Logging onto the MSNBC web site Saturday, I was invited to vote for the greatest female tennis player of all time. My choice, I discovered, was running a distant but not surprising second.
Riding the emotion of the moment, Steffi Graf captured 48 percent of the 1,849 ballots tabulated at the time I weighed in for Martina Navratilova.
Navratilova was drawing exactly one-third of the votes in a two-woman race. Third, at 10 percent, was Martina's eternal rival, Chris Evert. Now that surprised me. I figured Chrissie, one of the most popular American athletes ever, to reach at least 25 percent of the electorate.
The second division among those on the ballot consisted of Billie Jean King (5 percent), Margaret Court (3 percent) and Maureen Connolly (1 percent). Notably missing were Helen Wills, who dominated in the '20s and early '30s, and Monica Seles.
Tennis' tragic figure, Seles was at least on a par with Graf when a deranged idiot stabbed Monica on the court, destroying a rivalry with Navratilova-Evert possibilities. Graf, oddly, suffered even as she dominated in Seles' absence. Great champions need great rivals for validation.
My all-time elite eight, in order: Navratilova, Graf, Evert, Court, Seles, King, Wills, Connolly.
Graf is the most graceful, breathtaking performer I've seen on a tennis court. She is the people's choice now, understandably so, on the same wave that carried Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, John Elway and Barry Sanders when they preceded Steffi in this year of farewells.
Jordan and Gretzky were hailed as the supreme beings of their sports, and you'd have to be a real hard case to disagree. A hard case, I beg to differ on both counts, but that's a column for another time.
On retirement day, Elway was labeled the greatest passer ever by many in the media crowd; a similar sentiment found Sanders when he ran away from Detroit and the NFL.
Joe Montana was the perfect quarterback, and even Barry's outspoken father acknowledges Jim Brown's superiority. If their fans want to call Elway and Sanders the best ever, they have our blessing -- even though they're as off target as those who judge Graf superior to the matchless Navratilova.
Graf is no doubt sincere, but I'm not convinced she's gone for good. I have a hunch this will turn out to be more retreat than retirement. Tennis history is rich with players who felt burned out and quit, only to return, batteries recharged.
At 30, two Grand Slams shy of Court's record 24, Graf has several years of good tennis left. Something she said in her retirement speech struck me as revealing. Flying home to Germany after bowing out of the TIG Classic at La Costa with a strained hamstring, Steffi said she was looking over brochures and fantasizing about all the places she wanted to see as a tourist, not a touring pro.
Sounds like a universal case of wanderlust for a young woman who has been married to her sport since childhood, driven hard by an ambitious father.
The pressures created by Peter Graf's misadventures with women and tax laws were enormous. No wonder Steffi stopped having fun. With time away to play at life, she might find she misses tennis more than she'd imagined.
Navratilova, the perfect tennis player at her peak, still felt and responded to those competitive urges at 34. Steffi remembers. They met in the semifinals of the 1991 U.S. Open. Twelve years Graf's senior, seemingly over the hill, Martina rallied to one of her signature triumphs, 7-6, 6-7, 6-4.
During her prime in the early-to-mid 1980s, Navratilova dominated singles and doubles (with Pam Shriver) as no man or woman ever has. As great as Graf was in '88 when she swept the Slams and won Olympic gold, she was no better than prime-time Navratilova.
Burning for acceptance, her emotions on her sleeves, Martina had to overcome political and sexual hardships and barriers, weight woes and the icy charm of the brilliant and hugely popular Evert. Graf has been a great champion, but the greatest of all was the Czech defector who mastered the sport as an American citizen.
Press-Enterprise columnist Lyle Spencer can be contacted by mail at P.O. Box 792, Riverside CA 92502, by fax at (909) 782-6009, or by e-mail at lyles@pe.net.
Published 8/15/1999