Just when you thought Granny might have shot her wad after winning the Canadian Open last year (partner: Anna-Lena Groenefeld) and decided that enough is enough, she’s ba-a-a-a-ack . . . Martina Navratilova is going balls-to-the-wall this year, and beyond, hoping to play for as long as she can, with whomever will have her, until the WTA or ITF hooks up the old Come-Along and winches her off the court.
I can’t tell you how much I respect and support Martina in this; there’s always a segment of the sports audience that somehow thinks it’s a shame when players linger in the game after they’ve passed their prime, but I think that's nonsense. If you love what you're doing, do it as long and hard and well as you can and to heck with the naysayers.
Nobody gets a free ride anyway—at least not in tennis. It's actually weird, if you think about it. Here's Martina, arguably the best female player of all time, and she gets absolutely no—zippo, zilch, nada—preferential treatment (other than the occasional wild card) in the entry process if she wants to play.
Martina's mantra is right out of Dylan Thomas' poem, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night."
P.S.—Since we're getting all literary here, I'm offering a free TENNIS Magazine cap to the first reader who can tell me the origin and meaning of the two expressions I use above (shot her wad, and balls-to-the-wall). And no going to Bartleby.com, either!