Martina Navratilova has been talking to other sporting stars including Rory McIlroy at Wimbledon this year.
Navratilova is a record nine-time Wimbledon champion, with no player in history winning more singles titles than her at the grass court major.
As a result, Navratilova is frequently invited into the Royal Box on Centre Court at Wimbledon and was in there the same day as six-time major golf champion McIlroy this year.
Navratilova has now revealed some of the details of her conversation with McIlroy, as they both want things to change within their respective sports.
Martina Navratilova says she wishes racket heads were smaller
Navratilova appeared in the latest edition of The Big T Podcast, where she spoke about what she would change if she was in charge of changing the rules in tennis.
The 18-time Grand Slam singles champion stated that she would want racket heads to be smaller, with Navratilova claiming that it would place more emphasis on players’ technique.
This is something that McIlroy appears to have a similar view on regarding golf clubs, something that Navratilova revealed after speaking to him at Wimbledon.
If you were in charge of tennis, what is the first rule you would change?
“If I was a tennis [inaudible] I would mandate smaller racket heads,” said Navratilova.
“So there would be more emphasis on technique and it would make it more difficult to hit passing shots and you can still hit a volley, but you cannot just do this off balance hit it as hard as you can, technique would be more of a premium.
“In fact, I talked to Rory McIlroy in my first Royal Box visit here and he said what would you do? He says he would make the heads a little smaller of clubs, because they’re so massive now and the sweet spot is so much bigger than it used to be and so it is in tennis.
“So I would make the sweet spot a bit smaller to put more premium on precision, taking pace off the ball and then you would see more serve and volley and people coming to the net more.”
Martina Navratilova proposes a change to the Davis Cup and BJK Cup
Smaller racket heads are not the only change Navratilova has proposed, as she also tackled the issues within tennis’ team competitions.
Since being overhauled in 2019, there has been a lot of criticism for the Davis Cup format, similar to that of the Billie Jean King (BJK) Cup.
Navratilova won the BJK Cup, then known as the Federation Cup, five times in her career and she believes that both this and the Davis Cup should be held every other year, rather than annually like it is at the moment.
The Davis Cup has to make a change… which is your preference?
“I think every two years, every four years it has to be not in the Olympic year because that already throws tennis into a tailspin, because it throws the calendar so much,” said Navratilova.
“I think I really like them playing in different countries to spread the wealth, so people that are in smaller countries have the chance to watch great tennis and really get emotionally involved.
“Because when you just play one event in one city, it kind of loses something. At the same time, when I played Fed Cup in Prague, it was such a political statement and such a magical time to be there to be doing that, so that had a different context.
“But overall, I think every two years, but the calendar has so much on it already. You know, we didn’t have that many tournaments. It was Davis Cup and like Wimbledon, the US Open, maybe you play the French or maybe you make the trip to Australia by boat or not!
“So it’s just the calendar is so packed now, it’s really hard to find a great format for the players. For the players it’s best to play just one week and you’re done with it. For the top players, but the rest of the players, most of the field, not the top 20 but the rest of them, they want to play more and have it mean something.
“So trying to find a meaningful way of doing it, I don’t know what the best way is, but every other year is a good idea. Ryder Cup works pretty well that way.”
Navratilova won four of her five BJK Cup titles representing the USA, who have not won the event since 2017.
