If Martina Navratilova’s parents had remained married past her third birthday, perhaps the inimitable athlete would now be a world famous skier--at two, she was already able to negotiate a snowy slope. But for Martina, the divorce meant leaving the family’s mountainside ski lodge for her mother’s childhood home near Prague.

The new house had a red clay tennis court, a rarity in 1950s Czechoslovakia, and by the time she turned four Martina was already spending several hours each day hitting tennis balls. Twelve years later, in 1972, Martina turned pro when she was just 16 years old. She announced her defection from then-Czechoslovakia in 1975 at the U.S. Open, and six years later she became a U.S. citizen.

Now the tennis superstar has a legendary career behind her, with 56 Grand Slam titles, 167 WTA Tour titles and, at one point, a 74 match winning streak. She maintains a home in Aspen, where she has played on a recreational hockey team called the Mother Puckers, but it’s Sarasota that she now calls home.

Five books, a USA Today column, commentary for countless tournament matches, Subaru commercials and Rainbow Card promotions have kept her in the public eye ever since she played her last professional match, in 1995. She recently signed an endorsement campaign with travel company Olivia Cruises, her first involvement with an exclusively lesbian-targeted marketing effort. And she’s got a sixth book due out next spring, this one on “being fit and happy.”

The 48-year-old may still be fit but apparently she isn’t very happy with the company that markets the Rainbow Card. The latest media frenzy surrounding Martina is a public mudslinging between her and the two women with whom she co-founded the company behind the gay-friendly credit card. Martina signed on to endorse the card shortly after her retirement and since then has appeared in numerous ads and promotions for it. Now she is in court seeking to bar her business partners from using her name and likeness any further.

At the heart of Martina’s objections is her refusal to be associated with two shows the card is slated to cross-promote: Showtime’s The L Word and Queer as Folk. She called the popular shows “depraved” and singled out The L Word for the special charge of falsely representing lesbians. Her complaints involve aspects of the show that are standard fare for soap operas. Martina has publicly griped that the L Word doesn’t portray stable, monogamous relationships and that there aren’t any characters who are positive role models for young people just coming out. She is also reportedly miffed that every episode includes a sex scene.

There is already a countersuit in progress. Pamela Derderian and Nancy Becker accuse Martina of making “profane comments,” trying to “destroy” the company, and breaching her fiduciary duties. They say the tennis star, godmother to their 7-year-old daughter, threatened to “shut down the card” and “tear apart Do Tell.” The pair also alleges that Martina’s current love interest has lobbed threats at them.

Martina is no stranger to public controversy. She was possibly the first celebrity athlete to come out at the height of her career. In 1981, when asked about rumors that she was a lesbian, she told an interviewer that she was bisexual. She dominated the women’s tour at that time, and has good reason to now contend that publicly acknowledging her sexual orientation likely cost her millions of dollars in corporate sponsorships over the course of her career.

Even if Martina had tried to remain closeted she would have been forced out in 1993 when Judy Nelson wrote a tell-all about her seven-year relationship with Martina. The Texan had left her husband for Martina after the two women were first introduced by Nelson’s 11-year-old son, who was a ball boy. In 1991 Nelson sued Martina for palimony and the case was settled outside of court for an undisclosed sum. Nelson was apparently a kept woman, claiming she was paid $90,000 annually as Martina’s “maid” while accompanying her on the international tennis circuit.