At the very top level, the difference between winning and losing comes down to the tiniest of margins: does the extra slice of gluten-free toast for breakfast give me that extra spring in my step? Was it really such a good idea to try Ashtanga yoga for the first time last night? Do these lucky underpants really work?
And because of that, at the very top level, no athlete leaves anything to chance. Every possibility has been covered; every scenario has been visualised. They are as ready as they can be for anything. Well, almost.
When Billie Jean King came to Wimbledon in 1980, she was 36. She had won 20 titles at the All England Club, six of them in singles. She was not quite as agile as she used to be – and her knees were not quite as reliable – but she adapted her game to make allowances. As a result, she was still the world No.5 and now she was standing in the quarter-finals facing Martina Navratilova, the defending champion.
By that stage in their careers, they had played each other 12 times with Martina edging their rivalry 7-5. Although she had won two of their three meetings that year, Martina took nothing for granted when she faced BJK. As she explained: “Billie Jean King knew exactly how to pick my game apart, and she did it." With the ability and nous to change her game mid-match, she could leave Martina chasing after shadows with no clue what was coming next.
As for Martina, she had won the title twice in succession but it would still be a couple of years before she reinvented herself as the all-conquering super-athlete who would reach the Wimbledon final nine years running and collect seven more Venus Rosewater Dishes. In 1980 she was good – very, very good – but she was not yet the Martina we remember today.
So, the two great champions prepared to go head to head. They knew exactly what to expect from one another; they knew exactly what needed to be done. Let battle commence. Yet the one great imponderable in this quarter-final was the English weather: BJK wore glasses and when it rained, she couldn’t see, a fact she had pointed out to the good people of the Referee’s Office.
The weather had been horrible from the start of The Championships and there was a backlog of matches clogging the schedule. The day was damp and overcast but there was a chance they could get the quarter-final played – would Mrs King please, please, please give it a try? The accommodating Mrs King agreed but only with the proviso that the moment it started to rain, the match would be suspended. The deal had been made.
I had to turn to the spare and even though it was a duplicate, no two pairs of glasses ever feel the same
They began in the dry – a rarity that year – but as the first set approached the business end, the rain returned. Not a downpour, not serious wet stuff but that infuriating mizzle that is not heavy enough to call itself rain but is just wet enough to be annoying. BJK had a word with the umpire: remember the deal? Well, it’s raining so we should stop. But the umpire let the set continue into the tie-break while BJK dried her glasses between every point.
At 5-1 in the tie-break, she was having as much trouble with her lenses as she was with Martina, who at that point came thundering back to take the set. Now, at last, play was called off for the night.
I think that may be the single match in my career that I could have won if I hadn’t had bad eyes
When, with no rain, they got back on court the following day, BJK was in total command. The second set took just 17 minutes and they were all square at a set apiece. Martina fought back in the third set but, no matter, Billie Jean served for the match at 6-5. That was when four volleying errors cost her her serve. And then just when she thought life could not get any worse, those pesky glasses took centre stage again.
Returning to her chair at 8-9, BJK took off the offending lenses to mop her brow. But when she went to put them back on again, they came apart in her hand. Still, those tiny margins matter and she had prepared for every eventuality – BJK had a spare pair of glasses in her bag.
“I had to turn to the spare,” she wrote in her autobiography, “and even though it was a duplicate, no two pairs of glasses ever feel the same, and Martina finally beat me 10-8. I think that may be the single match in my career that I could have won if I hadn’t had bad eyes.”
Martina won 7-6, 1-6, 10-8 in two hours and 40 minutes of lousy weather and great tennis spread over two days. Had it rained properly on the first day, the match would have been suspended earlier and who knows what might have happened? If it hadn’t rained at all, who knows what might have happened? And if Billie Jean’s glasses had held out for just another hour or so, who knows what might have happened?
Sport is decided on the tiniest of margins – and you can’t plan for all of them.
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