Martina Navratilova (née Šubertová; born October 18, 1956) is a Czech-American former professional tennis player and coach.
Widely considered among the greatest female tennis players of all time, Navratilova won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 major women's doubles titles, and 10 major mixed doubles titles, for a combined total of 59 major titles, marking the Open Era record for the most Grand Slam titles won by a single player.
She reached the Wimbledon singles final 12 times, including for nine consecutive years from 1982 through 1990, and won the women's singles title at Wimbledon a record nine times, surpassing Helen Wills Moody's eight Wimbledon titles, including a run of six consecutive titles.
Navratilova was WTA world No. 1 in singles for a total of 332 weeks, second behind Steffi Graf, and for a record 237 weeks in doubles, making her the only player in history to have held the top spot in both singles and doubles for over 200 weeks.
Navratilova is one of the three female tennis players, along with Margaret Court and Doris Hart, to have accomplished a Career Grand Slam in women's singles and doubles, and mixed doubles, called the career Grand Slam Boxed Set".
More information: Martina Navratilova
Navratilova, Margaret Court and Maureen Connolly share the record for the most consecutive major singles titles. She won her last major title in 2006, adding the mixed doubles crown at the 2006 US Open to her resume just a few weeks before her 50th birthday, 32 years after her first Major title in 1974.
Originally from Czechoslovakia, she was stripped of her citizenship when, in 1975 at age 18, she asked the United States for political asylum and was granted temporary residence.
At the time, Navratilova was told by the Czechoslovak Sports Federation that she was becoming too Americanized, and she should go back to school and make tennis secondary.
Navratilova became a US citizen in 1981. On January 9, 2008, she reacquired Czech citizenship. She stated she has not renounced her U.S. citizenship nor does she plan to do so, and that reclaiming Czech nationality was not politically motivated.
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Navratilova was born Martina Šubertová in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Her parents divorced when she was three, and her mother, an accomplished gymnast, tennis player, and ski instructor, moved the family to Řevnice.
In 1962, her mother Jana married Miroslav Navrátil, who became her first tennis coach. Martina then took the name of her stepfather, adding the feminine suffix -ová, thus becoming Martina Navrátilová. Her father, Mirek (officially Miroslav Šubert), was a ski instructor.
When Navratilova was four, she was hitting a tennis ball off a concrete wall and started to play tennis regularly at age seven.
In 1972, at the age of 15, Navratilova won the Czechoslovakia national tennis championship.
In 1973, aged 16, she made her debut on the United States Lawn Tennis Association professional tour but did not turn professional until 1975.
Navratilova won her first professional singles title in Orlando, Florida, in 1974, at the age of 17. Upon arriving in the United States, Navratilova first lived with former Vaudeville actress, Frances Dewey Wormser, and her husband, Morton Wormser, a tennis enthusiast.
Navratilova won her first major singles title at Wimbledon in 1978, where she defeated Evert in three sets in the final and captured the world No. 1 ranking for the first time on the WTA computer, a position she held until Evert took it back in January 1979.
Navratilova won the 1984 French Open, thus holding all four major singles titles simultaneously. Her accomplishment was declared a Grand Slam by Philippe Chatrier, president of the International Tennis Federation, although some tennis observers countered that it was not a true slam because the titles had not been won in a single calendar year.
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Navratilova capped off her career by winning the mixed doubles title, her 41st major doubles title, 31 in women's doubles and 10 in mixed doubles, and 177th overall, at the 2006 US Open with American doubles specialist Bob Bryan. At the time, she was only about a month shy of her 50th birthday and broke her own record as the oldest ever major champion (aged 49 years, 10 months).
Navratilova won 167 top-level singles titles, more than any other player in the open era, and 177 doubles titles.
Her last title in women's doubles came on August 21, 2006, at the Tier I Rogers Cup in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where she partnered Nadia Petrova.
Navratilova won 18 major singles titles: nine at Wimbledon, four at the US Open, three at the Australian Open, and two at the French Open. Her overall record in 67 major singles events was 306–49 (120–14 at Wimbledon, 89–17 at the US Open, 51–11 at the French Open, and 46–7 at the Australian Open).
Some observers argue that the very few singles match she played in her forties should be counted separately in her career statistics.
She is the only player to have won at least one tour event for 21 consecutive years, and won the singles and doubles at the same event a record 84 times.
She was ranked in the world's top 3 in singles for 15 years between 1977 and 1993. Her career singles match win total of 1,442 is the most during the open era.
More information: The Guardian
The tennis ball doesn't know how old I am.
The ball doesn't know if I'm a man or a woman
or if I come from a communist country or not.
Sport has always broken down these barriers.
Martina Navratilova
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