Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 24, 1990 TAG: 9006240140
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBIN FINN THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: WIMBLEDON, ENGLAND LENGTH: Medium
The two voluntarily displaced Agassi misses his tennis education. E6 Czechoslovaks, Navratilova through a daring defection, Lendl through a careful assimilation of the customs and trappings of the Western world, share an obsession that can only be exorcised by winning this title.
They haven't conspired or sought each other for consultation since putting on the blinders a year ago to travel the surest path toward victory.
They just happen to have a coincidental dream and each fully endorses the other's reasons for having it.
"You have to admire his tenacity and determination," said Navratilova, the player Lendl considers to be the bravest and boldest when it comes to blazing unconventional trails.
Although neither is pondering a hasty retirement, neither can conceive of allowing the sun to set on his or her career until one last craving has been satisfied.
There is, Navratilova has said, some measure of insatiability even in a pair of champions who have stopped wincing when the demographics of their profession classify them as "old."
To them there is nothing wrong with using Wimbledon as a tonic.
"I'm looking forward to my retirement; I know I'll have a great time whatever I do," Navratilova, 33, said Thursday night in Eastbourne, England, where she was playing in a warm-up tournament. "But I still feel that until I win that ninth Wimbledon, I will not be finished."
Orchestrating an appropriate conclusion to the parallel careers that have earned each of them over $14 million is what the Wimbledon campaign is all about for Lendl and Navratilova.
As part of that scheme, each skipped this year's French Open, a Grand Slam tournament that Navratilova has won twice, Lendl three times.
"Before, I maybe didn't have the guts to skip the French, but this time, I felt strongly that it was the right thing to do," said Lendl, who has been in Britain with his wife and baby daughter since the end of May.
"Sure I felt the pang of missing the French Open, but the magic word there for me is that I have won it, and I feel it's more important for me to try to possibly win Wimbledon and feel I gave it my best shot than to win another one, two, three French Opens."
Once they were eliminated at Wimbledon last year, Navratilova and Lendl turned toward the 1990 Wimbledon, which starts Monday, like plants to sunlight.
Lendl, 30, has made no secret of the fact that his only real ambition left in tennis is winning this part of the slam.
Navratilova, who suffered for her previous obsession with toppling Steffi Graf by "burning out" in 1987, said, "For me it's the light at the end of the tunnel. If there wasn't Wimbledon I'd have a hard time."
Navratilova, a compelling force on the lawns of Wimbledon for the past 17 years, already shares a record eight titles with Helen Wills Moody but is seeking a ninth championship to make that page in history all her own.
To accomplish that, she probably will be required to detour Graf, the top-seeded 21-year-old West German who is attempting a Wimbledon hat trick this year.
"I've run into a juggernaut every time I've played here, but now it's like I can go for the jugular," said Navratilova, who since the 1987 U.S. Open has had a tough time finding that portion of Graf's anatomy.
More than from Graf's recent losses to Monica Seles, Navratilova is taking her cue from her own improvements. She has, she said, beefed up her second serve and turned herself into a master engineer when it comes to improvising the midmatch blueprints she needs to outfox her opponents.
Navratilova overcame the chilled, soggy grass and her opponent, Gretchen Magers, to capture her eighth title Saturday at Eastbourne's Devonshire Park.
In contrast to Navratilova's domineering ways on grass, Lendl historically has been compulsive about the surface rather than compelling on it.
Grass makes Lendl sneeze. Until three years ago, it also paralyzed his dogmatic ground strokes.
But in 1987, after being runner-up at Wimbledon two years in succession, Lendl struck a truce with his least favorite surface and with England, a nation he didn't particularly like visiting.
This year, he spent his entire spring on grass courts from Australia to Greenwich, Conn., to Britain.
The results of that dedication are two titles from his Wimbledon prep tournaments and a grudging fondness for Wimbledon and what goes with it.
"I'm enjoying this tremendously," Lendl said. "It's something I think I can enjoy again."
by CNB