Last Saturday, I sat down to watch the Wimbledon women’s final.
I expected great tennis.
What I didn’t expect was to find myself thinking about friendship, rivalry, courage, grief, and the quiet ways we inspire one another.
By the end of the match, I wasn’t really watching tennis anymore.
The Women’s final featured two young Czech women competing for the most prestigious title in the sport.
Watching from the Royal Box was Martina Navratilova, Czech tennis royalty, seated beside Princess Kate. Both women are icons around the world, and both have battled cancer.
Chris Evert, Martina’s greatest tennis rival and lifelong friend, wasn’t there. She was home, undergoing treatment for cancer for the second time.
During the awards ceremony, the runner-up said about her opponent and fellow countrywoman, ‘First off, I would like to congratulate my ex-friend,’ drawing gales of laughter from the crowd.
The champion thanked her opponent for making her a better player. She spoke about how meaningful it was to have an all-Czech final with Martina watching. Then she looked to the sky and thanked her mother, who apparently had died from cancer the night before this young woman’s last Wimbledon final.
The television camera found Martina… wiping away tears.
In that moment, it stopped feeling like a tennis match.
It became a reminder that life is rarely just one thing.
Rivals become lifelong friends.
Competition and compassion can exist side by side.
Grief doesn’t erase gratitude.
Strength is not mutually exclusive from vulnerability.
Sometimes courage looks less like winning and more like showing up. Again and again.
Later that afternoon, I came across this photograph: My youngest daughter, at the age of three, holding a tennis racket almost as big as she was. And in the vein of “time flies,” she just finished her collegiate tennis career this year.
But long before these two young Czech women played for a Wimbledon title, there was Martina paving the road for them 50 years earlier.
Maybe that’s why Saturday stayed with me.
Not because of who won.
But because I was reminded that the greatest legacy isn’t always measured in trophies.
Sometimes it’s measured in friendships that outlast rivalries.
In the grace to celebrate someone else’s moment.
In the courage to keep showing up through life’s hardest battles.
And in the quiet inspiration that reaches farther than we’ll ever know.
Because we rarely know whose life we’re shaping simply by showing up.
-Jackie
P.S. If you are looking to find that inspiration again in your life, schedule a 30-minute session with me here, and let’s see what we can create together.
