NINE-TIMES Wimbledon champion Martina Navratilova rolled back the years on the opening day of the Liverbird Developments Liverpool International Tennis Tournament yesterday.
The 49-year-old is using this year's competition in Calder-stones Park as last-minute preparation ahead of Wimbledon, which starts a week on Monday.
Prague-born Navratilova, winner of 58 grand slam titles, was in action alongside Jan-Michael Gambill in the mixed doubles, pitted against Briton Sam Smith and Ivan Ljubicic, last year's singles champion.
Having won the opening set 6-2, Navratilova and Gambill lost the second set 7-6 on a tie-break but experience counted and the pair won the super tie-break 10-6 to get their campaign off to a winning start.
"The fans are great and it's great to have played in Liverpool for the first time," said Navratilova.
"English tennis tends to revolve around Wimbledon and everyone sits around the TV when the championship is on, so it's nice there's another grass court tournament for the people of Liverpool to watch.
"Hopefully me playing here inspires some children to get involved with tennis.
"I knew I was destined for a tennis career, but it was not until I saw Rod Laver playing when I was 10 that I knew that I wanted to be successful.
"In 10 years time hopefully one of the children that was watching today's play will become successful."
The opening day's action also saw some close encounters in the mens' singles championship, with Bobby Reynolds, from America, surprisingly beaten by qualifier Stian Buretti.
Another American, Paul Goldstein, the world number 109, was given a shock in his opening clash with Liverpool's Ken Skupski, the only homegrown player competing at this year's championship.
