Martina Navratilova Thriller
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Profile Martina pictured with her Martina Navratilova mum Jana at Wimbledon in 1979. Jana died in 2008 at the age of 75 “ quIestio na aulthowritya” ys It took a while, but one of Wimbledon’s greatest champions holds a special place in the affection of tennis fans everywhere. By Simon Evans T IS the afternoon of July 7, 1978 grandmother had been a high-ranking and, on the Centre Court at tennis player in Czechoslovakia, and Wimbledon, the favourite, and Martina soon followed in her footsteps by world number one, Chris Evert is winning the country’s national tennis about to take on 21-year-old Martina championship in 1972, at the age of 15. INavratilova, a muscular, mousy-haired A year later she made her debut on the Czech who, just three years before, had US professional tour, even though she was defected to the United States, leaving behind still technically an amateur, and in her mother, sister and half-brother. For 1974 was a member of the Federation Martina it is the culmination of a childhood Cup-winning Czech team. dream, of everything she has worked for, of But the more Martina played in the West, everything she has sacrificed. the more she realised her sporting dreams Martina Subertova was born on could not be realised if she stayed in October 18, 1956 in Czechoslovakia, where Prague but, after her “I knew I would opportunities to play parents divorced when were limited and she was three and her not become the training facilities mother remarried, she best player in the primitive. Life became took her stepfather’s increasingly intolerable name of Navatil, world if I was not for the free-spirited adding the female allowed to play teenager, especially suffix ‘ova’. Her father, when the Czech tennis a ski instructor, also the important authorities openly remarried but took his tournaments.” censured her for mixing own life when with Western tennis Martina was eight. Needless to say life was players (she was already a close friend of tough in Sixties Prague, especially after a Chris Evert, the pair having roomed O T 1968 uprising was brutally suppressed by together at a tournament in Paris). O H P the Russians, who promptly installed a So in 1975, despite the pain involved in K C O T rigidly authoritarian government. leaving her family behind, and still aged S Y M A Young Martina found escape in tennis only 18, Martina applied for political asylum L A / A and from the age of four would spend in the United States. S U S E many hours just hitting a tennis ball against It was not a political decision, she R U T C a cement wall, testing her reactions and insisted, “I just realised that I would not I P E N developing the serve and volley style that be able to become the best player in the O T S Y would become her trademark. world if I was not allowed to play the E K © Tennis was in her blood – Martina’s important tournaments.” Martina initially t 24 CHOICE JUNE 2016 JUNE 2016 CHOICE 25 Profile Wimbledon final as the most important match of her career, and it was a three set Martina Navratilova thriller. Chris, who had knocked out defending champion Virginia Wade in the semi-finals, cruised to a first set victory queen, which in a sense she was. 6-2 before Martina triumphed in two Widely regarded as perhaps the most closely contested sets, 6-4, 7-5. outstanding women’s tennis player of That win gave Martina the belief the past 50 years, Martina chalked up that she could become the world number 167 top level singles title wins and 177 one and over the next 12 years she doubles titles, According to Chris Evert would claim another eight Wimbledon she was also responsible, through her singles titles. aggressiveness and athleticism, for The friendship with Evert survived the single-handedly revolutionizing the O T O ending of their doubles partnership and women’s game. “She brought H P K C on-court rivalry and, if anything, it athleticism to a whole new level with O T S deepened over the years. Chris was one of her training techniques — particularly Y M A L the first to come to Martina’s defence cross-training, the idea that you could A / A S U when she was outed as a lesbian, and in go to the gym or play basketball to get S E R 1985 would ignore an ankle injury so she in shape for tennis.” U T C I could be part of the US Federation Cup Four years after retiring from P E N O team accompanying Martina on her first full-time tennis Martina faced perhaps T S Y E visit back to Czechoslovakia since her greatest test of all, announcing, in K © defecting, putting a consoling hand April 2010, that she was being treated Wimbledon 1979: Martina receives the women’s singles trophy from the Duchess of Kent round her friend’s shoulder as the band in for breast cancer. t the stadium played Where Is My Home ? She underwent successful surgery struggled on the highly competitive conservative bunch, with women still It was a friendship, and rivalry, that did and radiotherapy and by the end of that O women’s tennis circuit but soon found a often subjected to the kind of much to define Martina’s life and career. T year was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro O H P friend and mentor in Billie-Jean King, comments about their appearance that “We brought out the best in each K C O T who would later become the first female would never be directed at men. With other,” Navratilova once said. “It’s almost S “I didn’t have a Y M athlete to be ‘outed’ as a lesbian. her androgynous appearance and not right to say who’s better. If you tried to A L A / country. I had no V At this time Martina regarded herself as ambiguous sexuality Martina perhaps make the perfect rivalry, we were it.” B Y C bisexual, and, emboldened by her friend, suffered more than most. It was only as Martina entered the N place to go” E G A told a magazine writer, in confidence, “It was tough,” she recalled. “If I twilight of her career (and also showed O T O that she had been in a relationship complained about a line call, ooh they herself to be a ‘good sport’ by famously H to raise money for a children’s sports P S S with the American writer and feminist got on my case immediately. It didn’t singing along with Sir Cliff Richard in E charity. However, even the mighty R P Rita Mae Brown. take much. Imagine them booing 1996 during a rain delay) that she was N Martina over-reached herself this time, A E P The vilification she suffered when the Federer or Nadal, or any guy really, if taken to the hearts of the Wimbledon O and she was hospitalised after falling ill R U E article was published (against her they complained? No way.” faithful. She was always too much the during the ascent. A P E wishes) reinforced Martina’s feeling of And so to the Wimbledon final of 1978. outsider, too much the maverick to win © Fully recovered from both health being an outsider, something that never Martina and Chris Evert had become them over entirely though; there was Martina with her spouse Julia Lemigova scares Martina proposed to her long-time really left her despite all the success. partner Julia Lemigova, a Russian “I have always had a disdain for “If I complained about a line call, ooh they in the British psyche that says it’s singles tour. Martina did however claim businesswoman and former model, and authority and stupid rules that make no got on my case immediately” somehow a little too vulgar to win her 20th title in 2003, winning the the couple were married in December sense, and I still do,” she told The things, or at least show that you want to mixed doubles with the Indian player 2014. Martina continues to be active as Guardian in 2010. “I always question firm friends four years earlier, confiding in never going to be a ‘Martina hill’. win. “In the Eighties, when I was winning Leander Paes. She was back at a tennis commentator and is also a authority – always have, always will.” each other about boyfriends and their “I would have liked to be the ‘home so much, I was favourite, so people were Wimbledon the following year when, passionate campaigner for charities Throughout her career Martina rivals on the tennis circuit. team’, to have had the support Andy cheering the underdog. I never got the at the age of 47 she was awarded a wild supporting animal rights, underprivileged suffered the kind of lazy prejudice “When I was a young girl, a long way Murray gets, no matter what,” she told the cream until the Nineties, when I wasn’t card, and overcame Catalina Castano, children and gay causes. frequently aimed at the women’s game. from home, Chris and her mother Telegraph . “I wanted it so badly in the winning. I won people over eventually, for 23 years her junior, in the first round of Perhaps her greatest venom, however, On the one hand it’s said to be dull to (Colette) were always nice to me,” early days, maybe that’s why I didn’t get it.