Martina Navratilova: evaluation

Transcript context

…What accounts for that change? Why are we moderns weaker, more complacent? However you might describe it, what’s happened to us? Things are easier, there is no doubt. But also they’re lasting longer because things are easier. You have trainers now. When I came on the tour, I pulled a stomach muscle the very first tournament I played. It took two months before I got well again. We got a trainer for the first time on the tour, 1975. I thought, “Oh, you get a massage.” No, no, no, this is a trainer. They actually tape your ankles and stuff. We were really clueless. We didn’t know. Nowadays, the care is much better, and the players last longer because of that. We played on clay or grass, indoors on soft carpet, with wooden rackets, with animal gut for the strings. Now, they play on hard courts most of the time, with metal rackets, with nylon strings. So the body does not absorb that vibration from the racket. They use their wrists a lot more, so you have a lot more injuries on the upper body. Playing on hard courts, you see them slide. I’m like, “I still don’t know how they do that.” Sliding on hard courts, it’s like, “Ohhh.” There’ll be a lot more hip replacements in the future because of that. I think the game is more physical, so they get more beat up. Everybody’s hitting the ball harder because of the rackets, etc. Some sports, it seems fairly easy to compare the past and the present. The 100-meter dash, how long did it take? There’s a very definite timing. If you’re thinking about tennis players, the best of today, the best of an earlier age — Althea Gibson or Evonne Goolagong, whoever it is you have in mind — do you think it’s even a meaningful comparison? Or do you have some definite view, like, “We were better than they’ll ever be.” Or “They would take every set from us.” How do you think about that problem?…

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