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Nelson chronicled her self-proclaimed victimization further in a second book about the relationship, 1996’s Choices. But what’s worse, the foreword for her first book, Love Match: Nelson Vs. Navratilova was written by another one of Martina’s exes, author Rita Mae Brown. Brown, in turn, chronicled her own meddling in Nelson and Navratilova’s affairs in Rita Will, wherein she refers to Nelson as a woman “whose hair gets ruined by a ceiling fan.”

Martina’s former sweethearts also include basketball star Nancy Lieberman, who Martina moved in with in Dallas in 1981. Lieberman became her personal trainer and the new Martina was leaner and meaner than ever before. Lieberman is credited with helping Martina regain her number one status on the WTA tour, which she largely held onto for the next five years. One year into their relationship Martina became the first female athlete to gross $1 million.

Martina’s romantic misfortunes and tennis glory are the subject of a loving and amusing 1989 tribute by lesbian folksinger Phranc. But the tennis star has certainly weathered more than a fair share of less-than-loving portraits and hullabaloo surrounding her personal and business relationships.

Martina has recently gotten herself publicly involved in a controversy of a very different sort. She has signed on with PETA’s Save the Sheep campaign and has written a letter to the Australian prime minister that reads suspiciously like the rhetoric on PETA’s Web site. The U.S.-based group alleges inhumane treatment of merino sheep in Australia while the wool industry there is suing PETA for damages. None other than Australia’s Margaret Court, the only woman to surpass Martina in Grand Slam championship titles, has stepped up to defend the wool industry. The 62-year-old Court runs a merino sheep farm outside Perth.

Martina is a longtime philanthropist and notorious for lending her celebrity status to raise awareness of social issues. She has played benefit matches to support breast cancer prevention (such as Rally for the Cause), and has long championed animal rights and gay and lesbian rights. She also plays exhibition matches, and will be playing on the upcoming World Team Tennis tour stops in Wilmington, Boston and Houston, among others.

Martina is especially vocal about the importance of coming out to increase awareness and foster equality. She remarked in a recent interview with Outsports.com that “I have not heard of one person that came out of the closet that wishes they could go back in. And that is the key right there: Nobody wants to go back in the closet, and have to pretend, and lie, and try to keep track of who you lied to, who you are not out to.”

Martina revolutionized tennis, bringing athleticism and aggressive play to the women’s game. She was ever the outsider, with her Eastern European heritage, her single-handed backhand and left-handedness, for playing a serve-and-volley game at a time when female players were baseliners, and even for donning shorts in lieu of the requisite pleated tennis skirt.

But more significantly, she revolutionized women’s sports by demonstrating that it is possible to come out and still have a long and luminous career.