The enduring Wimbledon moment is not ladies leaping, not winners hugging losers nor new champions kissing antique golden plates, though Jana Novotna did all of those Saturday.
Winning this one will never erase the first one Novotna lost five years ago and her raw, wet anguish all over the very proper, very starched Duchess of Kent.
“I was sad and disappointed,” Novotna said, “but if the duchess had just come to me and said congratulations, nothing would have happened.
“But because she was so nice and motherly and said, `Don’t worry, you’ll win one day,’ I couldn’t stop. So, it’s her fault, actually.”
It was as pure a moment of regret as ever recorded in sports, unguarded grief, forever the poster for the agony of defeat.
“Last year she told me that the third time would be lucky,” Novotna said. “This year, she said, `What’s the big thing? I told you.’ “
Not that they will keep meeting like this, the Czech and the duchess, for this is likely to be a one-time redemption for the very veteran Novotna, while the duchess has royal deference to occupy her time.
Still, the duchess met Novotna warmly and said, “I’m so proud of you,” as if she actually were, though it must be noted that, just in case, the duchess did not wear white.
“I always said that winning one Grand Slam for me would mean so much,” Novotna said. “Winning Wimbledon means, well, everything, really.”
From losing that 1994 final from within a point of a 5-1 lead over Steffi Graf, to blowing a lead in the third set in last year’s final against Martina Hingis, there Novotna stood at match point on Nathalie Tauziat’s second serve.
“I had to ask what happened,” Novotna said.
What happened was a routine forehand return down the line, well in, well earned. Novotna sank to her knees and let the tears come again, not as many, not for the same reasons.
She raced off court and clambered into the stands to hug her coach, Hana Mandlikova, and her mother, Liba, who was at Wimbledon for the first time.
“I don’t like people to come to a tournament,” Novotna said, “because I like to do everything the same. But it didn’t work twice so I said, `OK, Mom, come on over.’ Maybe she brought me luck.”
She certainly did not bring a serve with her, which Novotna could have used. Tauziat, the first French woman in a Wimbledon final since Suzanne Lenglen in 1925, could have used a serve, a return and a volley.
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“I have nothing to regret in this match,” Tauziat said. “I gave my best.”
It was not tennis to convert anyone, not tennis to entertain anyone and not tennis to restructure the state of tennis, which on the women’s side still belongs to teenagers and not a couple of 30-year-olds. This was the oldest women’s final since 1977.
“It is important to show them we are here,” Tauziat said. “The age has nothing to do with the tennis. Especially on grass.”
The question was never if Novotna could win this match but if she would avoid choking or, as one local unkindly put it, play with a frog in her throat.
“The journalists, they always talk about the losing to Graf,” Tauziat said. “But for me she is always a fighter. Now she has won Wimbledon, she is the champion so maybe they will stop talking about the past.”
Maybe so. But without the losing to Graf there would not have been the tears on the duchess. Tennis and Wimbledon would be less interesting without the tears.
“This is definitely a dream come true,” Novotna said. “It is one thing to have a dream, but you still have to work for it and plan for it and make it happen. This is why this means so much.”
When they handed her the huge winner’s platter, Novotna hugged it as if it were filled with feathers.
“It’s mine,” Novotna said. “It’s mine now.”
They had to pry it out of her hands.