55 Fun Facts About Martina Navratilova

In which city was Martina Navratilova born?

Prague was only her birthplace: after her parents divorced when she was three, her mother moved the family to Řevnice, a small town just outside the city, and she grew up there.

How many Wimbledon singles titles did Navratilova win, an all-time record?

She reached the final twelve times, including nine years running from 1982 to 1990.

What did coming out in 1981 cost Navratilova?

Endorsements: sponsors shied away after she spoke openly about her sexuality, even as she went on to dominate women's tennis for most of the 1980s.

Born Martina Šubertová, the future champion took the surname Navratilova from whom?

Her stepfather, Miroslav Navrátil, married her mother in 1962; Martina added the feminine ending -ová to his surname, which is why she became Navrátilová while he stayed Navrátil.

On which US television contest did Navratilova compete in 2012, partnered with Tony Dovolani?

Dancing with the Stars did not suit her: one of the most successful athletes in any sport was the very first celebrity voted off that season.

What did Navratilova win in 1972, aged 15?

Her national title, in Czechoslovakia, made her a prodigy at home, where she had been hitting balls against a concrete wall since she was four; three years later she left for good, asking the US for asylum.

Which style of play was Navratilova's trademark throughout her career?

Serve-and-volley was an unlikely choice for a girl raised on slow courts in Czechoslovakia, but rushing the net behind her left-handed serve set her apart from the baseliners of her era.

In 1975, aged 18, Navratilova walked into which agency's New York offices to defect from Czechoslovakia?

The immigration service office in Manhattan was her first stop after she lost a US Open semifinal to Chris Evert; her green card came through within a month.

Which team trophy did Navratilova win for two countries?

The Federation Cup went to Czechoslovakia in 1975 with Navratilova leading the team, the same year she defected; after becoming a US citizen in 1981 she won it three more times for her new country.

Who beat Navratilova in the 1975 Australian Open final, one of her two major final losses that year?

Evonne Goolagong beat her 6–3, 6–2 on home grass; later that year Navratilova, still 18, asked the United States for asylum during the US Open.

Whose Wimbledon singles title record did Navratilova break in 1990?

Helen Wills Moody's mark had stood since 1938; Navratilova drew level in 1987, lost the next two finals, then broke it at 33.

Who beat Navratilova at Madison Square Garden in November 1994 in her farewell match as a full-time singles player?

Gabriela Sabatini won their first-round match at the season-ending championships, the last stop of a year Navratilova had announced in advance and played as a farewell tour.

Which basketball player devised the fitness regime that transformed Navratilova's game in the 1980s?

Nancy Lieberman took her on after a 6–0, 6–0 loss to Chris Evert in 1981; Evert later called that defeat the start of 'the new Martina', who won 30 of their next 40 matches.

What was Navratilova two wins from when her 74-match streak ended?

A calendar-year Grand Slam needed only the Australian Open, then played in December; she arrived holding six straight major singles titles and lost in the semifinals.

With which partner did Navratilova win a record 109 straight doubles matches between 1983 and 1985?

Pam Shriver and Navratilova went more than two years unbeaten together before losing the 1985 Wimbledon final; as a team they won 20 major titles.

Which American teenager beat Navratilova in a final-set tiebreak to win the 1981 US Open?

Tracy Austin lost the first set 6–1, then took two tiebreaks for her second US Open title; back injuries all but ended her career before she turned 21.

In 2000 Navratilova was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, located in which US town?

Newport, Rhode Island, is home to the Hall; she was inducted in 2000, the very year she came out of retirement to play doubles, and went on to win three more major titles.

In April 2010 Navratilova revealed she was being treated for which illness?

Breast cancer was caught early by a mammogram she had put off for four years; after a lumpectomy and radiation she urged other women not to let their own check-ups slide.

On which surface did Chris Evert hold her only winning record against Navratilova?

Clay, where Evert once won 125 matches in a row; even so, Navratilova beat her on it 6–3, 6–1 in the 1984 final in Paris.

Whom did Navratilova beat in both the 1982 Roland Garros final and the 1983 Wimbledon final?

Andrea Jaeger, a teenager in both finals, could not stop her; the Paris win gave Navratilova her first title there, seven years after she lost the final at 18.

Whom did Navratilova beat 6-3, 6-2 in the 1986 US Open final?

Helena Suková was the player who had ended her 74-match winning streak two years earlier; in this final Navratilova allowed her only five games.

Navratilova's 59 major titles in all events are the most by any player except which Australian?

Margaret Court is the only player ahead of her; Navratilova got that close because she kept winning doubles majors until a month before her 50th birthday.

Whom did Navratilova beat 6-4, 6-1 in the 1990 Wimbledon final, her last major singles title?

Zina Garrison won only five games; Navratilova, 33, had lost the previous two Wimbledon finals and gone almost three years without a major singles title.

Navratilova played the third 'Battle of the Sexes' match in 1992 against which male star?

Jimmy Connors, who had just turned 40, won 7–5, 6–2 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas; unlike the famous 1973 match against Bobby Riggs, this one went to the man.

Navratilova lost the 1994 Wimbledon final at age 37 to which Spanish player?

Conchita Martínez became the first Spanish woman to win Wimbledon, yet it was the beaten Navratilova who left Centre Court to a long standing ovation.

With which Indian partner did Navratilova win 2003 mixed doubles at the Australian Open and Wimbledon?

Leander Paes teamed up with her three years after she came out of retirement to play doubles; at 46 she became the oldest player ever to win a title at Wimbledon.

What 'boxed set' did Navratilova complete at the 2003 Australian Open?

Singles, doubles and mixed at all four majors: the Australian mixed title was the one piece she lacked, and winning it at 46 made her only the third player to finish the set.

Whose record of five straight Wimbledon singles titles did Navratilova break with her sixth in a row in 1987?

Suzanne Lenglen's run from 1919 to 1923 had stood for 64 years; Navratilova's own streak ended the next summer, when she lost a Wimbledon final for the first time.

With whom did Navratilova win her final major, the 2006 US Open mixed doubles, a month before turning 50?

Bob Bryan, one half of the Bryan twins, partnered her to a 59th major title; having won it, she retired from competitive play for good.

About how many singles titles did Navratilova win, an Open Era record?

About 170: her 167 titles came from winning at least one in 21 straight seasons, and no man or woman of the Open Era has won more.

Which cigarette brand sponsored the women's tennis tour for most of Navratilova's career?

Virginia Slims bankrolled the breakaway women's circuit in the early 1970s, when promoters paid men far more; Navratilova went on to win its Chicago event a record 12 times.

Which former player coached Navratilova from 1981 to 1983 and sharpened her tactics?

Renée Richards, a transgender eye surgeon who went to court in 1977 to win the right to play the women's US Open, coached her to Wimbledon titles in 1982 and 1983.

With Liz Nickles, Navratilova wrote three books in the 1990s in what genre?

Mystery novels: The Total Zone, Breaking Point and Killer Instinct send a sleuth named Jordan Myles after killers in the world of women's tennis, the one she knew best.

What is the title of ESPN's documentary about Navratilova's rivalry with Chris Evert?

Unmatched, from ESPN's 30 for 30 series, is one long conversation between two friends who used to practise together hours before meeting in finals.

Whom did Navratilova marry in New York in December 2014?

Julia Lemigova, a former Russian model, became her wife; in a BBC interview straight after the wedding Navratilova said gay athletes were still fearful of coming out.

Navratilova's 1991 split from her partner Judy Nelson led to what kind of televised lawsuit?

A palimony suit: Nelson claimed half of her earnings under an agreement the couple had signed on videotape, and Navratilova settled out of court, blaming the legal costs.

Which illness contributed to top seed Navratilova's quarterfinal upset at the 1982 US Open?

Toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection, had drained her; she recovered within weeks and lost only one match in the whole of the following season.

What did Navratilova start wearing on court in 1985 that became part of her look?

Glasses followed two early-season losses in 1985 that convinced her something was wrong; her eyesight had been fading since the year before.

In December 2010 Navratilova was hospitalised with pulmonary oedema while climbing which mountain?

Kilimanjaro was a fundraising climb for the Laureus sports charity; altitude sickness filled her lungs with fluid, and she had to be brought down and taken to hospital in Nairobi.

What did the teenage Navratilova fall for on her first American tours, to the cost of her fitness?

Fast food — Whoppers, Big Macs, fries and milkshakes — piled weight onto the newcomer; a strict diet and strength training later made her the strongest player on the women's tour.

Whose coaching staff did Navratilova briefly join in December 2014?

Agnieszka Radwańska took her on as a part-time consultant, but the arrangement lasted only until April, when Navratilova said she could not give the job enough time.

Which Los Angeles Olympics star won the AP Female Athlete of the Year award in 1984, between Navratilova's two wins?

Mary Lou Retton, the Olympic all-around gymnastics champion, beat her to it even though Navratilova lost only twice all year; her own awards came in 1983 and 1986.

In 2009 the ITF gave Navratilova its highest accolade, an award named after which tennis figure?

Philippe Chatrier, the Frenchman who led the ITF from 1977 to 1991, was the driving force behind tennis returning to the Olympics as a medal sport in 1988.

Navratilova lost her citizenship when she defected; which country restored it in 2008?

The Czech Republic restored it 33 years after she fled, and she kept her US passport as well; Czechoslovakia itself had since split in two.

Martina Hingis, born in Košice in 1980 and named after Navratilova, went on to represent which country?

Switzerland became home at seven, when her mother, a former Czechoslovak player who had named her after her idol, moved there; Hingis went on to become the youngest world No. 1.

Navratilova's 2003 mixed doubles win at Wimbledon equalled whose record of 20 titles there across all events?

Billie Jean King collected her 20 between 1961 and 1979, and the last of them, the 1979 women's doubles, was won with Navratilova herself as her partner.

What handicap did Navratilova's male opponent accept in their 1992 'Battle of the Sexes' match?

Only one serve per point for him, and half of each doubles alley for her to aim at; even so, he won 7–5, 6–2 in Las Vegas.

Which younger rival went on to break Navratilova's record of 332 weeks as world No. 1?

Steffi Graf took the top ranking from her in 1987 and held it for 377 weeks in all, yet across 18 meetings the two finished dead level at 9–9.

On which reality show did Navratilova finish runner-up to Joe Swash in 2008?

I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! sent the 52-year-old into an Australian jungle camp for three weeks, where viewers' votes left her second to the EastEnders actor.

Which fellow Czechoslovak-born star beat Navratilova in the 1985 US Open final?

Hana Mandlíková, who twice ended long winning runs of Navratilova's, won 7–6, 1–6, 7–6; four years later the pair won the US Open doubles together.

At which major did Navratilova's only defeat of 1983 come?

The French Open, where Kathy Horvath beat her in the fourth round; Navratilova swept the year's other three majors and won the title in Paris twelve months later.

What was Navratilova's 1985 autobiography, published in the US as Martina, called elsewhere?

Being Myself was the title everywhere but America, where the book she wrote with George Vecsey came out simply as Martina; by then she was a one-name celebrity there.

Whose first class of inductees in 2013 included Navratilova?

The National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame opened in Chicago in 2013; she had been an outspoken campaigner since joining a court challenge to Colorado's 1992 anti-gay amendment.

On which sitcom did Navratilova play herself in 2000, as an old flame of one of the main characters?

Will & Grace put her in a 1980s flashback in which Karen Walker leaves her to settle down with Stan.

In which Colorado ski resort town did Navratilova make her home in the early 1990s?

Aspen suited a keen skier: when she retired from singles in 1994, she said her only plan for the following year was to go helicopter skiing.