Experience is the key

Martina Navratilova, the latest legend to turn to coaching, on why top players approach past masters

It was a big December for Martina Navratilova. At age 58, she was married for the first time, to Julia Lemigova, 42. She also became a professional tennis coach for the first time, agreeing to join the team of the Polish star Agnieszka Radwanska, who has entertained many with her large bag of tricks but has yet to win a Grand Slam title.

Navratilova won 59 in her groundbreaking career -- 18 of them in singles -- with her last coming in 2006 at the US Open, in mixed doubles with Bob Bryan. She now joins the fast-expanding club of former champions working with today’s leading players.

This will be a part-time role for Navratilova, who wants to limit her travel because of family commitments, which include being a stepmother to Lemigova’s two daughters. Navratilova, who lives in Miami, said she agreed to work with Radwanska through Wimbledon and will complement her full-time coach, Tomasz Wiktorowski.

Navratilova spoke en route to Sydney, where she joined Radwanska in preparation for the Australian Open, which starts on Monday in Melbourne.

You said in the past that you’d be open to coaching if the opportunity arose. Was Radwanska one of the players you thought you could help?

I’ve thought about a bunch of players, and she definitely would have been one of them because she has got all the shots. It’s not like I need to teach her the shots, maybe more when to use them. Different players bring different challenges, but she was definitely on my radar. I just didn’t think she would ask. I wasn’t going to pursue anybody, but if it happened, it happened, and if it didn’t, then it didn’t. I figured it would happen eventually.

Why? Because of all the ex-stars now coaching in the men’s game?
I think so. I think they pushed the ball forward. Look at Madison Keys now working with Lindsay Davenport. It only makes sense that the former champions would pass on that knowledge. You can’t learn that in a book what Lindsay went through, what Billie Jean King went through, what I went through, what Chrissie Evert went through -- winning these Grand Slams and being No 1 and all that. Nobody can teach that.

You can imagine what they’re feeling, but you don’t know what they’re feeling because you haven’t been there. You can try to learn it from a book, but the former     No.1s talk about it from personal experience; there’s no substitute for that.
I asked Evert last year why more female champions hadn’t joined the coaching ranks. She said that you had family and business commitments.

My life is very well managed. I have a lot on my plate and at the same time there were still holes, and what I do and where I am dovetails nicely with what Agnieszka needs. I don’t think I could be a coach for a Madison Keys because she needs somebody more hands-on. But Agnieszka is almost a finished product. She just needs a little fine-tuning here and there, kind of like Ivan Lendl did with Andy Murray. He wasn’t there day in and day out.

I can still contribute even if it’s part time. Obviously, it would be better to be full time, but I can’t, and a little bit of something is better than nothing. I guess that’s what Agnieszka felt. She’s got a great coach, a great hitting partner and a really good team of people she is working with. I was an extra link, I guess, not necessarily the missing link, but an extra link.

How was your time together before the season?
We only had five days in Miami. It was more of a getting to know each other and seeing how she responds to stuff that I’m telling her. Technically, she’s fantastic. But there’s little tweaks, nothing major, just tweaks here and there. We all have habits that we don’t even know we have, and sometimes the coach doesn’t see it because he’s there every day. When I worked with Billie Jean King and Craig Kardon and we would be working on something, Billie would show up and say, “What about this?” Neither one of us had seen it.

As your television commentary makes clear, analysis is one of your strengths. Anything you feel you have to fight in yourself to be a great coach?
I think it’s like TV: It’s when to say something. You don’t want to say too much, but you want to contribute. So it’s just paring it down to what’s really essential. Because I’m such a perfectionist and I demand it in myself and I can’t expect it from anybody else, that holding back is the thing. I don’t want to scare anybody with too much, too intense or whatever. It’s a fine line and depends on how the player reacts. I’m still getting to know Agnieszka, and she’s still getting to know me.
It’s a learning process, but it’s learning what to say and when, and sometimes when not to say it.

Have you ever coached before?
I’ve given many lessons in many sports over the years to many different people. I gave away at a charity a lunch and skiing in Aspen, and two women showed up. I had a skier and a snowboarder, and I ended up giving them both a skiing and a snowboarding lesson, and they were like, “We didn’t know we paid for a lesson.” And they improved their skiing and snowboarding in a couple hours.
I can teach many sports, but obviously tennis is the one. When you do other sports, you see things from different perspectives: different footwork drills, body positions, angles and geometry. All that stuff is helpful, and so when I do other sports, I can see things, because once you know one sport then the other sport becomes more clear. I’ve given a lot of lessons over the years and tennis clinics and all this, but never had a chance to really teach somebody at this level. I’m really excited.

You’ve complained a lot about the modern style of play in recent years. Do you hope to impact that as a coach?
Well, obviously, it’s go forward more and be more versatile, not necessarily serve and volley, but just take the ball earlier, be more assertive, play the game the way it should be played rather than just hang out 10 feet behind the baseline and wait for somebody to make a mistake. Take charge of the points, take charge of your match and try to make things happen rather than wait for them to happen.
There are many styles, and not everybody can be doing what I did, or not everybody can play the way (Rafael) Nadal plays. But once in a while you can hit those shots. Once in a while you can do those things a little bit better, a little bit differently and be more creative out there. I don’t want to see cookie-cutter players. I want to see creative players.

Now with the racquet you can do so much with the ball, the spins. Just a couple of days ago I hit with Julie Steven. She played on the tour in the 1990s and she was like: “Wow, you are hitting so much spin. Were you doing that when you were playing?” And I was like, I couldn’t. The racquets are enabling me to do that. You can get so much more creative with what you can do with the ball. It’s really fun exploring other parts of the court.