If there was a record in tennis, chances are Martina Navratilova broke it.
When she defected from Czechoslovakia to the United
States in 1975, no one, not even Martina, could have
envisioned that she would earn more titles than any
player (woman or man) in tennis history. Her singles
accomplishments include three Australian Open championships,
two French Opens, four United States Opens and a record
nine Wimbledon championships. She was voted by AP
"Female Athlete of the Decade" for the 80's.She retired
from professional singles competition in 1994 and
went on to master a myriad of leisure sports including
downhill snow skiing, snow boarding, scuba diving
and competitive ice hockey. She took up photography,
flying,woodworking and authored several mystery novels.
2000 was a landmark year in Martina's celebrated career. She came out of retirement to return to professional doubles competition and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall Of Fame. She was named to such millennium lists as AP's "World's Greatest Athletes of the Century", "Sports Illustrated Top 100 Athletes of the Century" and ESPN's "Top 50 Athletes of the Century." Since then, she continued to rewrite tennis history with four major wins, three in 2003 (see related stories, below.) On and off the court, she is known as an influential advocate of causes including gay rights, the environment, animal welfare and women's issues.
MELBOURNE, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Twenty nine years after winning her first grand slam title, Martina Navratilova swept to her 57th on Sunday, collecting the only jewel missing from her crown.
The naturalized American teamed up with India's Leander Paes to win the Australian Open mixed doubles title, beating Todd Woodbridge and Eleni Daniilidou 6-4 7-5 for the one grand slam title to have eluded her.
Aged 46 years and three months, she also became the oldest grand slam champion in the sport's history... "I can't lie about my age," she laughed. "Anybody can look it up. I didn't think I would still be playing at this age... when I was growing up I wanted to be the youngest to win something, not the oldest. But it is pretty sweet to have all of them. You know, it occurred to me on Friday night when I was trying to fall asleep. I thought 'wait a minute, this is the only one I have never won...' that's when I thought about it for the first time."
As Woodbridge hit the net on match point after 97 gut-wrenching minutes on
centre court, Navratilova screamed "yes," raised her
eyes to the heavens and skipped on the spot. The crowd
gave her a standing ovation after she matched the
feat of Australian great Margaret Court, who completed
a sweep of titles at all the slams in the 1960s before
tennis turned professional.
Martina Navratilova added another title to her career, winning the doubles with Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, at the Dubai Open. They beat Cara Black of Zimbabwe and Elena Likhovtseva of Russia 6-3, 7-6 (7).
That year (2000) Martina also tied yet another record by winning the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon, also with Leander Paes. That was her 20th title at Wimbledon, tying her with Billie Jean King.
This was Navratilova's 168th doubles championship to go with her 167 singles titles - both tops in tennis for a man or woman. She and Kuznetsova also won a doubles event in Gold Coast, Australia, in January.
"Winning titles is just a bonus for me," the 46-year-old Navratilova said. "I didn't come back only to try and take home trophies. It was to continually try and improve the way I play and first and foremost to have fun."
Martina won her 167th career doubles title on Saturday, teaming with 17 year-old Svetlana Kuznetsova to beat France's Nathalie Dechy & Emilie Loit 6-4, 6-4, in Sydney Australia.
At 46, Martina becomes the oldest player in history to win a WTA sanctioned tournament, a record she set last year at age 45, with a victory in Madrid, Spain.
She was quoted as saying "... Age is only a number. I'm an extreme — you certainly don't have to take on the challenges I do at 46, but I'm sure you can do more than you are currently doing!"
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