Erin Bruehl (of USTA.com) recently posted an interview with Martina Navratilova. Here's what she had to say about Serena Williams: Thoughts on past weekend's Fed Cup:
"Tennis is a game of rankings, and a player ranked 150th isn’t going to beat a player ranked 20th or a player in the top five very often. We need the Williams sisters to play and Lindsay, and they did not play for whatever reason. I know Venus is off the tour completely right now. It is too bad that Serena did not play because she has been winning and playing well. We have to get the top players to play more. Those three are all we have; there is really nobody else in the top 50 who can compete at that level. We were just overmatched, and that is how it goes. It is hard to get the players to do something they don’t really want to do. Most of the top players do play Fed Cup, but there is so much more demand on players’ time these days from sponsors and endorsers, and it is just really difficult. In my day, it was just one week a year, and now it is three weeks a year, if you make it to the final, and Davis Cup it is four weeks. And now, in an Olympic year, it is just too many tournaments. It is difficult because you just cannot play all of it, and if you do play all of it that year, then you suffer the next year because the body just cannot take it. "
Thoughts on this year's French Open:
"Serena is looking good, even if clay is not her favorite surface. She did win the French Open when she was playing her best tennis, and she is heading that way. Justine Henin has not shown much this year, although she dominated so much last year. She didn’t play the Australian Open (in 2007), and then she really got going on clay courts and then hardly lost a match the rest of the year. I think those two players will be hard to beat. But it is anybody’s ballgame on the women’s side. I think Svetlana Kuznetsova is playing better tennis, as well. I think her coach has done a great job with her, and, of course, Venus cannot be discounted, either."
