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thank you Martina we are greatly honored to have you here today you have won Wimbleton nine times I believe yep and more astonishing yet there are I believe 80 different events where you have won both the singles and the doubles of the same event yes 80 80 times they just gave a million
dollar bonus last week in Indian o if a player could win both singles and doubles they didn't do that in my day unfortunately if we were to take your achievements and rather than framing them as Sports achievements and athletic which of
course they were but to think of them in terms of both education self-education and management how would you describe the approach that took you you know by the early 80s to really being a completely dominant player you were a contender and then you became completely
dominant Say by 1981 how did you do that and what can you teach us about that process well I didn't graduate from high school so I'm having a hard time understanding your question I'm just I I left my country before I was able to graduate no I think uh what
happened was a kind of a seminal moment I was uh friends with Nancy liberman who is a basketball player Hall of Famer and that spring she traveled with me and and I I had a bad spring I lost semi-finals at the French Open I lost semi-finals
both leadup tournaments to Wimbledon and at Wimbledon and I always said I would play till I'm 30 and then see and she said you know your time's running out and and um you could work a lot harder I'm like what are you talking about I thought I worked pretty hard but I
didn't have a coach for six years after I defected my dad was my coach now I didn't have a coach I thought I worked hard enough but then she introduced me to running suicides on the basketball court why did she register with you in a way earlier people hadn't athlete
athlete fellow athlete very very I mean very capable athlete and she just said you know you're wasting your time you have you have so much more Talent than what you're putting out there and I just didn't know any better and so we started
training that summer then I got a a guy who was also a nutritionist then he helped me tailor my diet it wasn't to lose weight but just to have better quality food coming in and uh because I weighed the same since about 77 147 lbs and and so I didn't lose any weight but
I I put on some muscle and uh lost some body fat and most of all got a coach Dr R Richard started coaching me I was doing it on my own and everybody that lived here or or other players they would would have a coach in their Hometown Chris ever had her father did
not travel but when she goes home she would have a coach I would go home and I was alone I was uh in fact just last week in Indian wall I saw a guy that I used to practice with every day in when I was practicing in Dallas I did not have a coach so it just didn't occur to
me to get a get a full-time coach and and Rene just by accident we started practicing together at the US Open and building the team it's sometimes been called team na toova did you do this self-consciously or it's just something that evolved bit by bit pie seemed to
totally and then at the end did you realize what you had done or how what was the process expost of looking back and reconstructing well I just wanted to uh leave no no stone unturned really so so the the coach obviously was technique and tactics and the the physical part
was uh was training working very hard I'll give you my typical day in a minute and then uh and then the eating was so that I could train hard and not get injured so it all came together and and the typical day then when I really was humming was two four hours of tennis
like 10 to two two hours of drills and maybe two hours of sets then I would do some running drills on the court for 15 20 minutes Sprints that if I did them now I wouldn't be able to walk the next day you know 15 to 30 second sprinting
drills and then we would uh eat lunch then I would go either play basketball full court 2 on two for an hour and a half or little man big man two on one I don't know those people that play basketball you just run were you just run well it it switches Whoever has the
ball is the little man um no Whoever has the ball is one against two and then you play Little Man the person plays defense and then the the big man plays center so it's not two on-one it's one against one and then one and then whoever gets the
ball goes the other way so it's run run run and then I would lift weights and and have dinner either before lifting weights or after so it was full day of training what about 9: a.m. to 10: a.m. that was breakfast yeah or and if I didn't play basketball we go on the
track and run some days 10 10 100 meter Sprints or you know 20 60 60 yard Sprints I would do four quarters that was my least favorite yeah it was I I trained hard I worked I wor I worked harder than I needed to I think but uh it it it worked so you've done other
things in life you've been very interested in woodworking I've read that you learned Swahili you have a pilot's license you wrote three detective novels played on a hockey team uh you're now I think having a role in raising two children I mean have you used the
training regime for all of those do you now think about getting things done this way well the positive attitude helps with tennis you have to be very positive and and have a very short memory long memory for the good stuff and short
memory for the bad stuff so because you have to play a point then you know in 20 seconds you got to get ready for the next point so you got to analyze what happened and try to do it better Etc but uh raising to kids is challenging I'm I'm must say whatever training I've done
is not enough Billy Jean King one suggested that you use writing in a journal every day to help you accomplish your goals how does that work for you and what is it you do and why do you think it works well it worked because it really kind of
centers you it narrows it down whatever long-term goal you have it becomes more real and more current oh because you it narrows it down in that what do you need to do today and did you accomplish that goal so you really you know you have a
big goal and then you break it into smaller goals into smaller goals until you get into okay what do I do today to get to that goal and and then you keep track it's easier to keep track it's always good to keep track whether you're playing points keeping track that way or
just measure your progress or or maybe regress some days and I would rate myself on on a physical level emotional and mental you know how I did today on a on a scale of 1 to 10 and some days were 10 some days were seven some days were threes try to be honest with yourself be
honest but also be nice to yourself and you see that with most Champions they're perfectionists and you beat yourself up too much and so I I I preach and I try to strive for excellence rather than Perfection because Perfection just if you strive for excellence Perfection may
happen but just it's good enough to be excellent yeah that's that's good enough you don't need to be perfect because Perfection is so kind of just happens by accident John mackenro once reported that Bjorn Borg said that him I quote
number one is the only thing that matters that doesn't seem to quite be your attitude but how do you think of your motivation in terms of the goal well I I wanted to be number one I've said that when I was 20 years old I I I said since I was eight or nine years old
I I wanted to win mumon but at that point you don't know how big the world is and what that all means but uh that was the goal and I I just put it out on the line uh and what was the question I forgot what you and Borg saying number one is the only thing that
matters may have been exaggerating himself but do you ever feel you have that attitude that anything short of number one is a kind of failure not at all not at all the only failure is to not try so for me it was always giving my best whatever it was that I was doing
whether it was riding the bicycle around my garden and trying to go as fast as I can and timing myself uh I got my first watch was a stop watch when I was in third grade so I was always timing myself and I would try to go faster so I would kind of pack up you know do a
little turn so I could make the turn faster so I could go faster or three times around competing with myself my competition was always with myself I always said I would rather play well and and lose than play lousy and win because if I play lousy and won that just meant
my opponent was really lousy so I'd rather be pushed yeah and so that's why I really enjoy the competition against the best players cuz that's when you have to put it on the line and play play your best uh anything less won't be good
enough the number one kind of happen but and and that's another line that I use um you know everybody has that goal I most players that that play on the tour they want to be number one they want to win a major but only one one person can be number one so does that make
everybody else a failure no they're trying their hardest and uh if you try your best and the best that you can do which we have the ranking obviously that's very it doesn't lie this is where exactly where you stand you could be 45 in the world or five in the world or
number one if you get if you try your best and your best ranking ever was number 10 then that's that's you know the other nine players were better but if the other nine people wen't alive you'd be number one so but you're still the same tennis
player right you're not any better so for me the competition was always with myself Pam Shriver once said that she thought her Double's partnership with you worked so well precisely because the two of you had this creative interchange but you didn't spend much time together
off the court so you saved that back and forth for when you were playing together does that make sense to you well we talked a lot yes we had to catch up on everything while we're playing the matches nowadays the all talk strategy we like okay I serve wide but you know
what do you want to what do you want to do for dinner or where did you go that's time and and where is your couch sitting and we we were visiting on can you believe that guy over there you know he's he's not even watching us whatever
we were just talking we're just talking smack and uh we had fun we had fun a few questions about women's tennis in particular if you think about Stephie graph sabatini Monica celis Hingis yourself do women in tennis develop more quickly in terms of age and if so why is that
the case well physically yeah I mean women mature earlier I think emotionally and physically but most of all physically nowadays again the game has gotten so much more physical it's it's a little more tricky for uh for people to play really great tennis at 14 or 15 and
in the women's game we we instituted a age eligibility rule so you don't you cannot play a full fulltime uh you cannot play as many tournaments as you want until you're 18 there's a limit to to to how many tournaments you can play at 14 15 Etc it it goes up and the
biggest reason for that was we had too many injuries and too many people getting burned out because the parents had these big eyes for their kids and and they're pulling kids out of school too soon and and and you know doing training and and burning out physically
or emotionally before they even get on the tour or if they get on the tour then the injuries come too many too many people pulling out but I think some of it is also they don't make them like they used to yeah I mean in the old days to I
would come to a tournament then they saw a default there was a default somebody would default I'm like oh my God is she okay is she in the hospital it was unusual for people to pull out I think Chris pulled out of like three events ever same with me
three tournaments that I pulled out of and you played a lot and I played a lot of tournaments a lot of matches I mean I I I don't don't know how many singles I won but I think I played something like 1,700 singles matches and like thousand I don't know 1100 doubles matches so and
what accounts for that change why are we moderns weaker uh more complacent however you might describe it I mean what's happened to well things are easier there's no doubt but also they're lasting longer because things are easier and the better
better the the trainers you have trainers now when when I came on the tour I pulled a stomach muscle very first room and I played and it took two months before I got I got well again 75 we got a trainer for the first time on the tour uh 1975 and and I thought oh
you get a massage no no no this a trainer they actually like tape your ankles and stuff we were really clueless we didn't know uh so nowadays the care is much better and um yeah the players last longer because of that but we played on clay or grass indoors on on
soft carpet with wooden rackets with gut animal gut with the strings now they play on hardcour most of the time with metal rackets with nylon strings so the body is does not absorb that vibration from the racket they use their wrists a lot more so you have lot more more
injuries on the upper upper body and then playing on hard courts you see them slide I'm like I still don't know how they do that that's sliding on hard courts like ah just you know there there'll be a lot more hip replacements in the future because of that and uh and
I think it's just the game is more physical so they they get more beat up everybody's hitting the ball harder because of the rackets Etc so some sports it seems fairly easy to compare the past and and the present so the 100 meter dash how long did it take you know
there's a very definite timing if you're thinking about tennis players the best of today the best of an earlier age you know althia Gibson or Ivan Gul whoever it is you have in mind do you think it's even a meaningful comparison or do you
have some definite view like we were better you know than they'll ever be or they you know they would take every set from us how do you think about me from 1990 would have beaten me from 1980 would have beaten me from 1973 cuz you get better as you play and I would have
beaten Alia Gibson but then if I had been born in alia Gibson's time and Alia Gibson was born 20 years later she would be beating me because it's the evolution of the sport and and nowadays especially with the rackets being so different uh
you can't really compare but if Ivan gulon was born now she would still be she would still be winning Majors same same with the with the guys I mean you're a product of your of your culture and of your time um you know if usin Bolt was born in 1930 I'm pretty sure he
would not be running 9.2 whatever he's running 100 m you know just wasn't going to happen with those shoes on those tracks it's it's a ball game if you think about how men and women are divided in tennis the current Arrangement has a lot of advantages but
it could be the case I'm no expert in this area but that there are more than two genders and say in track and field you have casor cenia where people you know argue should she be allowed to compete in in woman's track and field uh there's a lot of measurement that goes
on arguably it's somewhat intrusive or just distasteful and how should we think about this problem and structure the rules going forward to have the best available Arrangement you just try to take it Case by case and make it as Fair as possible for everybody involved I'm
not a doctor so I can't really it's hard to pin that one but you just try to make it fair and uh you there's not any particular rule because if you go by that then you know some guy may have a lot more testosterone than another guy and then what is he banned because he's
too much you know where do you put the limits who decides where the limits are so you just take take it Case by case and try to be as first make it a Level Playing Field I mean with me they were saying I have an advantage cuz I'm gay it's like somehow you know a gay player
hits the ball better than a straight player I don't know still trying to figure that one out issues of pay Equity as you know Australian us French opens Wimbleton Indian Wales Miami male and female prizes are the same at the top at many
other tournaments male winners tend to receive quite a bit more than female winners is this in your view Fair should it be changed and if so how should we change it well we are changing it a little bit at a time but still those tournaments are separate so the men
still most corporations run by men owned by men and uh and they they're much more likely to give the money to the men than the women uh whether it's a a bank or a whatever the sponsor is men have a much easier time getting the sponsorship
money and don't have to uh don't have to prove it uh the women have to prove themselves which is why most of the sponsors that have been involved in women's sport women's women's tennis have have stayed around a lot longer because we have to we have to make sure
that that the money is is judged correct that economically it makes sense I mean the NFL how many false starts were there for the NFL NBA all of that you have one false start in the women's league and oh the women can't make it but the guys they keep throwing money at them and and
so it is still in different cultures I mean we still have tournaments in places where women can't you know walk without a man mcord so times have changed but not enough but uh it's certainly going the right direction so but the pay inequity is still there male and female
tennis announcers should they be paid the same yeah I'm trending on Twitter today my yes claim to fame yeah you try to pay people equal amount for equal work equal uh contribution and equal level of uh expertise and um Championship quality you want to assign
to that but so there's this hoo-ha right now about may not getting me getting a lot has paid for the same work uh that as John mackenro at the uh at Wimbledon which the BBC is a is a publicly owned Corporation but they would not divulge
what people are making finally they had to last year say how much people are making only people that are making 150,000 a year or more anybody less than that you don't have to divulge so a lot of the part-time people did not make the cut but John mackenro did make the cut
he gets at least 50,000 for Wimbledon while I was getting paid about 12 13,000 pounds for Less work less work yes but about maybe oneir but it's because I couldn't get anymore I wanted to work more but we were getting all kinds of um
all kinds of uh excuses why I couldn't get more or other women weren't getting paid as much as The Men We I knew I was getting paid less but I didn't know how much less and then when I found out when this report was made public it's like okay now this is not just you know
percentage this is a multiplier there's a program that just went out tonight actually at uh kind of the 60 Minutes in the UK called Panorama and U I did an interview there so now there's a big big Todo about it and it's not between me and macro it's not about that uh it's
about women getting paid a lot less than men for similar job so um you know maybe maybe it's because you get paid by the word cuz I I'm try to keep my answers really succinct so just saying here's something Billy Jean King wants say and I'm not sure but I think
she was referring to both men's and women's tennis quote I think tennis is a sexy Sport and that is good the players are young with excellent bodies clothed in relatively little it offers the healthiest most appealing presentation of sex I can imagine and we in sport
must acknowledge that and use it to our advantage true or false she said that it's in print then sound like Billy well I never heard her say that but it is a well it is sexy sport but I don't think it's because of the way we dress it's just because we're really capable of of
hitting that tennis ball uh and doing things on the core that most people and it's a cognitive Endeavor most of all right and and and it also makes sense to play tennis in you know shorts and or a shorter skirt rather than what Susan
longan used to have to put up with with the long dresses Etc I think the form follows function on the on the tennis clothing anyway but there's nothing wrong with being sexy as long as it's not it's not uh sexist you know here's a question for I mean I mean guys guys get
paid more if they're good-looking they get more endorsements women same thing but then it becomes too uh disperate then then that's when it becomes a problem when you have to when you have to be sexy in order to be paid the same ah the guy doesn't have to be sexy right
I mean look at the TV people right here's a question from a reader and I quote in her autobiography Martina observed that us women such as Chris Everett had to conform to four more rigid gender stereotypes than Czech women like she did does Martina still
believe that us gender stereotypes are a lot more constricting and universally imposed in America day than in say Central Europe oh that's a good question but I don't I said that a long time ago that biography came out 30 years ago so
I really don't remember what all I said uh once in a while I I sign it and I look inside I'm like oh my God I can't believe I you know I said that this is way too personal but the one thing growing up in a communist country perhaps the only good thing about it was
that it was okay to be a female athlete women that were or or anything really there were women doctors professors very common not not in the political scene there was always guys for some reason but every other field women were just as encouraged to go into that field as as
men there was no oh well you want to study be an electrician you have to be a man no or a professor whatever it it it all worked so when somebody said Doctor you didn't assume it was a man whereas it was an assumption here I still make that mistake myself and and
so being an athlete I was encouraged to be an athlete um and to do to the best it wasn't like I had to be begging to to be able to play tennis because you know it's only for boys so same with the clothing maybe maybe we weren't dressing
so sexy CU there just wasn't anything sexy to be bought there uh you know you just kind of went to the store and and see what was available but I think Chris was just conforming not because of Any preconceived ideas but she came from a good Catholic Family and she wanted to
please her parents so it was more that than than I think any American culture it was actually more cultural within within the family how you grew up at the top level why has US men's tennis collapsed I don't think it's collapsed I
think we have 10 but the last grand slam winner who is it is it Andy rodic I don't I'm not a long time ago I think it's Andy uh well they we had a few in the finals but uh right now there's new guys coming up opela who is like 6' 10 some is huge and huge serve and and a
good big Talent Taylor Freds had a good tournament uh last week in Indian Wells I actually used to play against his mother Kathy May uh I think uh Jack sock I mean he made the he made the Masters I mean on a given day they can beat anybody but to Wi a major that takes
that takes a lot but it always goes in in ab and flows and and you know fluctuations but I think the biggest thing is that the rest of the world caught up it's not that we're bad it's the rest of the world is better better it's a lot more International tennis is
a lot more Global and um and and you know the tennis ball doesn't know where you're from does it the NBA the NFL and Major League Baseball they've all been revolutionized by analytics and statistics but tennis so far not that much as far as I can tell you may know
better is this coming to tennis and if so what kind of effects is it like have it's it's there now the knowledge is there I think it's still people are figuring out how to how to use it to their advantage but they have all kinds of uh statistics now with the Hawkeye
when you play matches they even have cameras on practice courts you can measure how many revolutions per per shot where it landed how many mistakes you made it it it it can get too much but you can certainly use it to your advantage to see where the weaknesses
are it's very obvious where the strengths are with the opponents Etc I think would help in making game plans and all that but ultimately you know you can analyze all you want but U ultimately you just got to hit the dam ball and hit it well are the rules of
tennis flawed in some way are games too long or competitions too long or Too Short is there too much or too little regulation of string and Racket technology would you change the scoring system can you improve on what we have that's a lot of questions other than the
pay this I yeah one question at a time please the regulations absolutely the rackets have taken over the sport and and the strings the strings when you uh when you put them on a microscope they like have these little teeth so they bite the ball so you can put a lot more
spin on the ball which makes it a lot easier to hit it the rackets The Sweet Spot used to be about this big now it's like this big as long as you don't hit the frame you're good to go so it's very forgiving and so everybody hits a much
better ball and it's more difficult to come to the net because because it's easier to dip the ball with the spin Etc so the racket manufacturers have really changed the sport too much in in in my mind you don't see as much variety because of the of the equipment really
favoring the the baselines or the ground strokes over the volleys and top players today they don't have to be as smart as in your time um it's well I don't know I haven't meur but it sounds like more strength oriented yes it is less cognitive yeah it's it can be you can
you can you can get by with less uh sort of lower tennis IQ you know if you you can power past people you don't have to hit around them you go through them yeah the rackets are more forgiving it's like having much more horsepower you know you
just stem on the gas and off you go so technique is not as uh as uh prevalent and and tactics although now you find different parts of the cord because of the strings also because of the rackets which makes it different so it's just different it's not necessarily better or
worse but I think less variety and that's what I'm missing but yeah mixed doubles also seems less popular right and is that another example of declining interest in IQ well I think there's so much more money in singles and so much interest in singles fewer players play
singles and doubles so because you know you win one major and your your your life is made uh so you don't uh concentrate so much on you don't want to make anything um hamper that possibility so people play less I played singles doubles and mixed in a whole bunch of
times in fact I probably played too much in my 30s I should have played less but I like I didn't know any better and I like playing mix maybe that's one of my other big accomplishments I won the Triple in the Theos open I was 31 I won
singles doubles and mixed one year at wimbl on 86 it rained so much then I only played two matches in the first week because it rained two singles and then I played 17 matches the second week cuz I got to the finals of all three so I played two or three matches every
single day and then the last one I I we lost the doubles Pam and I lost the doubles we had lost a match in two years we lost the finals I won the singles and then Sunday up after winning the singles and winning and losing doubles final I played three we were in the
quarterfinals on the mix doubles on Sunday I was on the court for six hours cuz uh there was no tie break in the third set won the first match in three sets then we played again semi-finals in three sets 20 I think it was 23 21 in the third and then the final was three
sets as well so yeah I was tired that day that's why people don't play because it just takes too much energy the game is more physical and they don't want to hamper anything but I I like I like playing tennis so much that I couldn't see not playing doubles if somehow
tennis didn't exist or you couldn't have been a tennis player but ended up in this country at a young enough age what do you think would have been your career well if sports or anything else but tennis it can be hockey it can be woodworking I play hockey woodworking no
that would not uh no that I don't think that would have made that much money but uh or um but I did woodworking I still have 10 fingers see I did pretty well made a couple tables um I think uh I wanted to be an architect or a builder I
think that's why I got into woodworking wanted to create and if it was a sport either a a skier or a race car driver I like speed if you look back on your your whole career your whole life what what question do you most frequently ask
yourself that you would be willing to share with us well recently okay I've been married now for three years been with with Julia almost 10 years and uh her two daughters are 16 and 12 and the question I ask myself most most often these days is what can I say to them so
that they will actually put the dishes in the dishwasher rather than just leave them in the think I have not solved that riddle I don't know it's you know take away the iPhone oh that doesn't work driving peges no I don't know I don't I've run out being nice you know give
money I did that too I paid them that didn't work either anybody any suggestions I mean and the dishwasher is here and the sink is here it's not like it's a long trip you know just I mean I come from a home where we didn't have hot water till I was was
about 12 years old we had to heat up the water to wash the dishes and we had to heat up the big thing to take a bath once a week you know that's all you had we had to heat up the water to wash the dishes and uh and my mom washed the dishes and I dried them every night some
questions about gay R how can we incentivize other celebrities athletes to come out of the closet more because there's been a huge positive external benefit from what you've done many many people's lives are much better off and Freer and have more dignity but it seems
highly likely there are many more gay people in sports who are unwilling to come out of the closet even now didn't you see the Olympics and Adam rien the Olympics but Major League sport depends on what sport you're in because it's almost like if you're a figure skater
you have to prove that you're straight if you're a man and if you're a softball player as a woman you have to prove that you're straight it it it's it's it depends on the sport but it's difficult in team sports because if the coach is
in any shape homophobic uh you don't get to play you don't get to to compete there was a there was a I forget her name now she played for Penn State coach can anybody can help me she was a coach there reie Portland she openly said I will not
allow a lesbian on my team this is back in the 80s and would proudly Proclaim to her parents that there are no lesbians on the team when she was recruiting her players so do you come out you don't get to play so you know it's it's difficult in team sports or professional sports uh
same thing you would get black ball by the league if you do the unpopular thing uh it's okay now it's it's better say you're starting in the NBA you're a good player You' have a proven record uh very few people in that position have come
out you think it's about endorsements or commercial factors or fandom you know it's it's because they're not going to bench you the minute after you say it's privacy it's your teammates some may know some may not I mean I know I you know professional team sports there's
definitely a lot of players out there that their teammates know but it's still it's still a taboo and it's uncomfortable you know and it and it attracts attention in a in a way that these Macho Sports don't want even on the tennis tennis tour I was lucky that
I could come out cuz I knew I could still play tennis no matter what happened in endorsements I didn't care you I lost I lost a lot of money but I just wanted to play tennis and be true to myself so I knew I could still play no matter what the ranking is this you
get to play but on team sports It's Tricky so I I get that that it's it's difficult especially for men but on the on the men's tour there you know I the guys are so far in the closet I don't even know who they are it's disappointing cuz the women are much
more Brave on that front I don't know why actually I don't know why you were born in Czechoslovakia what's now the Czech Republic do you follow Czech politics still at all yes unfortunately why do you think something seems to have gone wrong do you think it's something
about the Communist Heritage of what is now Czech Republic that prevents it from being this perfect fit into the European Union or what's your diagnosis no I mean it's it's a great country to live in but the politics have gone slightly downhill
uh and I think people have a short memory and they're and they're kind of too many people still pining for the good old communist days as if there was anything good about it and a former communist zon was reelected president again or prime minister whatever he is
now and uh it it's frustrating but um you know it's still a a great place to be and uh a democratic country and uh I think overall it it's done really well but uh it's frustrating to me to see the right-wing politics winning so much of um these days and and the dictators or
not dictators but authoritarians winning the elections and how did you think about the split with Slovakia when that game I thought uh I think they would rather take it back if they could but it was peaceful uh it was U done nicely nobody died nobody there was no there
was no violence at all it was just people voted for it and that was that and you know it's it's a shame but that's what it happened and say check writers pan Kera or or HK do you still read them identify with them follow them or are you just fully in an American
life but with a Czech background I'm I'm both I'm I'm feel very much at home here I'm I'm total American but I'm I still feel at home when I go to Czech Republic my sister lives there you know it's where I grew up the town is the same there's still no traffic lights there
you know it hasn't changed and so I feel very very much at home at both places I must say if if checks play Americans in hockey I I root for the checks I don't know I to say that but maybe still also kind of rooting for the underdog the
smaller country you know I mean we're a country of I think like 10 12 million people there's Ivon lendel Martina hingis's mother yourself all from Czech Republic why so much tennis Talent from your country that was about the only sport we could play there uh no I mean
for me it was the the possibility the availability of playing because we had a club in my hometown and I had the opportunity and I had good coaching and it was a sport that I loved uh tennis tennis uh Ivon LEL was from a tennis family uh Martina tennis family uh it
was uh kind of past generation the generation and also the club scene is very healthy checks are pretty athletic anyway and and active but uh most of all the clubs are set up where you you you walk to the club in in your hometown you
know you it's very safe so you walk and you can stay stay there all day um on the weekend or or after school you go straight to tennis and play and then you come home before dark and you know it's just a nice scene it's cheap so you don't have to be wealthy to to make it
you have good coaching and um and people to play with so you know I played against all all the people uh whatever my level was I played I played against those people it wasn't I only played against girls my my age I played whoever I could compete against and that that
breeds I think good players in your Memoir you wrote The Following and I quote Charlottesville reminded me of my part of Czechoslovakia unquote please explain you mean you mean last summer Charlottesville no no oh living in charlot living in charlotteville well
it's the Blue Ridge Mountains it's the same same uh same climate uh and same Countryside very similar to what where I grew up and comfortable emotionally what was it like to regain your Czech citizenship I waited for that I don't know why I waited you had to get so much
paperwork done and I finally get it organized and I sh I send it and I don't get anything back and I finally called what they didn't get the paperwork I'm like I have to start over again so like two years later I finally got to it and
it happened that I got it after Obama became president not under George W bush and people are saying I did it on purpose because I didn't want to be an American anymore because of George W bush had nothing to do with it I just wasn't organized enough to get to get
all the paperwork done so uh so I have two passports yeah and I uh you know it's so it's it's nice to feel like you belong to both countries cuz when I defected the reason I defected because you couldn't uh get Visa unless the government allowed you to get Visa so um
they wouldn't let me play the US Open so I defected and then for six years I was uh stateless I had a I had a thing that said re-entry permit it looked like a passport but it says re-entry permit and uh I had to get Visa every sing every
single place I went and uh when you're filling out the paperwork says country of citizenship I had to put stateless finally in 81 when I got my citizenship of USA and uh the next I got my passport the next day I'm flying to Europe and they said do you have a passport I'm
like do I have a passport I still remember that moment I was so proud and now I have two passports so it's very cool what was your biggest shock when you came here as a Defector well I came here in 73 right and then I defected in 75 so when I
first came here in 73 yes well I've seen American cars before in Germany but still the size of American cars and they're still astonish when you see an old Cadillac old Dorado it's like you know 4T longer than a SUV that's just huge but what astonished me the most I
think uh was um that there were oranges the first tournament I played was in Fort Lauderdale and there was oranges on the trees you could just pick them off the tree and growing up we had oranges like once a year for maybe two weeks in for Christmas you had oranges so it was
like the most precious thing you could you could eat it was more expensive than beef and uh and here you could just pick it off the off the tree and I picked up a coconut took me about three hours to get inside it but I ate the inside of a
coconut and and the size of uh Ham on a sandwich cuz growing up again you know pork was very expensive so you had bread and maybe one slice of ham so it would eat around it so I got a big chunk of ham on the last bite and here you get a ham sandwich and it's like two pieces of
bread and this much ham was like oh my God this is amazing $2.50 for a ham sandwich still remember it for me that was astonishing grocery stores astonishing mhm what bothered you the most the early years bothered me the most yeah probably not being able to uh
talk to my family but about this country obviously you miss friend's family but about America then nothing I mean things were great let see well it was Watergate which I'm like where is this place Watergate was the big thing 73 I I did
not understand that uh but politics seem to be very reasonable people are you know nice and welcoming when I defected I was welome with open arms in in Texas and uh I I had everything um so back then nothing what was it like to go skiing with Donald
Trump well his wife was a lot faster skier than he was um I knew Ivana before she before she even met met uh Donald Trump because she was Czech and she was a friend of a good check check friend of mine I met her in New York back in the 70s and uh yeah I skied with him a couple times in
in in Aspen and um yeah knew the family played tennis with him ever no no I no have you seen that is a classic photo of him hitting a forehand volley oh it's a thing of [Laughter] beauty now in some way really you were those shorts okay in some ways you've been critical
of the Trump presidency some ways some ways if you think about structurally how did America get into its current problems what's your explanation Facebook Cambridge analytica Bots I mean it was a perfect storm or horrible storm for uh for
Clinton uh there's no doubt about that everything that could have gone wrong went wrong still you thought somehow you know but again we knew about the Electoral College it may I think I think that system needs to be looked at uh it's not working uh if I lived in Hawaii
I would be really pissed cuz my vote doesn't count cuz by then the elections decided uh it should really be one person one vote regardless of where you live I don't know why geography makes a difference I'm for state rights up to a point because if you do something here
you're okay and if you do the same thing here you're a criminal I just don't get that how can it be so disperate so different from state to state particularly now with legal Mariana Etc or crossing state lines with liquor in your cars like it just doesn't make
sense I'm not an authoritarian at all obviously but I I I think the federal government uh needs to be more responsible for what's going on in in our country there's too many things that are unfair in the in in this country it could be so much better but um how did
it all happen I think you see the statistics and uh you get frustrated because it doesn't make any sense for for so many women still be to be voting that way people just don't pay enough attention to facts yeah if I talk to to a lot of Eastern
European or communist immigrates you know Gary Kasparov Masha gesson I get the sense that they view what's happening in America now through the lens of their history and it of history of fascism and authoritarianism I was born in the United States when I look at
what's happening now I tend to view it more as recreating a version of late 19th century politics where things are very partisan and wild and leaders make different kinds of irresponsible decisions or have strange rhetoric by say the standards of the 80s or the 90s
how convinced are you that kind of Eastern European authoritarian lens is the right way to think about what's happening in America today because because that's that's how Trump got elected yeah I mean it it is very very similar to that uh I still get I don't
understand this fear you know we're supposed to be Land of the Free yes brave but fear is what drives people to make these decisions and I had therapy long time ago and the therapist said you don't ever make decisions based in fear cuz you make wrong decisions but that's
what people are that's how people are voting based on fear so much and I don't know what we're afraid of because nothing bad has really happen in this country since the Civil War you really think about it Pearl harble yes horrible awful but compare that to what what what
went on in in uh well China communist countries whatever of course all the wars in Europe the World War I World War II Korea anymore compare that to that and there's no comparison we have not really been touched yet we're so scared here and of what I I I don't understand
that it's like this manufactured fear and then people are just blind and they don't they make these uh decisions on emotions uh rather than um rational thinking what's your ideal trip to Africa describe that for us and why it appeals to you go well I spent a lot of
time in Kenya uh and also been in uh in Tanzania G guro crater and i' have traveled all around Kenya so yeah just anywhere just just drive just take a car and drive and that's actually why I learned to fly cuz it's well maybe not drive it's safer to fly in Kenya than to
drive the roads are pretty bad but uh yeah it's magic anybody that wants to go to Africa do it don't don't think about it it's amazing the people are fantastic and and the Animals it's just magic two final questions first going back in time
yeah what can you share with us about what you're planning on doing next with your your organizational managerial and educational abilities plus your athleticism well maybe go a g GED I'm I'm helping my kids with their homework I think I could pass but uh I
don't know um no seriously I I do a lot of speaking I I I do speeches around the world on women's issues LGBT uh still being an activist I'm going to march in on Saturday in Miami um yeah I can't I can't come to Washington but I'll I'll be marching in Miami uh
actually we live about 10 minutes from Parkland so it it really hit home as my daughter was her friends were wondering whether you know her their friends uh were were uh impacted of course everybody was impacted but if people got
hurt uh so yeah I think just keep being an activist keep speaking out for for the right things um I always been a proponent of for the little guy you know always uh was defend in the the the little kid against the bullies and so I'll keep doing that cuz that's that's
just who I am can't help it and final question to the before we get to audience Q&A to the extent you are still optimistic about the United States absolutely what is it that most makes you optimistic our institutions but I think
the people are waking up I think uh we kind of slid into a a complacency and and being comfortable almost lazy it's nothing bad is going to happen but uh Little by by little you know that that frog is going to get boiled in that water and I think a lot of people are
starting to jump out of the water now so uh I think people are waking up and getting involved and most of all the young ones and I think again maybe Parkland may be the The Tipping Point in in a in a for a horrible reason but in a good way now that uh the young kids are
realizing that we don't want the old people to decide what our lives will look like 20 years from now or 30 years from now or what they look like now actually so um I I think I'm optimistic because of the because of the young ones Martina thank you very [Applause]
much Tyler you need to drink more water you're not hydrating at all yes that's the athlete in me yeah we will take questions at two mics I will alternate please note these are questions we are here to hear from Martina if you start making a speech I will cut you off and she of course has
the option of not answering any question she doesn't want to so please I talked to the tennis team before I got here so there are other questions hi Martina hello yes question I just want to say it's an honor to uh to to meet you and listen to your speech
you're awesome thank you George Mason for having us uh question going back to the big news today and recently about the pay Gap and Wimbledon my thought and I guess my question to you is moving forward this year in from now on will you not do any
commentary either with BBC or here in the United States unless it's guaranteed that the pay gra between you and someone like John mackenro will be completely decreased well it's again it's not about me and John mackenro it's about what women should be getting paid compared to
men uh I think transparency is the is the biggest reason why we don't have equal pay or closer to it certainly because people don't know what anybody else is making I said I would work for big BBC for free that's the only game in town I really wanted to work I wanted to
uh speak to people in England Wimbledon is has been always broadcast by BBC ever since there was TV it's always been BBC so it's the only game in town and when they tell you this is all there is so you take it uh I would probably work for
rather for free than get paid on10th uh quite frankly because uh I really want to uh it's not about the money it's about what's fair and I don't have that problem with Tennis Channel I could you know uh I I don't have a problem there I think they they're very fair same with
BT Sport I also do some work with them I haven't quite frankly known that it was this dis disparate um and it I think it's across the board for for the other athletes whether it's lindsy Davenport compared to what Antics making or Tracy Austin compared to Tim Henman or
whatever however you want to put it um the pay Gap is huge and it's a lot bigger than we even thought and um it needs to it needs to stop and uh maybe tennis uh will be a another push forward in the right direction so it's not about
uh how much we're getting paid but it's about getting paid fairly compared to other people y next question over here yes uh hi Martina uh thanks so much for coming it's been a pleasure to hear your comments I have a very practical question and it deals with nutrition and
your feelings about nutrition and would you be able to reveal your diet ah well it's interesting because I've I I don't need more to start yes I'll tell you just the last 6 weeks I started this uh diet called Whole 30 because I I was too used to having a
drink every night or two the stomach got a little bit bigger and I could and I've been eating less but I still couldn't shake it and I'm I'm fit I'm I'm in good shape and everything but I was just ticked off that you know but but most of all I I didn't want to get into habit of
of drinking and but I always I've been eating healthy since 81 when I really got into nutrition uh but I still couldn't shake it and so this whole 30 is no no Dairy no alcohol and no grains which means no sugar that's no sugar grains grains is sugar and uh I mostly
did it just to see what I feel like and I've had much better energy I've also got out coffee which I didn't need to and um yeah so I've been much much happier camper and the weight came off without even looking at the scale it just my pants all of a sudden like oh
they're falling off so uh I feel much much better so that's it mostly uh proteins and um and nuts lots of nuts avocados and eggs and uh lots of veggies yeah next question no grains grain is sugar yeah just realize how much pasta is just a filler it's not
very yeah anyway uh I have two totally disconnected questions quick quick ones though um I was just wondering what's your opinion was of the Billy Jean King uh uh movie with h Bobby Riggs and my other question is uh what was your favorite place to eat in Charlottesville
oh I don't remember the Charlottesville question uh cuz that was 30 almost 40 years ago so yeah that's a while back but the Bobby rigs the movie I I was not in the country uh because it was in 73 I had just had to leave to go back to
Czechoslovakia because my Visa Visa ran out so I did not go to Houston just read about it in the paper and I never watched the the film I mean the the actual match and I I didn't I was invited to these uh premieres during during the uh when they were starting
him at at wimbl in the US Open last year but I just didn't couldn't make it I was working whatever and ironically I finally said okay I'm going to watch it on the plane back from Melbourne cuz that's when I catch on all my movies catch up on the long flights and guess
who's on the flight Billy she was sitting over there with her with her girlfriend and behind me behind me is Venus Williams and then John mck was there as well but I think he flew first we were in business I'm kidding I don't know I don't know actually uh but I
didn't realize John was on the plane as well and anyway so I watched the movie they took some Liberties but it was it was it was well done very well done I thought Emma and uh Steve Carl were fantastic what's the best tennis movie If I might interject your favorite well
that one was good yeah I think this one probably would have been the best and also it had a very much a social uh social message so yeah I think the tennis was the best in this one from the tennis movies that I've seen next question um I'm curious what uh what
trends you've seen in uh in tennis double strategy over the last 10 years where you what you see coming up for example it seems like players are clogging the middle a lot more now and kind of leaving open uh the shot up the line well uh the biggest thing in
doubles is cover the middle so uh you know people cover the line too much and you may get passed once or twice down the line but you will get 15 balls go through the middle you can always blame it on your partner right so was your shot but if it's down your line
everybody's embarrassed because it's my line so people guard the line with their life and they leave the middle too open in in regular doubles professional doubles they're better at covering the middle but it's more less s volley
people are serving and staying back U again because the rackets make it so much easier to hit those groundstrokes so you see longer valleys some fun doubles but um I I'll go for the old style Serv volley but uh yeah Ser volley still works if you do it well enough next
question I guess one justification for a different pay scale for men and women in the tournaments in the tournaments is the difference in games they play for finals three games for women five for the men could you comment on that three out of five sets yes they do that in
every round oh they've been doing that forever at Wimbledon and then the other slams caught up then some some men's tournaments were three out of five finals but the rest of it was two out of three then they realized it just takes too much out of them so all the
tournaments now are two out of three except in the grand slams and that's three out of five uh women they were holding that against us actually when we asked for equal prize money said oh but you only played two out of three and Men play three out of five and he said well
we'll play three out of five oh no no no we don't want you to do that so there's that uh so we offered I think the men should play two out of three but that's that's just me that's another story and uh also they they found that uh until they slowed down the
grass at Wimbledon which was again the last tournament that finally gave us equal prize money the ball was in play longer in the women's matches in two out of three set matches than the men's matches three out of five so but you know you don't get paid for quantity you
get paid for quality and uh I think a lot of people when they did actually they did studies most people came to Wimbleton they've they've done U questionnaires and most people came to Wimbleton to watch men but then when they were leaving they actually enjoyed
watching the women more than the men uh so uh it depends on on who you watch that day whatever but uh the whole point is that uh we contribute equally to the success of the tournament we're willing to play three out of five but they didn't want us to do that it's silly I
think again the men should play two out of three and because both men and women play they should be paid the same end of story it's the right thing to do by the [Applause] way and they were using that with the with the with the macko also that he
does longer matches but he does women's matches I wanted to do the women's final but he's doing the women's final and you don't again you don't get paid because you you you you talk you talk longer or whatever ever and I'm I'm willing to do
men's matches but they don't let me so there's that on Tennis Channel I've done a bunch of men's matches and it's a lot of fun next question this is another tennis question I noticed uh a lot of the analysts will attribute a lot of thinking in the court when there's a
shot that is a successful winner like he said he said well instead of going down the line he obviously went across court and thought very carefully about that shot when often it seems to me they're just hitting the damn ball as you say so when
you're out there playing how much of it is the thought process as opposed to just hitting the damn ball well it's it's both but you have to uh you have to think very quickly because it happens in a split second doesn't it and uh I always said it's better to hit the wrong
shot well than hit the right shot badly because if you overthink it what at the end you may hit the right shot but by then you're like ah yeah maybe I should hit over there so just go with your instinct and you you you play percentages I mean you you see if if it
you know you have a strategy if it works you don't change it and if you're losing then you change it uh so maybe you go down the line down the line down the line finally they cover it so now you go crosscourt next time they cover it so
you it's always cat and mouse with your opponent so that's the fun part but sometimes they again it's it's easy to overanalyze so like I said better to hit the wrong shot well then hit the right shot badly so next question and I think sometimes they're just talking out of
their ear yeah hi thank you for being here today uh I watched you when I was a kid and a teenager watching you play was just a huge thrill so I I appreciate it um I was going to ask a tennis question but I'll switch it gay rights there's been
obviously enormous progress uh and sometimes pulling backwards and I I wanted to hear what you thought about you know in these times what you think are the real are the Battlegrounds that people should be fighting now yeah I mean states rights uh there have been
Michel Angelo Sor who's a gay activist and a and a TV and radio personality actually wrote a book about it he thought once we got the the right to marry everybody was celebrating he says just watch there's going to be so much backlash and so many state laws are
going to come up where they will try to roll back what we had just won and that's exactly what's been happening so you just be alert and and pay attention to what's going on in your state in your in your county in your District whatever and uh and fight those fight those
battles you know one by one it's a shame that we still have to do that that's why again I wish the federal government would step up and and just make it against the law to make these regulations but they're going the the wrong way the they're going the other
way on that and certainly uh Trump has not uh not been helpful in that regard at all so and that's an understatement so he hold held that rainbow flag during the one of the rallies but he didn't know it was upside down and he says I'll be your biggest
friend to the LGBT community yeah if friends like that you run the other way so you just pay attention and be and and get involved on a local level Grassroots uh changes uh change comes from the Grassroots and it comes from the top down it's much quicker for it to happen
from the top down but these days we have to do it from the bottom up so just stay vigilant and stay involved next question and vote thank you vote vote vote I my question is about basketball uhhuh um and I met you and Nancy liberman at Old Dominion University up in the in the
clubhouse level at a basketball game one time so uh it was a it was a thrill to meet you all uh then but did you play basketball in Czechoslovakia and when you came to the United States and I and I'm thinking I did not okay you did not and so did you
start when you uh met Nancy yes Nancy taught me how to do a layup yes I started from scratch and what did you like about it what was it what did it do for you and for tennis uh well Fitness obviously it's a very similar movement and just being on a on
a team rather than by yourself and it was completely different sport I also sprad my ankle a few times playing basketball but the pluses were outweighing the the possibility of minuses of getting hurt and just uh love love the competition and and uh you know
two on two or three on three full core that was my favorite you just run and and and play and shoot and go the other way then then the combination of of of finesse and also I'm a kind of a bit of a mut in that I I shoot better I shoot Lefty but I do better lay up right
handing because it's like a toss on the surf and I dribble better with my right hand but and I move better to my right but I I shoot left so I was I was confusing for people and and because I was in good shape I ran a lot so they wanted me on my team because two on two
or three on three it really pays off to be in good shape but anyway I love I love the sport I think it's a great game game next question okay um I have a quick question I also watched you as a kid and it's been great to listen to you
today and just one little side thing I am a I'm a high school coach around here for tennis and I am thinking after hearing your your fitness regimen that I've been a little too light on my kids it's been so my my question is really quick and it's personal so you may not
want to answer it but you're uh your kids do they play tennis they don't love it they play but they don't love it which is fun with me you know my wife wanted them to be tennis players and I I had somebody else work with them I worked with them sometimes but they
don't love it and that's okay the older one likes to sing the younger one likes to dance so that's okay the younger one's walking around in ballet slippers with the on her tiptoes and she can't wait for her for her balet practice so you know that's when you know she when
she asked me to play tennis twice a year I'll play with her but I don't push it so uh yeah but you yeah physical fitness if you don't get to the ball you can't hit it so well and when you get tired then you start making bad decisions and that goes for
real life too which is why it's always important to take good care of yourself period next question hi I came out in 1976 and cried when you did thank you um the second second factor is um lifelong tennis fan there's so much Beauty in your Serv and
volley game and I know that you're you know still playing some Legends matches and there's such a dir of high quality video of you playing that I wish that we could encourage someone to get out there and film you even now no it's better to
go through the archives and the old ones because I still surr Vol just takes me a while longer to get to the net I I saw on down I saw one film and and you know there's so much of your game you still have than you all the hands are still there the eyes are still there but uh
the legs yeah but I don't practice it I don't practice fast the CL which is gone because I just can't get myself fired up but uh thank you but yeah it's a shame that uh they did not have so many so many matches where were not U captured nowadays you can watch the the the
players play just about every match they play especially the top ones it's always somewhere yeah I mean you know I come from the days where the VHS uh didn't even exist first time I saw myself actually hit a ball on on in a video I think I was like 16 years old so I
remember looking at photos of other players and flipping it so I could see what they look like left-handed so I could compare myself or I would I would mirror myself in in the mirror so I could see what I look like right-handed and then compare it to the
other players CU you have an image and and being a lefty I didn't see that so um yeah but yeah there there's some stuff on on YouTube I think you can catch enough but uh the quality of the video is not that good and watching wimbl on on TV on on our black and white
grainy you know screen that was this big uh you only knew that that that the ball was there because the players moved that way you couldn't actually see the ball so now they have Hawkeye I'm like God I wish they had that in my day I would have won a few more matches and
wouldn't have to color my hair cuz you know I lost I made I got a lot of gray hairs from those bad line calls nowadays that there's no stress there's no stress about line calls it's fantastic two more questions yes Martina thank you so much
for being here thanks what's the best advice anyone ever gave you about processing a poor performance after a match uh well it's uh it's it it goes back to what happened you know just breaking down why I lost U was it just a bad day or did I not prepare properly
you know something broke down technically was it tactics did I get tired did I not sleep well so there's no bad there's no great advice it's just uh figuring out the problem and then and then figure a solution to it always staying in the solution and and this is
what we're going to work on so that it doesn't happen again just try to minimize those uh possibilities and uh and keep keep trying to get better yeah last question what is your opinion of peeds performing enhancing drugs as far as drug testing and tennis
and other professional sports well I think they do a pretty good job on in tennis uh they even take blood sometimes uh and then and they don't just wait after after the player is out of the tournament U so they they they test pretty R rigorously and they do out of
competition testing as well so you have to give them a schedule and it's it's pretty it's pretty intense and I think for tennis there is certainly there are drugs that would be helpful but it's such a complex sport that uh you know a drug for for example for bicycling it's
all about endurance it's very specific for tennis it's it's much more more than just that but there are certainly drugs that would be helpful and they're trying to do their best but usually there are people that are still ahead of the ahead
of the game in that in that uh regard but uh we try to do the best that we can it can certainly be better but uh if people really want to cheat I think they can still do that unfortunately Martine thank very much against it yeah obviously anyway thank [Applause]
you thanks for listening to conversations with Tyler you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Stitcher or your favorite podcast app and if you like this podcast please consider rating it on iTunes and leaving a review this helps other people find the show