Tennis News: Martina Navratilova, Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev

Martina Navratilova was a special player, of course. She is tied for having the third-most Grand Slam titles in the Open era, and she became the most dominant player of her era by the end of her career. But one place where she shined even more was at the WTA Finals.

The WTA Finals will be held on Sunday in Cancun, Mexico. But for many years the event was held in the United States. Martina Navratilova said that during the 1980s, she cared about winning three tournaments more than any others: the US Open, Wimbledon, and WTA Finals. And she reigned at the WTA Finals like no other during or since.

Navratilova has eight singles titles at the WTA year-end event, three more than Steffi Graf or Serena Williams. No current player has more than one win so no one is going to catch Martina Navratilova’s incredible record of eight any time soon. Between 1978 and 1986, Navratilova only didn’t win the WTA Finals twice.

Martina Navratilova’s untouchable record and her comments on Novak Djokovic

So, clearly, Martina Navratilova knows something about winning. She recently spoke about how long she thinks another great, Novak Djokovic, will play and Navratilova said Djokovic could “play for another 20 years.”  Funny. But since this is Novak Djokovic she is talking about, anything is possible, of course.

Novak Djokovic recently confirmed he split with long-time agent Edoardo Artaldi. Artaldi had worked with Djokovic since 2008. While Artaldi and Djokovic appear to remain good friends, Djokovic seems to be looking at his future after tennis and rearranging his team with an eye on that.

Said Djokovic, “(Artaldi and I) stay friends but professionally we decided to go different ways. I’m entering a new chapter about the off-court approach. The transition is not easy but I’m moving forward.”

Daniil Medvedev rightfully tells Paris crowd to be quiet

Speaking of not being easy, that would be the crowd in Paris watching the Rolex Paris Masters this week. Very often in many matches, spectators have yelled out prior to points or booed or whistled at players for very little reason. Some players complain about the noise from the US Open crowd during the US Open, but in Paris at the Masters 1000 events, the crowd has just seemed obnoxiously rude.

This was especially true of Daniil Medvedev’s match against Grigor Dimitrov. Medvedev had thrown his racket after losing a point to Dimitrov and the crowd reacted by whistling (the French equivalent of booing). The Russian complained to the chair umpire and said he wouldn’t play until the whistling stopped.

Medvedev then told the umpire, “They’re stupid. If they don’t whistle, I’ll play,” And then he told the crowd, “I play, guys, but shut your mouths, OK?” Good for him. Maybe the French haven’t witnessed one of their own being an important part of the ATP tour for decades now, but they should still have respect for other players.