Word: navratilova
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...106th Wimbledon tennis championships promised several Cinderella stories but delivered none. Old-timers Martina Navratilova and John McEnroe got as far as the semifinals, then were whipped. And Monica Seles, the steamrolling Serb with a shot at a Grand Slam sweep, got to the finals but lost in straight sets, 6-2, 6-1, to defending champion Steffi Graf...
Tennis players are on intensive view for longer periods than any other athletes, which is why they hide their heads under towels at changeovers. But Feinstein does not give us that view. He does not show Lendl or Becker or Navratilova moving on a court. A single exception illustrates what is missing. Jimmy Connors, Feinstein says, was playing singles in the early stages of a tournament, and another match was under way on the adjoining court. Connors went wide for a ball, slugged a winner, was carried into the next court by his momentum, saw a ball from the other...
Still, lefties do not always cede the upper hand. Tennis players like Martina Navratilova and John McEnroe have an advantage that puts a deadly spin on the ball, and southpaws from Ty Cobb to Sandy Koufax have always been prized in baseball. And how about history's Left-Handed Hall of Fame? Lefty Napoleon! Lefty Picasso! Also such a contemporary personage as that stunning example of dyslexia in motion, Gerald Ford...
...prototype, Marilyn Monroe. On her Blond Ambition tour, Madonna flashed chiseled biceps and deltoids, so impressing one Los Angeles critic that he wrote that instead of the customary audience call for "Author! Author!" the cry from Madonna's fans should be "Fitness trainer! Fitness trainer!" Tennis ace Martina Navratilova also notes the changing standards. When the Czechoslovak-born athlete defected to the U.S. in 1975, she was so embarrassed by her powerful build that she favored baggy, concealing clothes. "I was always covering up my arms because I have these big veins," she recalls, "and I didn't want anyone...
...Navratilova's once and future countryman Lendl is similarly closing in on Jimmy Connors' record for most tournaments won. He already holds records for prize money won in a season, $2,334,367, and in a career, $16,282,293. But the only goal he speaks of with affection is to win Wimbledon for the first time. To achieve that, he has invested ten weeks in unpaid practice on grass courts on three continents. He wants to become the fifth man ever, and the first in more than two decades, to complete a career Grand Slam. (Wimbledon and the Australian...