Martina Navratilova danced on Wimbledon's Centre Court Saturday as if it were her private garden, a special place where she is intimate with every blade of grass and knows all the bounces.
She was born in Czechoslovakia and has lived in Dallas and now in Aspen, Colo., but nowhere is she more at home than here inside the ivy-covered walls.Navratilova's record ninth Wimbledon singles title, secured with an artistic and emotional 6-4, 6-1 rout of good friend Zina Garrison, ended with a celebration that felt more like a coronation.
Cheered wildly by the crowd and kissed on both cheeks by the Duchess of Kent during the presentation of the silver-and-gold tea tray, Navratilova felt tears rolling down her cheek as she held the trophy overhead.
It was the crowning achievement of her career, the one goal she had set for herself several years ago to mark her place in history - Wimbledon's all-time singles champion. In recent years she has come to Centre Court before the tournament as if making a pilgrimage, staring at it reverently, touching the grass and plucking a blade for a keepsake.
"Now she'll have peace of mind for the rest of her life," said six-time winner Billie Jean King, who coached Navratilova for 14 months to help her break Helen Wills Moody's mark of eight titles between 1927 and 1938.
Navratilova, who once said "Wimbledon is like a drug - once you win it, you've just got to do it again," immediately said she will come back to try for No. 10 next year.
"As long as the body is willing, I am," said Navratilova, 33, the oldest Wimbledon champion since Dorothea Douglass Chambers won at 35 in 1914, and the fourth oldest in history.
"This tops it all, absolutely, because I've worked so hard and so long for it," said Navratilova, who lost in the finals to Steffi Graf the past two years.
"They say good things are worth waiting for and this one definitely was," she said. "I've never been drunk in my life, but this may be the day. I'm so high I can't really talk about it."
Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg, who have both tasted the glory of winning at Wimbledon, will go after the men's championship Sunday. Becker has three titles here - 1985, '86 and '89 - and Edberg one in 1988. Willie Renshaw holds the men's record of seven titles in the 1880s, when the champion went straight to the finals. Bjorn Borg and Hugh Doherty are next with five each.
Garrison, who played in her first Grand Slam final, said she couldn't imagine what it would be like to win nine Wimbledon titles like Navratilova.
"That's just amazing that someone can do this," she said. "She just really feels like this is her court and no one can take it away from her."
Garrison came out strong and Navratilova was nervous as the match began in balmy weather with a crowd that included royalty and generations of champions - Althea Gibson, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Virginia Wade, Ann Jones, Angela Mortimer and Kitty Godfree.
Garrison won the first game on service at love, lofted a lob to take the opening point on Navratilova's first serve and pushed her to three deuces before Navratilova held on a volley as Garrison slipped.
Navratilova pounced on Garrison's serve in the third game and gave up only one point in breaking her.
Navratilova seized her opportunity and moved in for the kill, grunting loudly on serves and winning the next game at love with three solid backhand volleys and a backhand down the line. In holding her services in the final four games of the set and the first one of the second set, Navratilova yielded only two points.
Both players performed well with serve-and-volley styles that were mirror images of each other. The difference lay in Navratilova's quickness and accuracy, just as it had when she beat Garrison in 27 of their previous 28 matches.
"She was definitely on," Garrison said. "Everything was clicking for her."
Despite Navratilova's efforts, the match lacked the electricity of some earlier rounds, especially Garrison's semifinal victory over Graf and quarterfinal win against Monica Seles.
Garrison, who managed only seven winners at the net compared with Navratilova's 22, conceded she may have tried to control her emotions too much.
"I was probably too calm," she said. "I think with a player like Martina, who's aggressive, you need to be a little more in your emotions. I think I was a tad too laid back."
Still, Garrison, the first black women's finalist since Gibson won in 1958, put behind her forever the memory of her emotional blowup at Wimbledon when she lost to Virginia Wade in 1984, and the four matches she lost to lesser opponents after holding match point this year. She has overcome a battle with bulimia and the deaths of her parents and brother. At 26, Garrison's best years may be ahead of her.
"I've had a great Wimbledon," she said. "It's been fun and I'm looking forward already to coming back. It's even more exciting when you get a chance to see that trophy up close than it is far away on television."
Navratilova, who felt so many times that her dream might slip away, worried about a chronic injury to her left knee. It bothered her in a tuneup tournament, but wrapped in a bandage it gave her no trouble Saturday.
"I didn't care if I had to scrape and scratch and crawl out there," she said. "It didn't have to be a thing of beauty by any means. They don't put an asterisk there - `She won the record but she really didn't play well."'
The tension finally rose on Garrison's service in the third game of the second set when they dueled through seven deuces, and Garrison came back from four break points. Navratilova, twirling her racket as always while waiting to receive, finally won the longest game of the match with a backhand return down the line and a backhand half-volley that sailed past Garrison.
No one had any doubt from that point on that Navratilova would win. The only question was how quickly.