11/05/24
June 22, 2005
Martina Navratilova is hating on Maria Sharapova: Of course, Martina also picked Justine Henin-Hardenne (One and Done) as the favorite to win.
posted by graymatters to tennis at 12:30 PM - 15 comments
Hey there Weedy, easy, tiger. I have two thoughts reading this story. One, from anyone else these thoughts could be easily dismissed, but Martina has earned the right to speak her occasionally unpopular (and more often than not still accurate) thoughts on tennis any time she wants. She's quite possibly the greatest women's tennis player ever, and she's seen more prospects and can't-misses come and go than you'll ever see in your lifetime. So what if she was wrong this week? I respect her right to an opinion. Two, I have a hunch. Martina may have said this stuff in print to light a fire under Sharapova. Maria has a serious competitive streak (more than most pros, even), and if Martina Navratilova hates on her in print, maybe that'll push her a little more to improve. I could see Martina Navratilova doing that, easily.
posted by chicobangs at 01:39 PM on June 22, 2005
Seems to me Anna Kournikova did the same thing. She never won a singles tournament and all of us guys would check her out if she was in a bikini in any magazine. Maria has seen what it did for Anna and is going to do the same thing. The difference is, Maria can actually play tennis.
posted by dbt302 at 01:43 PM on June 22, 2005
The difference is, Maria is the defending Wimbledon champion, while Anna K never won a major championship, (or a minor one for that matter). That's a pretty big difference.
posted by chicobangs at 01:48 PM on June 22, 2005
I echo chicobangs' comments - Anna never won any WTA singles title period. Just wanted to undercore that fact in case there is any misunderstanding. To compare her to Maria Sharapova is pretty ridiculous in that regard. Not only did Maria win Wimbledon, she followed it up with 3 other titles last year.
posted by ny knicks at 02:35 PM on June 22, 2005
apart from not picking the winner, I think Martina is right on the money....
posted by garfield at 02:36 PM on June 22, 2005
I pretty much agree with Martina's assessment of Maria's year-to-date court preformance, and Martina is as asute in analizing another's tennis ability, I believe, as she was dominate in her day on the tennis court. You know, if you took the big service away from a male opponent, and have a one-ball serve requirement implimented, Martina would probably have held her own against ATP players in her day and would have walked away with many victories against players ranked in the top 50. That's saying a lot for her ability against much stronger male players. She had total dedication to her sport and her physical conditioning. And no, I'm not one of the "weaker" sex and I do have shelves full of tennis trophies.
posted by King-man at 04:32 PM on June 22, 2005
I know I'll probably have to forfeit my manliness and testicles for saying this, and that I am supposed to do nothing but drool over how gorgeous Maria Sharapova is (and she is gorgeous, without a doubt), but can we stop continually comparing her to Anna Kournikova, stop looking at her as only a beautiful female and focus on her athletic career? She has worked hard and has won some impressive laurels in her career already, and she deserves to be famous for her tennis talent, too.
posted by Bonkers at 04:37 PM on June 22, 2005
I think chico's right on both counts and that Martina is trying to put Maria in context. You know, if you took the big service away from a male opponent, and have a one-ball serve requirement implimented, Martina would probably have held her own against ATP players in her day and would have walked away with many victories against players ranked in the top 50 I totally disagree, and I think Martina would, too. For years now, most male players have had reliable and wickedly effective second serves, so the advantage of taking away the first-serve dynamite is minimal. My opinion is that the return of serve actually makes more difference in most matches, and male players wouldn't have had much problem with hers, so her net game would be irrelevant. That leaves her on the baseline agains players that are, at minimum, at least as big, strong, and fast as she was. Not a winning situation for her. All of which is not to say I don't think she was an incredible player and one of the best, male or female, ever. Her dominance is one of sport's most impressive runs, and I miss watching her, esp. against Chris Evert.
posted by Uncle Toby at 04:53 PM on June 22, 2005
I enjoyed Simon Barnes' comment yesterday in this article: "I don’t wish to spoil the story, but the truth of the matter is that Sharapova is not beautiful. You could find 100 prettier faces in the audience, but the glorious athlete’s body, the champion’s poise and, above all, the tennis: it’s a combination that makes her irresistible. Without tennis, she’d be pretty; with tennis, at this time, in this place, she’s the sexiest woman in the world. To become Wimbledon champion is the ultimate makeover." Going off at a slight tangent - who lets these sports people write columns in newspapers? I had to stop reading about halfway through that Navratalova article and get a coffee to revitalise myself. I suspect she dictated that whole thing into a machine and some lazy editor put it on the page more or less as it came out of her mouth. I suppose it's a sad reflection on the newspaper-buying public that they'd rather read "Jonny Wilkinson's Column from New Zealand with the Lions" (a string of non-sequiters that are about as bland as it's possible to imagine) than some proper insightful journalism. The triumph of fame over substance. *muttermuttergrumblegrumble* Shit. I sound about a hundred. Sorry. [/rant]
posted by JJ at 04:04 AM on June 23, 2005
JJ is completely correct. It's sharapova's great talent that pushes her ahead of another pretty face and ahead of the hot sort of tennis plaer kournikova. She is probably the only reason many many male sports fans watch tennis highlights and sometimes even matches.
She is probably the only reason many many male sports fans watch tennis highlights and sometimes even matches. How can that be, given that these "many many male sports fans" hadn't even heard of her a year ago? I mean, if they are watching now and it's because of her, it's not much of a trend, is it? And thus, hardly worth paying attention to, no?
posted by lil_brown_bat at 08:27 AM on June 24, 2005
Okay, even if we're just talking about physical beauty (and we weren't, were we?), Sharapova is not exactly the first pretty face to succeed in tennis. Even from the athletes-embody-the-human-physical-ideal standpoint, that point of view is a non-starter. (And yeah, JJ, Navratilova has great knowledge and she's good at many things. Writing just isn't quite one of them.)
posted by chicobangs at 11:20 AM on June 24, 2005
(And yeah, JJ, Navratilova has great knowledge and she's good at many things. Writing just isn't quite one of them.) I read that and thought it was a straight-up interview transcript. She didn't actually write that, did she?
posted by lil_brown_bat at 01:05 PM on June 24, 2005
It looked like she wrote it. I don't know, she might have breathlessly and ramblingly dictated it to someone. Who knows.
posted by chicobangs at 01:11 PM on June 24, 2005
We're sure 'hating' isn't a typo, right?