Martina serves up artistic offering

Martina Navratilova (pictured), the tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, has embarked on a new career as a contemporary artist, championing a new form of painting described as 'tennising', which involves hurling paint-covered tennis balls on to blank canvasses.

To achieve this challenging new art style, Navratilova, 51, has formed a partnership, a la Gilbert and George, with Czech painter Juraj Kralik. Together they have created 300 pieces, which now sell for anything up to £126,000. The method used by the pair is simple, but effective: Kralik decides at which angles Navratilova should hit the ball, while she enacts his wishes on tennis courts around the world.

Those intrigued by Martina and Juraj's work will be able to see it in action next month when the pair stage two London exhibitions, at Fairway Village in Wimbledon and at the Smithfield Gallery. They also hope to make new art during the Wimbledon Championships. If the venture is successful, Navratilova hopes to pursue art as a second career, turning it into a franchise where, she says, "we can combine art, business and charity".

Perhaps she should take her portfolio to fellow Wimbledon winner John McEnroe, who now owns his own art gallery in Manhattan.