Martina Navratilova: preference

Transcript context

…Björn Borg saying, “Number one is the only thing that matters.” He may have been exaggerating himself. Do you ever feel you have that attitude that anything short of number one is a failure? Not at all. Not at all. The only failure is to not try. For me, it was always giving my best, whatever it was that I was doing, whether it was riding the bicycle in my garden and trying to go as fast as I can and timing myself. My first watch was a stopwatch when I was in third grade. I was always timing myself. I would try to go faster. I would back up, do a little turn, so I could make the turn faster, so I could go faster three times around. Competing with myself, my competition was always with myself. I always said I would rather play well and lose than play lousy and win because if I played lousy and won, that just meant my opponent was really lousy. [laughter] I’d rather be pushed. That’s why I really enjoyed the competition against the best players because that’s when you have to put it on the line and play your best. Anything less won’t be good enough. The number one kind of happened. That’s another line that I use. Everybody has that goal. Most players that play on the tour, they want to be number one. They want to win a major, but only one person can be number one. Does that make everybody else a failure? No. They’re trying their hardest. If you try your best and the best that you can do, which we have the ranking. Obviously, it doesn’t lie. This is exactly where you stand. You could be 45 in the world or 5 in the world. If you tried your best and your best ranking ever was number 10, then the other nine players were better. But if the other nine people weren’t alive, you’d be number one. [laughter] You’re still the same tennis player, right? You’re not any better. So for me, the competition was always with myself. Pam Shriver once said that she thought her doubles partnership with you worked so well precisely because the two of you had this creative interchange, but you didn’t spend much time together off the court. You saved that back-and-forth for when you were playing together. Does that make sense to you?…

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