Martina Navratilova - Tennis - Wimbledon - The Rival — Recognize (2024)

Martina Navratilova is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. She won 59 major titles, including 18 Grand Slam singles titles—still the record for the Open Era—as well as 31 major doubles and 10 major mixed doubles titles. She also held the No. 1 ranking in the world for 332 weeks, second behind only Steffi Graf.

Navratilova’s excellence started young. At age 4, Navratilova started playing tennis against a concrete wall in her homeland of Czechoslovakia. By age 7, she was competing regularly. By age 15, she had won the Czechoslovakia national tennis championship and turned pro. She won her first professional singles title in 1974, at age 17.

The following year, the Czechoslovak Sports Federation told Navratilova that she was becoming “too Americanized,” and told her to focus on school while making tennis secondary. At just 18 years old, Navratilova asked for and was granted political asylum in the United States, and was stripped of her Czechoslovakian citizenship. She very obviously did not “make tennis secondary,” being named WTA Player of the Year in 1978, 1979, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1986, and became an American citizen in 1981.

Navratilova was nearly unstoppable at Wimbledon, reaching the singles final 12 times, including nine straight years (1982-1990) and winning the Wimbledon title a record nine times.

From 1983 to 1984, Navratilova won all four majors: Wimbledon, the US Open, the Australian Open, and the the French Open, holding all four major singles titles simultaneously. She was the first player to do so, leading Philippe Chatrier, president of the International Tennis Federation, to coin the feat a Grand Slam. She was also the ITF World Champion in 1979, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1986.

In the prime of her career, Navratilova and fellow American player Chris Evert developed the best rivalry in women’s tennis. The two dueled in matches throughout the 1980s, elevating the entire sport by trading games and matches nearly evenly. In the 1985 French Open Final, Evert and Navratilova played what is often considered the best women’s match of all time. Evert took the win, but Navratilova bested Evert in her overall record.

One of the undisputed best tennis players of all time, Martina Navratilova held the world No. 1 ranking for 332 weeks in singles and 237 weeks in doubles. With 59 major titles, Navratilova holds the Open Era record for most Grand Slams won by a single player.

But things weren’t always easy for Navratilova. In 1975, just as she was starting her pro career, she was stripped of her Czechoslovakian citizenship after being accused by the country’s sports federation of being too Americanized. In the sneaky biggest victory of the Cold War, the U.S. granted her asylum and eventual citizenship. Game, set, match.

In her longstanding rivalry with Chris Evert, Navratilova has the advantage, leading Evert 43–37 in total matches, 14–8 in Grand Slams, and 10–4 in Grand Slam finals. But, in what is commonly viewed as the best women’s tennis match in history, the 1985 French Open Final, Evert did get the win.

Navratilova is just so good that even when she loses, she still elevates the game and everyone in it.