Tennis Legends: Martina Navratilova
Martina Navratilova is an ex-World number 1 female Tennis
Player. Born on October 18, 1956 in Czechoslovakia, she became the
citizen of America in 1981.Her stepfather Miroslav Navratil was her first
coach. Martina won the Czech republic national tennis championship at the age
of fifteen. At the age of seventeen, she got her very first professional
singles title when she played the match in Orlando, Florida. She became a
professional tennis player in 1975.
In 1975’s Grand Slam singles tournaments, she was one of the
finalist in both the Australian Open and French Open, but she lost in both the
finals to Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Chris Evert, respectively. The same year,
she even lost in the semi finals of the US Open the same year after which she
made her mind to get the green card of United States. In 1978, Navratilova got
her first victory in the Grand Slam singles at Wimbledon and at the same she
acquired the world number 1 rank after defeating Chris Evert.
Navratilova was a women of great power and aggression because
of which she raised the level of competition. Initially she was on the heavier
side and she had to struggle a lot to get into shape for tennis. In this regard
Nancy Lieberman, a basketball player, helped her. She underwent severe levels
of fitness and exercising which finally got her into shape. She even learned
the technique to use graphite racquets, which made her one of the most dominant
tennis player.
She again beat Evert in the 1981 Grand Slam singles, in
Australia Open. The next year she won the French and Wimbledon Open. In 1983,
she won in three out of four Grand Slam events. She had scored the best
ever-professional winning percentage as a tennis player. She retaliated back by
winning the French Open Grand Slam of the year 1984, which she had lost in
1983. This superb victory was called the Grand Slam by the president of the
International Tennis Federation, Philippe Chatrier. From 1982-1984, she lost
only six of the singles matches.
Navratilova won women’s doubles titles in all the four Grand
Slams of 1984. From 1985-1987, she won six out of eleven women’s singles final
Grand Slam tournaments. Steffi Graff started to play in 1987 and from the
beginning she gave a tough competition to Martina Navratilova. Graff defeated
her in her first Grand slam in the finals of French Open. Navratilova gained
back her title by defeating Graff in the 1987 Wimbledon Open. Navratilova’s won
her final Grand Slam singles in 1990. Her name was included in the International
Tennis Hall of Fame in the year 2000.
The left-handed athlete was known to be the greatest tennis
player, be it singles, doubles or mixed doubles. She was the second best female
athlete of the twentieth century according to Steve Flink. From 1965 to 2005,
she was named as the greatest female tennis player by Tennis magazine. In her career, she won a total of thirty one
Grand Slam women’s doubles titles, which is also a world record, eighteen Grand
Slam singles titles, ten Grand Slam mixed doubles titles and nine Wimbledon
women’s singles titles. She has won one hundred and sixty seven single
tournaments and one hundred and seventy seven doubles tournaments, which is an
open era record. Navratilova won seventy-four matches consecutively, which is
the third longest winning streak in women’s tennis history. Along with Margaret
Smith Court and Maureen Connolly Brinker, Navratilova holds the record for the
maximum consecutive Grand Slam singles tournament championships.