Carolina Ascent could use some Navratilova nerve

CAROLINA ASCENT

Carolina Ascent minority owner Martina Navratilova (center) hopes to impart her knowledge as a Grand Slam tennis player to Gainsbridge Super League side.

In spring 1981, Martina Navratilova lost a WTA tournament final to Chris Evert in straight sets without winning a game. 

She was one of the best players in women’s professional tennis, having won Wimbledon in 1978 and 1979, but Navratilova knew she could be better. That’s where the Carolina Ascent are right now. They’ve proven they can be not just good but outstanding, securing the Players’ Shield of the Gainbridge Super League for the best record last season. 

Navratilova was a serve-and-volley player in a baseline world, an aggressive style that took her to the net, because, as the former world number one puts it, “That’s where the fun is.”
That’s who the Ascent were last season, racking up more wins and goals than everyone else. But they also mitigated the risk better by conceding the fewest goals. A six-game winning streak in the spring bordered on perfection as they outscored the opposition 21-2.

Result-wise, they are far from that now. After three consecutive draws to start the season, they’ve lost two straight matches at home. The Ascent lost only three of 15 games at American Legion Memorial Stadium all last season.

Against Sporting Club Jax last week, they fell behind three goals in the first 31 minutes on turnovers, pulled two back on strikes by Rylee Baisden and Mackenzie George, gave up another on a poor backpass, and closed the gap to 4-3 on a second goal from George with 24 minutes to play.

The next opportunity for redemption is Saturday against DC Power at Memorial Stadium. Kickoff is 7 p.m.

Mental toughness

Talent-wise, the Ascent is every bit as strong, if not better, than last season. But they are now at the point where Navratilova was in ’81. They have demonstrated what they can be, but have not been able to close the deal. They’ve displayed resilience with comebacks made necessary by taking but not protecting or increasing leads due to inconsistency on attack and, more disappointing, on defense throughout a full 90 minutes. 
“I think it's a mindset,,” said head coach Philip Poole. 

Though they were first on the board in the initial two games, they have fallen behind in the last three. Poole says they need to come out with more intensity.

“Some teams might be able to do that,” he said. “That's clearly not good for us. That's now the second game against Jacksonville, where we were not good enough in the first half, and come back and nothing majorly tactical, just mindset, of let's start winning some tackles and start winning some matchups.”

That’s where Navratilova, the new minority owner, can be of assistance. 

Navratilova went 84-12 in 1980 but closed the year with losses in eight straight tournaments, including the U.S. and Australia Opens. Mostly quarterfinals or better, but only one final. She lost the first two WTA tournaments of ’81 but won five of the next six, leading to that match on April 26 against Evert on Amelia Island, South Carolina. 

The two had met 40 times before this clash, with Evert holding a 27-13 advantage. Navratilova was the defending champion in the tournament but could not answer any of the questions Evert posed that day. In a 2017 television interview with Joe Buck, Navratilova admitted that, in a new relationship, she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. Whatever the reasons, she lost in 54 minutes, and it stung.

Navratilova had never been skunked in two sets as a professional and hadn’t played a set without winning a game in a year and a half, since dropping the middle of three sets 0-6 to Billie Jean King in November 1979. 

There was a spectator at the match who would question Navratilova’s objectives and commitment to achieving them. That’s when she met basketball standout Nancy Lieberman, an Olympic silver medalist in 1976 and a two-time national player of the year on Old Dominion University’s AIAW national champion teams in 1979 and 1980. In 1981, Lieberman was playing for the Dallas Diamonds in the Women’s Basketball League, the first professional female league in the U.S. She helped them move from 7-28 to 27-9 in 1980-81, where they lost in the finals. The league folded before the next season, but Lieberman found a new calling, helping change Navratilova’s approach to being a professional athlete.

That started with Lieberman telling Navratilova that she was wasting her talent by not working hard enough. “Basketball training is much more tough than anything that we were doing on a tennis court,” Navratilova told Buck. “And so I started running suicides with Nancy on the basketball court and playing basketball. We started running track, lifting weights that summer, and I started really, finally getting in shape.”

Lieberman infused the tennis player with a competitive ethos that was not just about physical and nutritional improvement but the mental clarity, focus, and attitude that comes with it.

Later that summer, Navratilova added another critical piece to her team in Dr. Renee Richards, who was retiring from professional tennis. Richards provided the expert insight on the sport that Lieberman couldn’t and helped Navratilova refine her strokes and tactics.

In 1981, Navratilova won 87 of 100 matches. She wouldn’t lose 13 matches combined for almost five years. Along the way, she claimed 13 major titles and reached the finals of six more. In 1982, she went 90-3. In 1983, she lost just once, winning 82 matches, and in 1984 went 78-2. Across 1984 and 85, she was 173-8.

Navratilova and Evert played 39 times after that day on Amelia Island, with Navratilova winning 31 of them.

A different world

Sports in general, and for women in particular, is far more evolved now than when Navratilova had was a pioneer in the application of sports science and high-performance training. 

Talking about playing soccer as a kid, she says, “It was a cross-training sport for me, although I didn't know I was cross-training. I just played with the boys. One best friend, she played sometimes, but mostly I played with the boys. There were trees (that) were the goal posts, and we just played in the grass for fun as much as we could.”

Once she hooked up with Lieberman as trainer, everything became more professional and purposeful. 

“My typical day would be playing tennis from 10 to 2, four hours, then maybe an hour break,” Navratilova said. “And then we would go either to the track or play basketball full court, two on two, for like an hour and a half. And then I would lift weights. That was my day. I worked hard. I worked my ass off, and I knew nobody else was doing it.”

They are now. That’s now the norm for athletes, not just on the pro level but younger athletes working to achieve that level. 

“I was strong, but I'm 5-foot-8,” Navratilova said. “I’m not overwhelming physically, but I worked hard in the gym, I lifted heavy weights, and it wasn't to get necessarily stronger, but it was to be able to hit the ball just as hard at the end of the match as you do at the beginning of the match.”

Navratilova knew her focus had to be there from start to finish. And she learned how to learn from mistakes rather than lament them.

In an article on imagerycoaching.com, Navratilova related what Billie Jean King taught her about being focused on solutions. 

“Billie Jean saw me miss a shot and then heard me saying something like 'Oh, I hit that late,’” she said. “And she said, 'Don’t do that. Don't repeat your mistake aloud. State what you want instead. Say, hit it earlier.'”

Navratilova said her assessment of the Ascent’s failures to date matches the messaging Poole is giving the team and has spoken with coach and some players since coming aboard. She intends to make herself available going forward as they might request.

"It's possible that if she ever got the mental part together, she could be unbeatable," Evert told Sports Illustrated in May 1982. "If she does, I hope I'm not around."
That’s the objective for the Ascent now. They’ve done it before and need to find it again.

Twenty-five years ago, Navratilova was asked how she maintained her focus, fitness, and attitude at age 43.

Her reply was simple, saying that every game in life is played between the ears. 

“The ball doesn’t know how old I am,” said said. “You need to stop yourself from stopping yourself.”

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