Tennis player known for emotional Wimbledon final against Steffi Graf
Born: October 2 1968
Died: November 19 2017
JANA Novotná, who has died aged 49, reached the Ladies’ Final at Wimbledon three times, eventually winning in 1998; the previous year she had been the second-ranked player in women’s tennis, and she had considerable success as a doubles player.
The enduring public image of Novotná, however, was probably not of her win, but of her loss against Steffi Graf in the 1993 final. She had only narrowly lost the first set (7-6), had taken the second 6-1, and was leading 40:30 and four games to one when her form spectacularly deserted her. She muffed a couple of shots and within 15 minutes Graf had taken the third set, and the championship, 6-4.
During the presentation, Jana Novotná broke down in tears, and was consoled by the Duchess of Kent, who hugged her and predicted (correctly) that “one day you will do it”. It was one of the most emotional sporting scenes of the year, and earned Navotná a good deal of sympathy and fondness from tennis fans. For her part, Jana Novotná was not at all embarrassed by her display. “It was a very beautiful moment for me and I think for everyone,” she said. “I think it’s good to show your emotions; it can lift you up.”
She was as emotional, though with tears of joy, when at the age of 29 she won the title as the tournament’s third-seeded player. It was her third appearance in the final, having lost in three sets the previous year to Martina Hinghis, then the number one seed.
In 1998, though, she disposed of Hinghis in straight sets in the semi-final, and in the final beat the French player Nathalie Tauziat in two sets to become, at the time, the oldest first-time winner of a Grand Slam. There had been a couple of anxious moments for her fans when, after winning the first set 6-4, she double-faulted in the second set’s second game, and then served for the match at 5-4 only to lose the game. But when it came to the tiebreaker, she easily won 7-2, taking the final five points in a row.
“I told you that it would be third time lucky,” the Duchess, who had become a keen fan, told her during the presentation of the trophy.
Jana Navotná was one of the last great serve and volley players; her tendency to concede double faults was in part due to her willingness to serve-volley both deliveries. But she also had a superb, often very early, return of serve, a strong, one-handed backhand and was unfailingly aggressive. Despite the widespread assumption that she had “choked” in the final against Steffi Graf, Jana Novotná maintained that she would have played the points in the same way. “All I was doing was going for my shots,” she said. “That’s the way I play. It had worked in the semi-finals and the quarter-finals.”
Jana Novotná was born on October 2 1968 in the city of Brno, in what was then Czechoslovakia. Her father, an engineer, and her mother, a schoolmistress, were both keen on sport, but there was no particular emphasis on tennis, and at first Jana was an avid football player. But she joined a local tennis club at the age of eight, and by 14 knew that she wanted to become a professional.
This she did in 1987; she was relatively unusual in the modern era of tennis in not turning pro until she was an adult.
Her first coach was Mike Estep who, during the mid-80s, also coached Martina Navratilova, who dominated the women’s game throughout the 1980s and, though a decade older than Novotná, was still amongst the top seeds well into the 1990s.
Jana Novotná had won the mixed doubles at both the US and Australian Opens in 1988; the following year she won again in Australia, and took both the mixed and ladies’ doubles titles at Wimbledon. But her successes in the singles began in the 1990s, when she began to be coached by Hanna Mandlíková.
In 1990, she made the semi-finals of the French Open (losing to Steffi Graf) and the quarter-finals of both Wimbledon and the US Open. The following year she reached the final of the Australian Open, losing to Monica Seles, and ending the year ranked number 7 in the world. She had a poor year in 1992, when she won no major matches (even in doubles), but was back on form the following year, when she was ranked sixth in the world and had her first singles final at Wimbledon.
Over her career, she won 12 Grand Slam women’s doubles titles and four mixed doubles; her win at Wimbledon in 1998 was her only victory in the singles in a Grand Slam tournament. She represented Czechoslovakia at the 1988 Olympics at Seoul and the Czech Republic (as it had become) at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Jana Novotná retired from the professional tour in 1999, having won a total of 24 singles and 76 doubles titles in her 14-year career.
After her retirement, Novotná occasionally worked on the BBC’s commentary team, became involved in coaching and took part in invitation and veterans’ matches (including a stint as Martina Navratilova’s doubles partner). In 2015, she said that life without tennis would be “horrible”. She had recently been suffering from cancer, though her illness was not widely known, and died on November 19.
ANDREW MCKIE
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