokovic has beaten Nadal in the last four meetings will have any effect coming into the grand slams?
I think it has had an effect with his confidence against other players as well, not just the matches against Novak because he’s a very emotional player and I think it’s eating at him that he can’t solve that problem, but still, this is three-out-of-five. So it’s a different situation.
He hasn’t lost to anybody in three-out-of-five in a long time. His record in best-of-five is unbelievable.
Until somebody does it, he still has to feed off of that but losing four times in a row against anybody, that would start eating at you. It was over a short period of time and it’s worse for the likes of Maria Sharapova who hasn’t beaten Serena in 10 years. That would really get you down. It’s one thing to lose 10 times over 10 years, another thing to lose 10 times over two years.
Two years, you’re still in it, and can get over that hump.
Both Maria Sharapova and Eugenie Bouchard have stated this week that the tour is not a place to make friends. Was that the same attitude the top players had in your time and do you think it really should be this intense?
Different people react differently. Chris Evert had a hard time being friends with me when I started beating her.
I came from the old school where I could practice with the player I’m playing against, play against them and win or lose I can still go have dinner with them. These days, the players are travelling with a big group and you end up hanging out with them.
We were alone, so we had to come and hang out with each other. It was a different time, we spent a lot of time together, practicing together. In the locker room, we would play Backgammon, Scrabble, Boggle, whatever, before matches, play each other in a match, and then go out to dinner. It was a different time.
You’re a fan of Sam Stosur’s style of play. Is she someone who’s a good example for the younger players to look up to?
She plays tennis the way I think it should be played. Looking for openings, forcing the action, coming to the net, she hits the heck out of it. I think they’re all looking to come to the net more because everybody hits the ball really well from the baseline, so what’s going to differentiate you from the next one?
I wish she would think that she could play on grass too because she has a great game for it but she hasn’t been able to come through.
What about Ernests Gulbis, do you think he’s finally getting his act together and on his way to the top-five?
He’s clearly getting his act together because he played the best tennis he ever played against Roger Federer and I’m glad he did his talking with the racquet instead of his mouth.
Have you read his comments about not wanting his sisters to pursue tennis?
Yes I did but I’d rather not say what I really think.
How’s your life going these days?
I’m doing great. I have a great family. We have two girls and we live in Miami.
I work for the Tennis Channel and BT and I do speeches around the world.
I was just in Bali a couple of weeks ago, then was in India, speaking about all kinds of issues and I enjoy it very much.
What was competing in Dancing with the Stars like (Navratilova was the first to be eliminated when she appeared on the TV show in 2012)?
What was tough was paying attention to every single body part because when you play tennis, when you’re hitting the shot, it doesn’t matter what the other hand is doing, but in dancing it doesn’t work that way.
That was the hardest thing, and finally when I figured it out I got voted off.
