ATHENS - Long before she was an Olympian, she was a citizen of the world.

The best thing about Martina Navratilova was never her tennis, though that was plenty good. It was her curiosity. She saw life with eyes both wide and wide open. Only Martina, at 47, rich, famous, a veteran of 30 years of world traveling, could come to the Olympic Games with the expectations of a child.

"Amazing," she said last week, "just trying to figure out what to eat, and where. So many choices. I'm learning about trading pins. I still have to work on that.

"It's nice to walk around and see all the people from different sports and different countries you never see in tennis. Like Pakistan. And there were these gymnasts, I think from France, and they were just so little. I was like, who are these people?"

She lost Thursday night, in the quarterfinals of the women's doubles. Navratilova and Lisa Raymond played well but were overmatched by the fastball-throwing Japanese team of Shinobu Asagoe and Ai Sugiyama 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. As Raymond put it, "We came across a team that came out firing."

It was a disappointment for Navratilova, who has teamed with Raymond in the last year almost expressly with the Olympics in mind. "It made me play one more year," she said. It wasn't the end of a dream. Someone asked her that. He must not know her very well.

"This was not a dream when I was growing up" in Czechoslovakia. "This was an unexpected bonus. A dream? I've been living a dream."

She missed the '88 Games because she was burned out on tennis and didn't want to fly all the way to South Korea. She missed in '92 because of contractual obligations. She'd retired in '96. In 2000, "I wasn't playing well enough," she said.

This time, she was. Neither of the two Japanese players was born when Navratilova won her first Grand Slam event in 1973. And there were times Thursday when she looked, if not 47, at least half a step old. But there were many more times when she did not.

Navratilova smashed a backhand volley winner that clinched the second set, then offered a big windmill fist pump, the way Tiger Woods used to. Navratilova at 47 still can cover the court. Her ground strokes are still powerful enough to make her accuracy matter. She was clearly the better partner Thursday.

But she and Raymond ran uphill all evening. They fell behind a break in each set and had to save three match points down 5-3 in the last set. Still, they had an opening, with two break chances at 3-4 in the third. Navratilova netted an easy forehand to take the game to deuce. The Japanese eventually held serve.

"We kept fighting; we just couldn't get ahead," Navratilova said.

She wears glasses. She is fighting a cold, and spent the time between sets in the bathroom, trying to clear her chest and head. Navratilova still has the sinewy look of an athlete, but she is dwarfed now by Jennifer Capriati and the Williams sisters.

They don't what she knows, however. Probably, they never will.

An Olympic tennis player at 47.

Someone asked her when she might stop playing competitively. Another silly question.

"When are you supposed to stop? One (Grand Slam title)? Ten? It's not about winning. It's about the effort you give. It wasn't about winning a medal. It was about giving our best. It's about doing something you love and you are passionate about. You can never do enough of that."

She took such joy from being here. Navratilova has never been so jaded that she couldn't be amazed. It's a lesson for all of us to remember, not just the athletes.

"Where do you go from here?" someone asked.

"To New York. The U.S. Open," Navratilova said. "That's our last chance to win a Slam this year."

E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com