Pizzas galore!

I had a bye in the first round, won my opening two matches and then came up against Margaret Court, the defending champion and No 1 seed, in the quarter-finals. It’s still shocking to me to this day that they put us on an outside court. It was an insult to her as a champion and to women’s tennis. It was exactly the kind of reason that the top women turned their backs on the Australian Open a few years later, until we were asked back on equal terms.

Mind you, back then, I was a naive 18-year-old, a bumpkin from a communist country, and I didn’t realise how wrong it was. I just played tennis. Later on, as you may have noticed, I did tend to get involved in political and social issues.

I had never played Court, which was probably to my advantage because she didn’t know my game. It was a significant match for me, because I played better than I ever had in my life. I took it to another level. I didn’t miss. At her best, Margaret would have beaten me that day. But she was past her best. And I gave her what she didn’t like: I gave her junk. I didn’t have a topspin backhand then, just a little chip, and she didn ’t like it, not that I really knew. I won 6-4 6-3. Margaret was one of the greatest we’ve had in the women’s game, and it would be good to say that we get on, but I can’t. If I run into her over the next week, it will be a frosty reunion. She’s a born-again Christian, and when I won my ninth Wimbledon, there were headlines in the paper the next day: “Margaret Court says Navratilova not a good role model ”.

She bashed me for being gay. Her line is that it’s in the Bible, against God’s wishes. So I’m a good player, but parents should not have their children try to emulate me because of my homosexuality. She hardly spoke three words to me in my life, but then chose one of my finest hours to bash me. It came out of nowhere.

After beating one Australian legend, I met another, Goolagong, in the final. She kicked my butt. I kept playing to her backhand, which was dumb because the best part of her fabulous game was a beautiful backhand. Naturally, the Aussie crowd was pulling for her, and I was the whining teenager, thinking they should be pulling for me as the underdog. No chance. Still, I had reached a Grand Slam final and won my first cheque — $6,000. It meant that I could buy my ticket to the States, with plenty of spare change.

MELBOURNE has been good to me. I had that kick-start to my career here, and I had another huge boost last year, when Leander and I won the mixed doubles. I hadn’t played the Australian Open for 13 years, so it was quite a return, and so unexpected.

I hadn’t had great results since I had started playing seriously again, let alone in a Grand Slam. Getting to the quarters at Wimbledon in the women’s doubles in 2000 was my best result. In the mixed, with a number of different partners, I hadn’t won two matches in a row. We always lost in the first or second round, often to the ultimate winners or the beaten finalists.

It was frustrating, but Leander and I finally strung some wins together and beat the No 2 seeds in the second round, which was a big breakthrough. I started thinking: “We could win this whole thing.” Then just before the semi-finals, as I was walking out to play, I thought: “Wait a minute, the Australian mixed is the one Grand Slam title I haven’t won. I could get a full set.”

Leander had already realised the same thing, but he didn’t say anything in case he jinxed it. Completing the set, winning my 57th Grand Slam title, my first for almost eight years, was sweet enough. Winning the mixed at Wimbledon was sweeter still.

LEAVING the Tour in 1994 — and finishing my singles career then — was an amazing liberation. My parents came to the last event, the Tour Championships in New York, and by the end of that week, my mother noticed that my face had changed. She said 10 years had fallen off it. All the pressure of training and competition, of proving myself, had gone. I was free.

So why go back to it? It happened almost by accident. I was commentating on television at Wimbledon in 1999, and I was in good shape at that time, and I thought: “Wait a minute, I could have played this year.” The next year, Mariaan de Swardt, a good friend, asked me to play some doubles events. At first I wasn’t that serious about getting to a high level because it would have meant committing a lot more to tennis than I was willing to. But I did get committed, because that’s the only way you can excel.

It took three years. Now, finally, I know I’m close to my potential and I can enjoy it. Physically, I know I could play on into my fifties. But I have decided to call a halt. For one thing, I’m not sure I can handle the Tour lifestyle much longer. But more importantly, the person I love most in the world has made a big sacrifice to support me playing again. It will soon be my turn to do the giving.

All things must come to an end, and this should be a happy ending. It has been like an encore. It’s been a good show, but eventually the curtain has to come down and stay down, with no regrets. I promise.