Martina's Moment | TENNIS.com Martina's Moment by: Steve Tignor April 29, 2013 The biggest story in sports today is Jason Collins's: The NBA veteran, in an article for Sports Illustrated, became the first male athlete in a major professional team sport in the U.S. to declare publicly that he's gay. It's a big deal, and something that many of us have been waiting for. But "male athlete in a major professional team sport" is also a pretty big qualifier. This year we've already had a female athlete in a major team sport, Baylor basketball star Brittney Griner, come out. And it has been more than three decades since tennis's Martina Navratilova did the same, in 1981. The post below was originally meant to be Chapter 19 (of 20) of my book, High Strung , which revolves around the 1981 U.S. Open. The chapter tells the story of Navratilova at that tournament, which turned out to be a crossroads moment in her life. She had become a U.S.

citizen that summer, and around the same time had, with some trepidation, made her sexuality public. Navratilova played the Open as an American for the first time, and for the first time was accepted as one. The tournament ended in defeat and tears for her that year, but in many ways it was the start of her great, career-transforming run through the 1980s. The clip above is from Martina's breakthrough win at the event, a three-set semifinal win over Chris Evert. It was a sign of things to come. ***** “Go back to Russia!”—advice screamed in the direction of Martina Navratilova (formerly of Czechoslovakia) by an upper-deck U.S. Open heckler in 1981 “I don’t think I would take a vacation at Flushing Meadows,” Martina Navratilova told the press at the U.S. Open with a laugh. 1981 had been a year of change and tumult for the newly minted American citizen, but she was in a good mood at the moment. She had just beaten her longtime rival Chris Evert, the tournament’s top seed and the world’s No.

1 player, in a classic three-set semifinal. Now Navratilova would get a chance to play her first U.S. Open final, in front of 18,000 of her adopted countrymen. But as Navratilova intimated in her press conference, Louis Armstrong Stadium hadn’t been a pleasant place for her or her opponent that afternoon. In the middle of the third set, a raffish, tipsy crew of “known scalpers and gamblers” in Row Q of the upper deck began to get rowdy. They were drinking, they were screaming, they were cursing, they were brawling with security guards. They were so annoying to the spectators and disruptive to the players that play had to be halted to shut them up. One of them, an Englishman named Philip Greenwood, began to taunt Navratilova obscenely. She answered him with a yell: “Go have another beer and shut up during the points!” Finally an all-out chase scene began. Police, security guards, and even ushers tore across the bleachers, as everyone else in the stadium, including Evert and Navratilova, stopped to watch. It ended when an usher and St.

John’s student by the name of Ron Calamari took a flying leap and took one of the rowdies down. When play ensued, it was, to the surprise of most tennis observers, the high-strung Navratilova who recovered her concentration more quickly than the eternally even-keel Evert. Navratilova came back from 2-4 down in the third set to win 6-4. “That scuffle in the stands could easily have put me away,” Navratilova said afterward. Maybe she was finally beginning to feel at home at the Open. As of 1981, Navratilova was the women’s version of Bjorn Borg in New York. She had won Wimbledon twice and been a dominant player for nearly a decade, but she had never reached the final at Forest Hills or Flushing Meadows. Like her countryman and fellow U.S. transplant Ivan Lendl, she had been stamped with the choker’s label. In the previous four years, she had been upset in the semifinals by Wendy Turnbull, Pam Shriver, Tracy Austin, and, in the fourth round in 1980, by her younger countrywoman Hana Mandlikova.

Always ready to speak her mind, Navratilova had complained about the swirling winds, the roaring airplanes, and the “fans shouting their lungs out.” She compared Flushing to a “medieval marketplace.” It seemed that, like Borg, she was another sensitive European who wasn’t tough enough to handle tennis in the Big Apple. Navratilova’s emotional history with the Open went deeper, though, back to the days at Forest Hills. It was there that, as an 18-year-old high school student in 1975, she had announced her defection to the United States from communist Czechoslovakia at a packed and chaotic press conference on the grounds. The media gathering had been hastily thrown together to keep Czech agents from grabbing her and taking her back home before the world could find out about her decision. One year later, Forest Hills had been the sight of another public trauma for Navratilova. Everywhere she went in New York that summer, she was asked about her defection. The truth of her decision and her new life began to hit her: At 19, she was alone in the West, cut off from her family back in Prague forever.

By the time she played her second-round match against the little-known Janet Newberry, it was all too much. Navratilova, before a meager late-day audience, lost in three sets. After shaking hands, she sat down, put her head in her hands, and started to cry. She never stopped. Finally, Newberry herself walked over and helped her off the court, like someone helping an old lady across the road. “I hope I never see anyone in that condition again,” Newberry said. Navratilova had spent much of her first year in the U.S. doing what patriotic citizens of the American empire do: going on shopping sprees and pigging out on junk food. By December 1975, just three months after her defection, the New York Times scolded that she had “become a walking delegate for conspicuous consumption. She wears a raccoon coat over designer jeans and a floral blouse from Giorgio’s, the Hollywood boutique. She wears four rings and assorted other jewelry . . . She owns a $20,000 Mercedes-Benz sports coupe . . . As an undisciplined gourmand, she is overweight.” With the binge came the hangover.

After a year of non-stop travel, Navratilova was quickly burnt out. By the time she got to Forest Hills in ’76, “It all kicked in,” she told the Washington Post. “I had nobody to lean on. I couldn’t see my family, they couldn’t see me. I was all alone . . . . I felt like the whole world was against me.” Over the next five years, Navratilova would go through many more highs and lows, triumphs and disasters, coaches and relationships, phases and fads. The stateless star was always in search of something better, something new; the answer was always around the next corner. Like Lendl, she became more American than most Americans. But where he embraced law and order conservatism, Navratilova, a native of Prague who had witnessed the Soviet invasion of 1968, embraced the American tradition of questioning authority—so much so that she earned a self-described reputation as “Martina the Complainer.” In that time, she would win two Wimbledons, but the consensus was that even then she hadn’t tapped all of her sky’s-the-limit potential.

Few other women players had ever moved or played the sport as fluidly and instinctively as Navratilova. Like McEnroe and Nastase, her mix of grace and power left most of her opponents looking drably earthbound (Rod Laver had singled her out for her potential when he saw her play as a 16-year-old). But as with Nastase and McEnroe, her genius for the game came with an acute, hair-trigger sensitivity to everything around her. The young Navratilova too often let her emotions get the best of her. By early 1981, she had hit another low point. As the year began, she remained stuck at two major titles, while Evert’s total had climbed to 11. The discrepancy between them was underlined in humiliating fashion at Amelia Island in March, when the American showed no mercy in drubbing a listless Navratilova 6-0, 6-0. But what appeared to be the bottom was in reality a turning point. During that tournament, Navratilova had met women’s basketball star Nancy Lieberman.

The two hit it off immediately, and Lieberman began the arduous task of changing Navratilova’s attitude toward the game and her talent. Lieberman had been the ultimate anomaly as an athlete. She was a Jewish girl from deep Queens whose hero was Muhammad Ali, and who rode the subway through the city at night to play basketball against the toughest male competition in Harlem. She had transformed herself into “Lady Magic,” the best women’s basketball player in history. But after dominating the college game at Old Dominion, Lieberman had been left with nowhere to play when the nascent women’s professional basketball league folded in 1980. Now she had a new project, and she set about infusing the sensitive, lackadaisical Navratilova with her hard-eyed passion for training, as well as her confrontational competitive style. It was, in the words of Evert, the start of the “Kill Chris” campaign. It wasn’t only Navratilova whose world was being rocked in 1981.

Women’s tennis had been shaken by the news in May that a Los Angeles hairdresser named Marilyn Barnett had filed a “palimony”—“galimony” in tabloid speak—suit against Billie Jean King, alleging that they had had a long affair in the 1970s (Barnett sat between King and her husband, Larry, on the sidelines at the Battle of the Sexes in Houston in 1973). King held a somber press conference a few days later confirming the relationship. This wasn't the “Mother Freedom” who had taken on and taken down Bobby Riggs eight years earlier. It was one thing to proclaim women’s power, but in 1981 it was quite another to proclaim lesbian power. King and her husband posed for a damage-control profile in People soon after. “I hate being called a homosexual,” she told the magazine. “I don’t feel homosexual.” Along with the rightward political shift that Ronald Reagan’s election had swept in that year, the country at large was experiencing a conservative cultural moment. 1973, when King played Riggs, had been the high-water mark of 60s-style liberalism—it was the year of Roe vs.

Wade, Watergate, and the end of the draft. 1981, by contrast, was marked by the rise of Reagan and the growing influence of the Moral Majority, which had been founded by Jerry Falwell two years earlier. King and others in women’s tennis feared a backlash among fans and sponsors. They were right to be nervous. By summer there were rumors that one of those sponsors, Avon, was likely to discontinue its $16 million commitment because of the Barnett controversy. While Navratilova had never hidden her own sexuality, she feared the repercussions of it for the tour, and for herself. At her citizenship hearing in California, she had told the INS agent conducting her interview that she was “bisexual” and been relieved when nothing had made of the revelation. On July 20, 1981, Navratilova learned that her application for citizenship had been approved. Ten days later, she opened the New York Daily News to see an article entitled, “Martina Fears Avon’s Call If She Talks,” by Steve Goldstein. Months earlier, Navratilova had spoken with Goldstein about her sexual relationship with American writer Rita Mae Brown.

Navratilova had asked him not to go public with it in light of the publicity surrounding the King-Barnett suit. But Goldstein’s paper didn’t want to wait any longer. In the article, Navratilova was quoted saying, “If I come out and start talking, women’s tennis is going to be hurt. I have heard that if I come out—if one more top player talks about this—then Avon will pull out as a sponsor.” The following year, Avon pulled out. From the start, Navratilova had been stunned by how much image meant in the U.S.—“look at Ronald Reagan, always smiling,” she said. By ’81, though, she had begun to take control of her own image and soften it for public consumption. She arrived at the Open that August with highlights and a ponytail that made her look like a country schoolgirl. More important, the work with Lieberman, which had begun in earnest when Navratilova had lost early at Wimbledon, was starting to pay off. “I haven’t been so pumped since I won Wimbledon two years ago,” Navratilova said as the tournament began. She was also thinking in a new way on court.

At the start of the tournament, Renée Richards, the transsexual player and eye doctor who had caused so much controversy at recent U.S. Opens, had lost in the first round in 1981. She asked Navratilova if she could help her for the rest of the tournament. While she wouldn’t be formally made her coach until after the Open, Richards hit with Navratilova, watched her practices and matches, and began to give her strategic pointers. Like Lieberman when she had first glimpsed Navratilova’s tepid practice efforts, Richards was appalled to find out how little tactical thought she gave to her game. Under her tutelage, that changed quickly at the Open. “I’m thinking about it, instead of just going out and hitting the ball,” Navratilova said after her semifinal win over Evert, crediting Richards by name. “I don’t know if I could have beaten Chris if she hadn’t helped me.” The Lieberman-Richards combination would become known, somewhat derisively, as Team Navratilova. Yet while it garnered laughs at the time, Navratilova’s new, holistic approach to training would mark was another advance in the Open era.

While pros like Vilas and Borg had coaches and svengalis in the 70s, Navratilova was the first to have a support team—one person to work on her physical training, another to help with strategy, yet another to monitor her nutrition. (In the ensuing years, her “coterie,” as she called it—she hated the word “entourage”— would grow into a traveling road show that filled the player’s guest box inside Centre Court.) While it seemed over the top at the time, Team Navratilova would be an unprecedented success. For the rest of the 1980s, she would dominate the sport like no other player before or after; from ’81 to ’89, Navratilova would win 442 matches while losing just 32. The run began at the ’81 Open, when Richards and Lieberman watched her beat Evert and break her semifinal jinx. “I was so excited, it felt like a final,” Navratilova said after that win. “Now I have to come back tomorrow.” Her opponent would be a familiar one: 18-year-old American Tracy Austin.

A blonde-haired, blue-eyed Southern Californian and the youngest of eight tennis-playing siblings, Austin had been another pure product of the Open era: She was the original tennis prodigy, the first in a line of precocious young women who would take the game by storm as teenagers only to leave it prematurely. Austin made the cover of World Tennis at age 4, and the cover of Sports Illustrated at 13. She was the youngest player to win a pro tournament, the youngest to be ranked in the Top 10, the youngest to enter Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, the youngest Open champ and the youngest athlete to earn $1 million. She was also, in all likelihood, the youngest to receive a call from the President of the United States. During Austin’s Open debut as a 14-year-old at Forest Hills in 1977, Jimmy Carter had rung her up to have a congratulatory chat. Austin was also the first of the “Chris Clones,” the grinding, ultra-consistent baseliners with two-handed backhands who flooded the sport over the next two decades. If anything, Austin was even tougher than Evert, an assassin in braces and a homemade pinafore dress.

“She was a mental giant,” said Austin’s coach, Robert Lansdorp, who also worked with Pete Sampras and Maria Sharapova. “The toughest player I ever had.” Two years earlier, the clone had conquered the original when Austin stunned Navratilova and Evert in succession to win the Open at Flushing Meadows. The first signs of trouble had begun to appear at the beginning of 1981. Austin had suffered a sciatic nerve injury and been unable to pick up a racquet for two months. But by mid-year she had recovered and had come to New York as a strong pick for the title. Riding the high of her win over Evert, Navratilova came out “like gangbusters,” according to Austin. “I’ve never seen someone come out of the blocks so fast.” Rather than being heckled from the upper deck, Navratilova, who had never been a favorite in the land of Chrissie, felt an unfamiliar emotion coming toward her from the Open audience. They were pulling hard for their new fellow American. It made Navratilova, the famous choker, even more nervous.

Tennis history had refused to turn a corner earlier in the week, when Vitas Gerulaitis had held off Ivan Lendl in their fourth-round classic. Now the sport had come to another defining moment: Navratilova, like Lendl, would be the future of the women’s game, while Austin’s back injury would put her out of the sport in two years—unbelievably, at 18 years old, she was playing her last Grand Slam final. Once again, though, the future would be denied. Martina, deep down, was still the unsure child of the 70s, not the swaggering killer of the 80s. She won the first set 6-1, with a dazzling display of hook serves; lunging, perfectly placed volleys; and surprising drop shots. All of her high-flying athleticism, all of her potential, was on display at last. In the second set, though, the old annoyances crept in. She started to be bothered by the wind. She began to talk to herself. She missed easy forehand volleys. She whiffed on an overhead. She eventually double-faulted 13 times.

In the end, when the match reached a third-set tiebreaker—it was the first Open final to be decided by one—Navratilova was out-thought by Austin. After aiming her forehand crosscourt all match, she suddenly saw that there was an opening down the line. She would hit three winning forehands in that direction in the tiebreaker, shocking Navratilova and bringing her, by match point, to tears. Navratilova later said that if Richards had been her coach before the tournament began, she would have won it. As it was, she came up agonizingly short in front of her new American supporters and countrymen. “I wanted it too much,” she said. “I froze on some volleys that might have won me the match.” The crowd didn’t care. They never stopped cheering for her, even in defeat. They cheered as she sat on the sidelines, crying. They cheered when her name was announced as the runner-up. They kept cheering as she pressed her hands to her face, spun away from the microphone, speechless, and, not knowing what else to do, banged her hands together in a show of raw emotion.

“They weren’t cheering Martina the Complainer,” she wrote later, “or Martina the Czech, Martina the Loser, Martina the Bisexual Defector. They were cheering me. I had never felt anything like it in my life. Acceptance, respect, maybe even love.” Underneath the bluster, New Yorkers, Navratilova realized then, were just as sentimental, just as emotional, as she was. Whatever Avon and the WTA believed, the fans were with her. The cheers that Saturday afternoon at Flushing Meadows in 1981 were loud and long enough to send Navratilova soaring through the rest of the decade. Her ex-partner, Rita Mae Brown, believed that her honesty about her identity during that year's King-Barnett controversy was what had finally set her free. “The reason that Martina today has been transformed,” Brown would write years later, “is because once and for all she has said who she is, period.” Tennis Star Martina Navratilova, Among First "Out" Pro Athletes, Congratulates NBA's Jason Collins | Democracy Now!

Tennis Star Martina Navratilova, Among First "Out" Pro Athletes, Congratulates NBA's Jason Collins StoryMay 01, 2013 is a tennis legend. She is the winner of 59 grand slam crowns and a record nine Wimbledon singles championships. In 1981, Martina came out publicly, making her one of the first openly gay sports figures. Links Follow Martina Navratilova on Twitter: @Martina NBA basketball player Jason Collins swept sports headlines this week when he publicly revealed that he is gay, becoming the first professional male athlete to do so while still active in a major U.S. team sport. Collins noted that he was inspired by tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who became one of the first openly gay sports figures when she came out in 1981. Navratilova, the winner of 59 grand slam crowns and a record nine Wimbledon singles championships, joins us to discuss Collins’ announcement and her reaction to another advancement for LGBT rights: the legalization of same-sex civil unions in Colorado.

Back in 1992, Navratilova helped file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Colorado amendment that prohibited state and local regulations that extend minority civil rights protections to homosexuals and bisexuals in Colorado. "Jason has been a breath of fresh air and a pioneer," Navratilova says. "It takes a lot of guts to come out to your friends and family. For most gay people, coming out is the most traumatic experience in their life ... He’s done a lot for the gay community, and I thank him for that." TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. NERMEEN SHAIKH: We end today’s show looking at the biggest story in the sports world this week. A professional basketball player named Jason Collins publicly revealed he was gay, becoming the first male athlete to do so while still active in a major U.S. team sport. Jason Collins made the announcement in Sports Illustrated and then sat down for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You always knew you were gay?

JASON COLLINS: Yeah, it’s—I sort of describe it as you know that the sky is blue, but you keep telling yourself that it’s red. GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So you fought it? JASON COLLINS: Yes, in the beginning. I think they call it like the 12 steps. You know, you go through anger, denial and all—you know, it’s just—but when you finally get to that point of acceptance, there’s nothing more beautiful than just allowing yourself to, you know, really be happy and be comfortable in your own skin. GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So you send this thunderbolt out into the world. JASON COLLINS: Yeah. GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Twelve hours later, how does it feel? JASON COLLINS: It’s incredible. You just try to live an honest, genuine life, and next thing you know, you have the president calling you. And— GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: What did he say? JASON COLLINS: He was incredibly supportive, and he was proud of me and said that this not only affected my life, but others, going forward.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Martina Navratilova said this is going to save some kids’ lives. JASON COLLINS: You know, I look at her as one of my heroes. The dignity and the class that she’s lived her life and all that she’s achieved in her career, she is my role model. Hopefully, going forward, I can be someone else’s role model. AMY GOODMAN: That was NBA player Jason Collins speaking on ABC about his decision to come out and how he was inspired by tennis legend Martina Navratilova. She came out publicly in 1981, making her one of the first openly gay sports figures. Well, Martina Navratilova joins us now by telephone. She’s the winner of 59 grand slam crowns, a record nine Wimbledon singles championships. Today she adds one more victory to her name. As of midnight, same-sex couples in Colorado officially obtained a civil union and have it be recognized by the state today. Back in 1992, Martina was among those who filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Colorado amendment that prohibited state and local regulations that extend minority civil rights protections to homosexuals and bisexuals in Colorado.

Martina tweeted [Tuesday], "Colorado Civil Unions To Begin At Midnight Tonight- Colorado has come a long way since 1992 amendment 2-keep going:)" Martina Navratilova, welcome to Democracy Now! MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Thank you very much. I better be careful what I tweet! I keep thinking I’m only tweeting to my followers. But it’s out there, isn’t it? AMY GOODMAN: Well, now your friends and family have gone viral around the world. MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Yeah. AMY GOODMAN: Your response first to the man who worships you, to Jason Collins, who has come out? In Sports Illustrated, his first sentence—his first sentence is: "I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay." MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Well, it’s pretty funny when a guy that’s a foot-and-a-half taller calls you a role model. But Jason’s been a—has been a breath of fresh air and a pioneer. I mean, it takes a lot of guts to come out to your friends and family.

For most gay people, coming out is the most traumatic experience in their life, because of the worry about the backlash: "What’s going to happen? Are my parents going to accept me? Are my friends going to accept me? Are my sisters and brothers going to accept me?" And to come out to the whole world is—you know, is an extremely brave thing. And Jason has done it in a climate that’s certainly much more friendly to gays and lesbians, but still in the sports world it’s a big no-no. So, kudos to him. NERMEEN SHAIKH: Martina Navratilova, could you talk about your own experience coming out and how different it is, the response was then to the response to Jason Collins? MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Well, my response was much more—much more mixed. And, you know, some positive on one end: When I lost the U.S. Open finals to Tracy Austin about a month after coming out, the crowd was very supportive. But for the most part, it was negative. The media certainly roasted me.

I had my share of, you know, "Here’s Martina’s love nest," or "Good Versus Evil," as one columnist headed a column about me playing against Chris Evert. So, it was pretty nasty, but, you know, you just kind of deal with it. The funny thing that I just realized today is that Jason came out, and it’s—not only is the response positive, but the press wants to talk about it. It’s a big story. With me, it was a big story, but it was like on an embarrassing level, you know, the way the press portrayed it. I certainly didn’t get an invitation to speak on Good Morning America, because it was like still a taboo subject. It was such a negative subject, it made headlines, but in a very bad way. AMY GOODMAN: Let’s see. President Obama congratulated Jason Collins. President Reagan was president at the time when you came out. MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Yeah. AMY GOODMAN: What was his response? MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Well, certainly there wasn’t one, and I didn’t expect one.

It’s great that Obama is supporting Jason, but in the '80s the climate was such that there were thousands and thousands of gay men dying from AIDS, yet President Reagan didn't mention that, so a phone call to me would have been unthinkable. I just wish that he had been more supportive of our community in the wake of the tragedy that was AIDS. It took years before he ever mentioned the name. AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the decision you made to go public back in the early ’80s. What went into you—for a lot of people who are listening right now and watching this broadcast, maybe a lot of professional athletes, as well, talk about your feelings in those months leading up to this and how exactly you came out. MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Well, it wasn’t exactly a decision to do it. I just—I always thought I would say so one day. I never felt I had anything to hide. I never felt being gay was anything to be ashamed of, so I never felt apologetic. I didn’t have issues with it, didn’t grow up with any religion, so I didn’t have any religious, you know, issues to deal with as far as homosexuality is concerned.

So, I accepted it very easily. For me, it wasn’t that big a deal. But still, to make it public to the whole world is a different story. I really couldn’t come out until after I got my citizenship, because it was a disclaim—back then, it could have been a disqualifier. I could have been denied my U.S. citizenship because I was gay. So I didn’t—I stayed quiet. AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean. MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Pardon me? AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean. MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Well, I—OK, I defected in 1975 from Czechoslovakia, then Czechoslovakia. And I got my political asylum and applied for U.S. citizenship, which was due in 1981. And if I came out as gay, the Naturalization Service could have said, "No, we’re not going to give you your citizenship because you are gay." That was a disqualify—it could have been a disqualifier to get my citizenship, so I kept quiet. I didn’t lie.

When reporters asked me, I just didn’t answer the question. I said, "That’s private, and I’m not going to talk about it." And then, once I got my citizenship, you know, I didn’t have to hide anymore. NERMEEN SHAIKH: Martina Navratilova, can you explain what the impact was on your career, on your tennis career, both in terms of actually playing the sport and in terms of endorsements, once you made this revelation? MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Well, the endorsements didn’t come, because I was obviously—I was number one for a long time and didn’t get the outside endorsements other than what came with tennis, which meant tennis rackets and—shoes, rackets and clothing. Outside of that, I didn’t get any outside deals. But I think because I came out and I was true to myself and was finally able to just be free and not have to pretend, not have to lie, not have to hide anything, I think because of that, I played better tennis, and, you know, of course, was a much happier person. So, I think it helped me become a better tennis player. Most of all, I felt free.

And you can’t put a price tag on that. Financially, did it cost me? Absolutely. How much? I don’t know, and I really don’t care. AMY GOODMAN: Do you think it’s easier for women to come out than men? MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Not necessarily, but I think—it’s funny. In sports, women have to kind of prove their heterosexuality when they’re really good athletes. There are women that have written books proclaiming their heterosexuality, just in case anybody thought that they were gay, because for a lot of girls growing up, as soon as they’re athletic, they’re called—they’re called unnatural or lesbians or whatever. And a lot of straight girls don’t even get involved in sports because they don’t want to have that kind of bullying happen to them. So it’s almost assumed that you are gay; you have to prove that you’re straight. But for guys, in the macho sports, it’s the other way around.

So it’s easier for them to hide, because nobody will ask them, "Are you gay?" I don’t think any—I’ve never heard of a male reporter asking a male athlete, "Are you gay?" but they certainly feel free to ask the women. So, it’s just—you know, again, there’s a kind of a double standard with men and women. But I think women, perhaps, I don’t know why, they have been braver over the years in coming out. I don’t know. AMY GOODMAN: Well, from Collins to Colorado, as of last night, midnight, Colorado can officially obtain, same-sex couples there, a civil union, have it recognized by the state. Talk about what you did in 1992 filing a lawsuit. MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Well, first of all, kudos to Governor Hickenlooper for signing this. And I’m sure that he will go a step further eventually. I think we will have full marriage rights in Colorado. But in 1992, there was a very hateful Amendment 2, that basically made it legal for any institution to deny gays and lesbians access, whether it’s hospitals or restaurants or employment.

Anybody could fire you or not let you in a restaurant because you were gay. And I had wanted to speak to the press about this amendment prior to the election, because I was scared that it would pass, and nobody wanted to talk to me and said, "Oh, no, no, it will never pass. It’ll never pass." Sure enough, the election comes, Bill Clinton wins, Amendment 2 loses. It passes by a vote—it was like 52 to 48 percentage, even though before the vote, it showed that it wouldn’t pass. But it did pass. And the next day, my PR agent had like 200 phone calls and requests for interviews. Everybody wanted to talk to me now. It was too late. So—but it was overturned at the Supreme Court, as it was unconstitutional. But there was a big fight over nothing, unfortunately. AMY GOODMAN: Last comments, Martina Navratilova, on this day where, well, the first male openly gay athlete in pro sports, Jason Collins, has come out and cited you as his hero? MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: Kudos to Jason.

I hope he’ll sleep better now, now that he can truly be himself, and maybe his basketball career will take off. I hope he finds the team of his dreams, because he’s a free agent now. But I know that he’ll live a much happier life, and he’s done a lot for the gay community, and I thank him for that. AMY GOODMAN: Martina, thanks so much for being with us. Martina Navratilova, tennis legend, winner of 59 grand slam crowns, record 9 Wimbledon singles championships, came out in 1981, making her one of the first openly gay athletes. And that does it for our broadcast. Democracy Now!'s Juan González's new film Harvest of Empire premieres in Houston Friday, May 3rd, at the Sundance Cinema, plays there through May 10th. The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License . Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Up Next Martina Navratilova facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Martina Navratilova COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. Martina Navratilova Martina Navrotilova (born 1956) was ranked number one in female tennis. She has won 17 grand slam titles and broken the record for total victories. The clouds gathered, the sky darkened, and the summer rain fell on the grass, center court in the suburbs of London, England. This was early in the summer of 1988, late in the fortnight at Wimbledon, the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world. In progress: the championship match of the women's competition between Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf. Navratilova, 31, was the defending champion. A native of Czechoslovakia who is now an American citizen, she was seeking her seventh straight English crown and ninth there in the past 11 years. On the other side of the net was Graf, 19, a West German who had lost the previous year's title match to Navratilova but seemed on her way to her first victory here.

When the rains came, each woman had won one set of the best-of-three finale. Navratilova had won the first, 7-5, but Graf had rebounded with an impressive 6-2 victory in the second set and had taken a 3-1 lead in the third. At one point, Graf had won nine straight games and had broken Navratilova's service five straight times. To borrow a cliche from another individualist sport, boxing, Graf had Navratilova on the ropes. "No one had treated Navratilova so rudely in years," wrote Paul Attner of the Sporting News. Would Navratilova, queen of this court through most of the 1980s, use the unplanned rest to gather her strength, adjust her strategy, prepare a dramatic comeback, and keep her title? With time on her hands, would Graf dwell on the enormity of her opportunity, lose her momentum, and squander what seemed in reach? Perhaps it would happen in dreams, in fairy tales, or in movie scripts, but not on the lawn at Wimbledon in 1988.

"In truth," wrote Curry Kirkpatrick of Sports Illustrated," it was a reign stoppage." When they returned to the court, Graf quickly won the next three games to take the final set, 6-1, and leave with the silver plate that is presented to the champion by the Duchess of Kent. "It wound up being a sad scene for [Navratilova]," Graf said, "but a special one for me." Admitted Navratilova: "I got blown out. This is definitely the end of a chapter…. Pass the torch, I guess." Although the defeat at Wimbledon meant the end of a chapter, it certainly didn't close the book on the career of Navratilova, one of the world's most successful, colorful, and controversial athletes of her generation. Top female players in the past have excelled well into their late thirties, and Navratilova intends to join that list. "Retirement is still a ways off," Navratilova wrote in her autobiography, Martina, co-authored by George Vecsey, in 1985. "People say I can play until I'm forty, and I don't see any reason why I can't….

Robert Haas used to claim that with all the work I was doing on myself, I could be winning Wimbledon at the age of forty. People scoffed, but that's really not unreasonable when you look at Billie Jean King, who reached the 1982 and 1983 semifinals at Wimbledon at age thirty-nine and forty. Barring an injury or lack of motivation, I can see myself doing it." Certainly, she always has shown determination, motivation, and a-willingness to shape her future for herself. Even if she hadn't been a tennis champion, Navratilova would have been an unusual and interesting person for at least two reasons. First, she is a political defector from Czechoslovakia, a communist country of the Soviet Eastern Bloc, who was outspoken about her desire to become a citizen of the United States; and second, she says she is a bisexual and has often discussed the sometimes taboo subject of lesbian love in interviews and in her autobiography. Even in terms of tennis, she has been unique in that she has shown more willingness than others of her generation to seek technical, physical, and emotional coaching from other persons inside and outside her sport.

While Navratilova isn't the first to do such things, some experts feel her dedication to coaching and training has influenced the approach of other tennis players for the next generation. "I'm not saying she's the first to do it," said Mary Carillo, a former player who is now a television commentator, in an interview for Newsmakers." Margaret Court did it and Billie Jean King did it. But when Martina did it, everybody followed her lead. A lot of players now go to sports psychologists. Martina soared so far beyond everybody else, the only thing to do was to follow her lead. She did more than dominate the early 1980s. She set a whole new standard. She changed her diet and her fitness status. She made it scientific. She made it specific." Navratilova was born on October 18, 1956, in Prague, Czechoslovakia and was raised in the suburb of Revnice by her mother and her stepfather. (Her real father committed suicide after the divorce.) As a lean, small child, Navratilova excelled in many sports, including hockey and skiing. She often competed against boys.

"I'm not very psychologically oriented and I have no idea how I was affected by my real father's abandonment, the secrets and the suicide, or my feeling about being a misfit, a skinny little tomboy with short hair," she wrote in her autobiography. "In Czechoslovakia, nobody ever put me down for running around with boys, playing ice hockey and soccer. From what I've been told, people in the States used to think that if girls were good at sports, their sexuality would be affected." As a teenager, Navratilova's tennis skills allowed her to tour foreign countries, including the United States. She felt stifled in Czechoslovakia and defected at the U.S. Open in 1975, shortly before her 19th birthday. At the time, she said it was strictly a matter of tennis. "Politics had nothing to do with my decision," she said in an Associated Press story.

"It was strictly a tennis matter." In Prague, a reporter told her grandfather, who was quoted as replying, "Oh, the little idiot, why did she do that?" The defection was prompted in part, she said, by an incident early in 1975 when she was playing in a tournament at Amelia Island off the coast of Florida. She received a telegram from the officials of the Czech Sports Federation demanding that she return home. "I was in the middle of the tournament," she said. "I had to call upon the U.S. Tennis Association to help get me permission to play. That was when I really decided that I should leave Czechoslovakia." Life in a capitalist country brought wealth-and problems. "I didn't do it for the money, but it's nice to have," she told the Detroit Free Press more than two years after the defection. She began to buy cars and houses, often owning several of each at the same time. She maintains a home in Fort Worth, Tex., and a townhouse in Aspen, Colo. Among the problems were loneliness and a fondness for the fattening foods sold in fast-food restaurants in the United States.

"I miss my family badly," she told Bud Collins of the New York Times Magazine. " I worried for awhile that there would be retaliation against them, but there wasn't much." Her weight grew to 167 pounds shortly after her defection. She is five feet, seven and one-half inches tall. A decade later, after undergoing her physical conditioning program, she was 145 pounds of lean muscle. Her physique stood in contrast to that of many American female athletes of the past who tried to maintain the-unlikely combination of round, soft, "feminine" curves and the athletic ability that comes with muscle tone and conditioning. Her appearance and personal behavior quickly led to public discussions of her sexual preference. "I never thought there was anything strange about being gay," she wrote in her book. "Even when I thought about it, I never panicked and thought, Oh, I'm strange, I'm weird, what do I do now?" The book details many of Navratilova's relationships and living arrangements with women and how some soured and ended in bitterness. She tells of her professional relationship with Renee Richards, a female tennis player and coach who at one time was a man but had undergone a sex-change operation.

Another one of her professional aides was Nancy Lieberman, a basketball player who Navratilova used for training and motivational purposes. At times, her many coaches and associates didn't get along. "Things got worse at Wimbledon when Renee was not invited to a surprise birthday party for Nancy, planned by some friends of Nancy's," Navratilova wrote in her book. "Renee thought it was Nancy's idea, but that was ridiculous. I knew the party was being planned, but I had other things on my mind." Navratilova's break-up with girlfriend Judy Nelson sparked considerable media attention when Nelson sued for half of Navratilova's earnings. A settlement was eventually reached between the two women. The political side of her life story came to the fore in the summer of 1986, when she returned for the first time to Czechoslovakia. As an American citizen, she represented the United States in the Federation Cup in Prague. The return was a major media event as soon as she stepped off the plane. "Lights. Shouts. Rudeness. Pushing.

Shoving," wrote Frank Deford in Sports Illustrated." How Kafka must have chuckled in his nearby grave as Navratilova beat a retreat." As she played well and won, she became a favorite of the fans, if not of Czech tennis officials. "Everyday the lady from Revnice was winning more hearts," Deford wrote. "Young men dashed on the court to give her roses. The crowds began to acclaim her, and she grew more responsive—first waving shyly, then giving the thumbs-up sign and, last, blowing kisses. Why, it almost seemed as if the Statue of Liberty had gone on tour, turning in her torch for a Yonex racket. Czech officials grew so enraged that on Friday they ordered the umpire not to introduce Navratilova by name. She became 'On my left the woman player from the United States."' Although her personal life is interesting, there are other persons who are defectors from Czechoslovakia and others who overcame obesity and others who are bisexual. What makes Navratilova a famous person is her ability to play tennis consistently with the best in the world. She holds the racket in her left hand and plays aggressively.

"The pattern of attack is a vital factor in Martina's supremacy," Shirley Brasher wrote in Weekend Magazine of Canada." She gives her opponents no time to find their own rhythm, no time to play at a safe speed. Instead, she rushes them and pushes them around the court, hitting out for the lines and blanketing the next with her reach, power and speed." As the years went by and her victory totals grew, Navratilova became a favorite subject of sports writers who watched her grow from an emotional teenager to a more self-assured adult. "She has evolved in the eyes of many," John Ed Bradley wrote in the Washington Post," into a strong-armed automaton with a mean top spin forehand … and a tough, insensitive attitude that has wiped clean the memory of her emotional loss to Tracy Austin in the 1981 U.S. Open. Has the world forgotten that she wept violently at center court after dropping the third-set tie breaker?" As her career peaked, late in 1986, Peter Alfano wrote in the New York Times: " For the fifth consecutive year, Ms. Navratilova will finish as the No. 1 player in the world in the computer rankings.

Her hold is so strong that a rare defeat is celebrated like a holiday on the tour, her victorious opponent treated like a conquering hero. Then come the whispers: Is Martina slowing down?" Two years later, the whispers were common conversation. Her computer ranking fell to No. 2 and held there for 1988. Going into competition in 1988, she had won 17 Grand Slam titles. (A Grand Slam event is one of the four major tournaments: Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, the French Open and the Australian Open.) Only three women had won more: Margaret Court (26), Helen Wills Moody (19), and Chris Evert (18). Prior to 1988, Navratilova had won at least one Grand Slam singles title in seven consecutive years. But the year 1988 was difficult for her with no Grand Slam titles. After being upset by Zina Garrison in the U.S. Open in suburban New York, Navratilova said, "If this year were a fish, I would throw it back." Navratilova continued to play singles tennis despite constant retirement rumors.

In 1992 she won her one hundred and fifty-eighth professional tennis title. With this win, Navratilova broke the record for more tennis titles than any other man or woman. Playing with Jonathan Stark, the pair won the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon in 1995. A second attempt at a mixed doubles title at Wimbledon was squelched by a loss to Lindsay Davenport and Grant Connell in 1996. Reporters continue to ask Navratilova what her plans are and if she will return for another match. Her answer remains that she does not know when she will retire from the professional tennis tour. Navratilova has devoted some of her time off of the tennis court to writing. Her autobiography Martina chronicles her life from growing up in the former Czechoslovakia to her defection to the United States and subsequent rise to greatness and reveals much about trials and triumphs she has experienced along the way. Her mystery novels The Total Zone and Breaking Point were released in 1994 and 1996 Further Reading The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.

Copyright The Columbia University Press Martina Navratilova (märtē´nə năv´rətĬlō´və), 1956–, Czech-American tennis player, b. Prague. After holding the Czech singles title (1972–74), she defected (1975) to the United States. Known for her aggressive serve-and-volley style, she won the women's singles at Wimbledon a record nine times (1978–79, 1982–87, 1990) and also won a record 20 titles there overall. She holds four U.S. Open titles (1983, 1984, 1986–87), three Australian Open titles (1981, 1983, 1985), and two French Open titles (1982, 1984). With her partner Pam Shriver, she also dominated women's doubles competitions, winning 110 consecutive matches from 1983 to 1985.

In a career spanning more than three decades, Navratilova became the all-time leader, male or female, in singles titles (168); she also holds 178 doubles titles. See her autobiography, written with G. Vecsey (1985). Cite this article

Question: In which decade did Martina Navratilova take US citizenship?
Answer: 1980s