Novotna saluted as a ‘true champion’
Czech will always be remembered for heartbreaking meltdown
Former Wimbledon champion Jana Novotna was a true winner, but it was the misfortune of the brilliant Czech to always be remembered for one of sport’s most famous and heartrending meltdowns.
After Novotna, 51, died of cancer yesterday, Wimbledon, the tournament where she really made her name in both defeat and victory, paid tribute to her as “a true champion in all senses of the word”.
For even though she was singles champion there in 1998, it was five years earlier on Centre Court where she really captured the imagination and sympathy when losing the final to German Steffi Graf.
Her defeat, conjured from the jaws of victory when she completely lost her confidence, is still considered one of sport’s great meltdowns as Novotna was a point away from taking a 5-1 lead in the third set only to serve a double fault.
It led to a painful capitulation as all-time great Graf took five games on the trot and won the final set 6-4.
The failure was all too much for the then 24-year-old Novotna to take.
Afterwards, she broke down in the presentation ceremony and, in one of the iconic images in Wimbledon annals, burst into tears while being comforted by the Duchess of Kent.
“I know you will win it one day, don’t worry,” the Duchess told her. They proved to be prophetic words.
Four years later, Novotna reached the final again. Again, she lost, this time to Martina Hingis, after being a point away from a 3-0 lead in the final set, but this time she was scuppered not so much by a lack of nerve as by an abdominal injury.
It again furthered the idea that Novotna was one of sport’s great “chokers”, but it was a tag she always challenged feistily.
She had a very good point. Winning 100 tournaments — 24 WTA singles and 76 doubles, including one grand slam singles and 16 doubles titles — plus three Olympic medals and the Fed Cup with Czechoslovakia, made her an outstanding champion.
She finally took the chance to prove it beyond doubt when, a year after losing to Hingis, she lifted the 1998 Wimbledon crown, with practically everyone on Centre Court cheering her, seeing off France’s Nathalie Tauziat in straight sets.
Afterwards she was presented with the Venus Rosewater Dish as women’s champion by “the nice lady” who had once comforted her.
“The Duchess reminded me last year that if I came back for a third time, it would be third time lucky for me,” she said at the time. “She said that she was very happy that I had finally won this championship.”
So, it seemed, was the whole of tennis as the woman who had come so close to the biggest prizes became the oldest first-time women’s grand slam singles winner in the Open era.
As her “true friend” Martina Navratilova said yesterday, “Jana was an amazing woman.”