Martina Navratilova has finally decided that, with her 50th birthday just four months away, enough is enough and she will retire this year.
”I just want to move on to my next life,” Navratilova said.
Having collected 58 Grand Slam titles in total, she needs one more here to become the most successful Wimbledon competitor of all time.
At the moment she has 20 and has two chances to take the record as she has reached the quarterfinals of the women’s doubles with South Africa’s Liezel Huber and the third round of the mixed with Mark Knowles.
”I want to spend more time with my one and only, my animals,” she said. ”[I want to] devote more time to my business, which is trying to promote my book, and do some commentating, if somebody wants to listen to what I have to say.
”But most of all, it’s to spend more time at home.”
The veteran player quit the tour in 1994, having won a record 167 singles titles, but she returned to play doubles in 2000.
”I came here to win a title, and we’re still in both events. We have a very good shot in both doubles and the mixed. So I’m just concentrating on that. I can get sentimental when it’s over, not yet.”
Navratilova, dogged by a knee injury in recent times, has yet to decide whether she will make the US Open her swansong.
”I haven’t made any decisions one way or the other. But the decision that this is my last year, that is a definite,” she said.
”I have a job to do here which is to play well. I didn’t come here for the strawberries and cream.” — AFP
