By Liz Clarke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 5, 2006; E02
WIMBLEDON, England, July 4 -- She will be eligible for AARP membership this fall, and her pension from the Women's Tennis Association will kick in then, too. So Martina Navratilova, who turns 50 on Oct. 18, figures that it's fitting she retire from competitive tennis this year, which makes this Wimbledon fortnight her last.
Her farewell is being met with less fanfare than that of Andre Agassi, who bowed out after his final match to an extended standing ovation at Centre Court on Saturday. Few ticket holders seem aware, in fact, that Navratilova is competing at Wimbledon at all because her matches are relegated to the more intimate side courts.
But she is chasing two Grand Slam titles to add to her career haul of 58. She inched one step closer on Tuesday, advancing to the quarterfinals in women's doubles with her playing partner Liezel Huber of South Africa following a 7-5, 6-0 victory over Russia's Anastasia Myskina and Elena Likhovtseva.
Navratilova also is alive in mixed doubles with partner Mark Knowles of the Bahamas.
In men's doubles Tuesday, the top-seeded Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike, advanced to the semifinals with a 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-5), 6-1 defeat of Lukas Dlouhy and Pavel Vizner.
Navratilova dismissed all questions about sentimentality Tuesday and said there would be time for that later.
"I just came here to win -- win a title -- and we're still in both events," she said. "I'm just concentrating on that. . . . I didn't come here for the strawberries and cream."
She is in remarkable shape for an athlete of any age and has written a book, "Shape Your Self," chronicling her insights into diet and fitness. She plans to spend the next chapter of her life promoting the book and devoting more time to her partner, her animals and her fundraising work on behalf of gay and lesbian organizations in the United States.
Coaching is also a possibility, as is TV commentary "if somebody wants to listen to what I have to say," she added. All it takes is asking, and Navratilova typically has an opinion.
She laments the decline of serve-and-volley tennis and blames revolutionized racket and string technology for making groundstrokes easier to hit than volleys.
She advocates equal prize money at Grand Slam events for women as a matter of principle but also believes prize money should be raised for all -- particularly lower-ranked players who struggle to make ends meet.
"We should be making a lot more money at the Grand Slams," she said. "That's the bottom line -- we're not in a profit-sharing partnership at all with the Grand Slams, and they are raking it in. It's the players that really supported the Grand Slams -- made them big, talked them up. Then they started making a whole bunch of money, but the players don't see enough of it."