Less than two weeks after ending her tennis career with a mixed doubles win at the U.S. Open, Martina Navratilova is back home in Sarasota, Fla., trying to catch up on things as she prepares to get on with the rest of her life.
She’ll be 50 in a matter of weeks and, she says, has given up professional tennis for good. Though she retired from the women’s tour in 1994, she returned in 2000 to play doubles, adding a dozen titles to her resume during the seven seasons of her second career, including three grand slam, mixed doubles championships.
She won the Australian Open title with Leander Paes in 2003, and later that year the pair triumphed at Wimbledon, giving Navratilova a record-tying 20th Wimbledon championship, matching Billie Jean King. But perhaps no title was as sweet as her last one with Bob Bryan at the U.S. Open. Everyone in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sept. 9 knew it would be the last match she ever played at a major tournament, and she played brilliantly, defeating the team of Kueta Peschke and Martin Damm in straight sets.
“It was really sweet; my career ended the way it was supposed to end,” Navratilova says via telephone. “I played really good ball. It was satisfying on so many levels.”
With her on-court play complete, Navratilova finally has some time for off-court activity, which includes receiving a lifetime achievement award on Sept. 26 from Lambda Legal in Los Angeles “for a lifetime of courage, integrity and commitment to the LGBT community.”
“We see her as just being an outstanding spokeswoman for our field,” says Katherine Gabel, director of Lambda’s Western Regional Office. “She’s been out front and devoted to our cause, an inspiration and a role model who gives back to her community.”
Navratilova said the award seems premature, but she is grateful. “I feel like it’s too soon, like I haven’t done everything I want to do. Still, it’s nice to be recognized in the midst of the battle. I totally stand by everything Lambda Legal has been doing. For me, it’s not just about equal rights for lesbians, but for human beings. I’ve been fighting that battle for a long time.”
Even as a teenager on the women’s tour, Navratilova never backed down from a challenge. In 1975, after losing a semifinal match to her then-doubles partner Chris Evert at the U.S. Open, she defected from then-Communist Czechoslovakia. She was just 18.
After that, she didn’t worry much about what anyone thought, even though she was a lesbian at a time when no other athlete had come out while at the top of their sport.
“Once you leave your family behind and don’t know when you will see them again, everything else is peanuts,” she says. “I personally couldn’t see what was wrong with being gay. I never saw being gay as a negative. I did see it as a difficulty, but I was ready to fight the good fight.”
Billie Jean King says she remembers Navratilova always being very upfront and honest. “She’s always said her mind,” King says. “She’s really good that way because she doesn’t worry about consequences.”
But Navratilova admits that she was always mindful of potential consequences from living her life honestly, whether from lost endorsements or hostile fans.
“Everything that I’ve done, I’ve known what the consequences will be, but I’m willing to accept them,” she says. “If I didn’t come out and pretended I was someone else, what are those consequences? I would not be who I am. Not being accepted by Madison Avenue because I was a lesbian — I could accept those consequences. My guidelines are totally philosophical and what’s morally right to me. I was never guided by financial gain.”
Navratilova has been in a relationship for six years, but she doesn’t discuss it publicly. She says, though, that she has “never been happier” and would marry her in a minute “if she’d have me.”
“I call it same-gender marriage because people immediately think of sex,” she says. “It’s about love, it’s about caring, understanding and respecting one another and being willing to die for one another. I’m obviously a strong advocate for same-gender marriage and will keep fighting for that.”
She is dismayed but undaunted by the lack of support from the White House on LGBT issues. “We can’t be ignored anymore. In the current administration, I’ve never heard [President Bush] say the word lesbian, and he can’t even say the word homosexual.”
Navratilova’s outspokenness has always been a part of her nature. While it didn’t endear her to the public or the press in the early days, it is now one of the reasons why she is so respected and beloved.
“I think they got to understand me for who I am and what I stand for,” she says. “They know that I speak my mind and they still respect me even if they don’t agree. You can be politically opposed but you can still respect me. It took awhile for people to figure that out. Now I’m in the position to say whatever I want.”
In addition to continuing to be an activist for various causes, Navratilova plans to continue her promotion of the Rainbow Card, which raises money for the LGBT community. She will also increase her efforts to promote her book Shape Your Self, a guide to diet, exercise and other strategies for staying fit in middle age.
She would appear to be one of the world’s top experts on the topic given her recent success, playing in her 40s against opponents who were up to three decades younger.
King, who won the 1979 Wimbledon doubles and 1980 U.S. Open doubles with Navratilova, calls the late-career achievements “awesome.”
“I think it’s fabulous,” King says. “She is the best singles, doubles and mixed doubles player who ever lived. I’m just so happy for her.”
Navratilova, winner of 59 grand slam titles in singles, doubles and mixed, credits the final one to Bryan, who “really wanted to win this one for me.” But she also acknowledges that she was in terrific form.
“I was really hitting the ball well and started serving really well. I hadn’t done in a few years,” she admits. “It really is amazing. At this age, I have no right to play tennis like I did.”
That final win also provided Navratilova with the gift of a perfect ending to her tennis career. When she was playing in her last Wimbledon this summer — mixed doubles and women’s doubles quarterfinal matches on the same day — she knew Flushing Meadow was going to have to be the place to go for it.
“When I walked off [at Wimbledon], I thought, ‘This is not how it was supposed to end,'” she recalls. “It felt so wrong. If I had won at Wimbledon, I would have quit then. But I felt like I could play better and like I needed to win something.”
And the support from the crowds seemed to buoy her spirits along the way. “I did get tickled when I’d hear these people say how much I inspired them. They’d say, ‘You give us hope!’ That’s what kept me going.”
