Tennis art... Martina Navratilova

ANDREW MARR: ... works of art. We've got some examples of this in the studio.

Martina, welcome.

How is it done?

This is - I love this.

This is, this is beautiful.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Thank you. Well its sort of using tennis balls as a vehicle to, to put the paint on the canvas. Juraj Kralik who's a Slovak artist had this idea of making the marks that, that we leave on the tennis court playing on clay with the ball and the feet making it more permanent.

And he thought that I should be the one making the marks. So that's how it sort of started and it's sort of evolved into sort of dipping the balls into paint and hitting them onto a canvas.

ANDREW MARR: So you literally dip the balls into paint and, and whack them on.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: And whack them on from different distances, different directions. And this is the end result.

So it started really as a, as a, as a tennis theme. But it's sort of evolved and now we're making more abstract pieces. And it's sort of my interpretation of what the game means to me. So it's been a lot of fun.

ANDREW MARR: Oh fantastic. And how many of these have you done?

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Over three hundred pieces.

ANDREW MARR: Three hundred?

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Yeah, we've been doing this for eight years. This is not something that just sort of dreamt up over night after I quite playing. Juraj came up with the idea two thousand and we've been doing it ever since. Yeah.

ANDREW MARR: Oh fantastic. Fantastic. Since you're here, I must ask you. I mean all these papers.. all the papers are running these stories about match fixing and stuff. Has this been going on in the past or is this a sort of new and shocking development to you?

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Well I don't think it's been going on for very long but it's really difficult to track because in tennis I can lose a match on purpose and you would never know it.

So the only way to really check on it is by those betting patterns. And obviously there, there have been some betting patterns that are very disconcerting. And I think the only way to really deal with it would be to make extremely severe penalties. And to me any player that would lose a match on purpose they are done for life. I mean ..

ANDREW MARR: Yeah.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: .. life time ban. Because right now ..

ANDREW MARR: ...

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: .. they're making more money losing one match rather than winning a couple of matches. They're making a lot more money by losing one match.

But if you take away their livelihood then I think they'll, they'd think twice about doing it. The key is to not start doing it. Apparently once you do one match then they got you, you know. The, the, the ..

ANDREW MARR: The syndicates and the, the bad guys?

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: The syndicate got you. You're on the hook because now they got proof that you've done it once.

So the key is to walk away the first time and just not talk to them and not, not get hooked into it and you're fine. But we have to make the penalties very severe because it is so difficult to track.

I can lose a match you would never know that I lost it on purpose. The top players aren't going to lose matches on purpose cos they can win the whole thing. But the middle rank, yeah ..

ANDREW MARR: They're out there. There will be people who've done this ...

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Apparently. Yeah. So�

ANDREW MARR: Wimbledon this year. What do you think first of all about, about the men's final stages? I mean is this, is the end of the sort of Federer regime?

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: You know we have a tendency to, to write off the champions much too soon. So I would still say Roger is, is the, is the favourite. But of course he hasn't been playing as well this year for whatever reasons.

And, and the other guys are getting better. And they also know a little more how to play him. You know it's hard to figure out how to play somebody when they're dominating. But once they start losing a few then the tendencies come in, become more obvious and, and people, the word ..

ANDREW MARR: Sure.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: .. in the locker room spreads so ..

ANDREW MARR: And there's rising excitement about Nadal this year isn't there?

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: You know he's improved so much. I mean he is just phenomenal. By far the best player that ever played the game on clay.

ANDREW MARR: Yeah.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: There's no question about that. And now I mean he came within a couple of points of beating Roger last year. In the, in that last set he had ..

ANDREW MARR: Yeah.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: .. break points, the both, first two times Roger served he could have been up four- love in the fifth set. So he came very close to winning that match, a lot closer than the score indicates so he's gotten better. And Roger's kind of not playing as well. But I still see that Roger will rise to the top and I mean ..

ANDREW MARR: Andy Murray? Andy Murray?

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: .. this is home for him. Andy Murray? I don't think he's quite ready yet. He definitely has the goods to win it one day. But I just don't see it happening quite yet. I think he, he needs to control his temper a little better. And, and I know because I used to be you know a bit of a whiner and so it takes one to know one.

ANDREW MARR: [Laughs]

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: But I grew out of it and I'm sure he will too. I mean he's a great talent and it'll be fun for England or for UK to finally have a, have a champion.

ANDREW MARR: Scotland. Yeah ..

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Scotland. I know. I know he's not English.

ANDREW MARR: Yeah. One of the points actually you've made in the past is that people come into tennis very, very young and sometimes they're pushed too hard, too early and exit therefore too early.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Well I think the emphasis is much too, much too early. I mean we're having kids not ride a bicycle. The parents don't want them to ride a bicycle when they're eight years old because they don't want them to fall off and scrape their elbow and not be able to play for a week. Please! Let them, let them live. They burn out too much physically and mentally so ..

ANDREW MARR: Yeah.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: .. you know it doesn't matter how good the kid is at twelve, what matters is how good they are when they're twenty. And if you push too much too soon they just, they just fall away and they don't have a chance. So you want to make it more of a balanced lifestyle and hopefully think long term ..

ANDREW MARR: Sure.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: .. don't think short term.

ANDREW MARR: The women's championship much more open I think this year isn't it? It's kind of ..

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Well the men are much more, much more open than they have been. And women have been open for a long time. I mean look at last year. Venus came out of nowhere ..

ANDREW MARR: Yeah. Yeah.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: .. and won the whole thing so very unpredictable.

ANDREW MARR: Just let me ask you a couple of things about, about other issues.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: ...

ANDREW MARR: Church of England ..

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Yes.

ANDREW MARR: .. splitting over, over gay priests and stuff. I mean you must be watching this with a wry smile because you've seen it, seen sort of similar things happening in the States.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Well what happened in the States actually about a hundred and fifty years ago is that the Baptist Church ..

ANDREW MARR: Hundred and fifty years ago?

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Baptist Church split from the American Baptist to American Baptist and the Southern Baptist, over the issue of slavery. The Southern Baptists wanted to keep slavery. And what has history proven them? Wrong.

And I think that's what will happen here also because history will prove wrong the church over the split over homosexuality, because, you know the choice might be who you have sex with but the choice is not who you fall in love with. And, and there is no question that the majority of homosexuals are born that way. And you know this is not something that ...

ANDREW MARR: There's been, there's been yeah, more stuff about brains this week and stuff.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: So, well there you go.

ANDREW MARR: Yeah. Yeah. All right well listen come back later on.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: All right.

ANDREW MARR: But for now thank you very much indeed.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

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