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Martina Navratilova: Grand Slam
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A champion on and off the tennis court, Martina Navratilova serves up inspiration through her wit, candor, and sheer motivation as she addresses the issues of equality, aging, and personal development. Martina Navratilova won an astonishing 59 Grand Slam titles, including 18 singles, 31 women's doubles, and 10 mixed doubles in a remarkable career that includes a total of 167 singles and 178 doubles titles, both all-time records for tennis players, male or female. More >
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By 1978 Martina was back on top, winning tournaments and she was ranked the #1 woman tennis player in the world. In 1981 Martina became a United States citizen. She won the Grand Slam of tennis in 1984. In order to win the Grand Slam you have to win Wimbledon, the French Open, the Australian Open and the U.S. Open all in the same year. In 1984 Marina was made a member of the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. The Associated Press and United Press International named her 1980s Female Athlete of the Decade.
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During her career, Martina won an astonishing 59 Grand Slam titles, including 18 singles, 31 women’s doubles and 10 mixed doubles. She is one of only three people who have won all three titles (singles, doubles and mixed doubles) at each of the four Grand Slam events. Beyond this, Martina won a total of 167 singles and 178 doubles titles, both all-time records for tennis players, male or female. Her 74-match singles winning streak and 109-match doubles winning streak are both professional records as are the 9 Wimbledon singles titles and 6 consecutive Grand Slam titles that she won during the 1980’s. After her 2000 induction into the tennis hall of fame, Martina continued to play and win on the WTA Tour through October 2006, when she retired after winning the U.S. Open mixed doubles a month before her 50th birthday.
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Navratilova was a finalist at two Grand Slam singles tournaments in 1975. She lost in the final of the Australian Open to Evonne Goolagong Cawley and in the final of the French Open to Chris Evert. After losing to Evert in the semifinals of that year's U.S. Open, the 18-year-old Navratilova went to the offices of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in New York City and informed them that she wished to defect from Communist Czechoslovakia. Within a month, she received a green card.
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Martina started playing tennis when she was very young. She used to borrow her grandmother's old tennis racket and hit tennis balls against a wall. She took her first lesson when she was only six years old. Her first teacher was her stepfather, Mirek. She played in her first tournament when she was eight years.
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After several years of retirement from competition, Navratilova made a limited comeback in 2003. She teamed up with India's Leander Paes to win the Australian Open mixed doubles championship in January 2003. Her triumph, at age 46 years and 3 months, made her the oldest winner of a Grand Slam title. In 2004, Navratilova and Lisa Raymond competed in doubles matches for the United States tennis team in the Athens Olympics.
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