Home » Sports » Women's Tennis » Saying goodbye again

Saying goodbye again

© Michael Cecilio

It's not every season that a legend of tennis decides to call it a career and leave the sport for good. It's definitely a once in a score occurrence that you get three of the best in their era retiring from tennis in the same season. Steffi Graf, Boris Becker, and now the latest in the line of retirees, Jana Novotna, have hung up their racquets in 1999, ready to leave the sport which has given them so much, and to which they have given much back.

Jana Novotna will long be remembered as a great talent, one of the best volley virtuosos that the game has ever produced. Her game was so smooth, so refined, so acrobatic and it was so refreshing to watch in contrast with the emergence of the "baseline bashers". In her hey day, no one had as much finesse for the ball as she possessed. Her instincts at the net were incredibly accurate and no one finished a point at the net as efficiently and as effectively as Jana.

But she will always be remembered for her part in Wimbledon 1993. For as much talent as Jana possessed, and as much success she has enjoyed on the professional tennis circuit, she will forever be renowned for choking that incredible lead in 1993 Wimbledon final. Against Steffi Graf in the championship match, in the tournament she was supposed to win, Jana Novotna surrendered to her nerves and let slip a 6-7 6-1 4-1 lead to lose the Wimbledon final in such traumatic circumstances. No one will ever forget Jana accepting her runner's-up plate from the Duchess, and uncontrollably sobbing on her shoulder. Of course there were the labels which ensued from that point on, the most memorable was "Jana Novotna of the Choke Republic".

Yes, for all the talent that Jana Novotna possessed, she also had rather frail nerves and a lack of mental strength under pressure which, for her career, would cause her greatest injustice. Her nerves and Steffi Graf would turn out to be the greatest challenges Jana Novotna would try to overcome for the rest of her career. She and Steffi carved out a long-standing rivalry as two of the greatest players of their time, if not, the greatest. However, Steffi completely dominated Jana in most of their professional encounters, winning 29 of the 33 they played. Wimbledon 1993 would then turn out to be a showcase featuring Jana Novotna against herself and Steffi Graf, facing the challenge of both her nerve and her greatest opponent, and it would play itself under the most emotionally traumatic of circumstances. Given their history, it is quite ironic that Novotna decided to retire in the same season as Graf. Jana herself revealed last year at the Chase Championships (where she was defeated by Graf in the first round) that perhaps she had been prevented from accomplishing more in the game because of the dominance of Steffi Graf.