listen people, dont bring martina's sexuality into any decussions about her...she does not want to be defined by her sexuality and it is unfair considering she is one of the greatest female sports stars that ever lived...so come on people talk about her talent, her great work for charity and leave it at that !!!
@Mark Bpharm: She's (Navratilova) tied with Steffi Graf at #1 for me. Serena at #2, because she's acheived similar title and slam wins, and would probably beat any of them (Court, Navratilova, Graf, Evert) quite handily if they were all teleported to the same tournament from their primes. However, Martina wins because of longevity and Steffi Graf is higher because of the Golden Slam.
+timlamiam Sorry but Martina's 18 singles slams are more impressive than Graf's 22 and the golden slams because Martina won those 18 while exerting far more energy due to playing also in the doubles and mixed doubles at the same time .... she dominates in all the disciplines (singles, doubles and mixed doubles) of the open era and was still able to run up her single slams to 18 ... I don't think Graf could have gotten her golden slam if Martina had concerntrated all her energy solely on the singles events, Martina wanted to be the greatest by dominating all the disciplines in tennis, as a result I think she compromised her singles slam count and ceded control over to Steffi earlier than she should have due to the mileage of playing in so many disciplines ...
She's been out of the closet for 3 decades. You must have started your tennis reading only last week. Martina is one of the most influential gay icons of our age. We gays and lesbians have had a much easier time with society because of her stature in sports and her integrity and charisma as a person. I personally regard as my no.1 heroine.
I always thought Margaret Court had won the most titles - perhaps it was grand slam titles.... Martina certainly goes down with Margaret, BJK, Chris Evert and Steffi Graf as the best of the best
+Mark Bpharm Margaret Court's 24 slams is actually not as impressive as Martina because only about half of it come from the open era ... she collected a lot of slams while tennis was not so competitive due to the non-open nature of the slams in the early years .. Martina's 18 slams probably is far more impressive than Graf because those 18slams was won despite her using up so much more energy than the others due to she also playing in the doubles and mixed events which she frequently won too ... you can imagine how hard it is to use up so much energy and yet still get 18 singles slams, she could have extended her longevity and domination more in the singles had she fully concerntrated on her singles events like Graf ... (and by the way Martina never had the advantage that Graf had of having a main rival stabbed and taken out by a crazy fan ... Martina had to battle Evert for close to 100 matches in order to get her 18 slams ...)
Exactly, from the players you named in your previous mail, it suddenly dawned on me that I am a tennis fan of the past generation. I grew up with Monica Seles, Steffi Graf and Gabriela Sabatini. Martina, Chris and Tracy were already a generation before me. And they should be 3 generations before you. So it shouldn't be that inconceivable for someone in your generation to not have heard of Martina's sexual preference. Anyway, nice knowing ya.
No. You're not ungrounded in tennis. You're just very very young in age. Still, you don't have to be gay to know about Martina and her sexual orientation. It's not her private life because she's been very very public about her homosexuality. And Martina, being not only a gay icon, but an even bigger TENNIS icon, should have been well known by all well grounded tennis fans that she's a tennis legend who also happens to be gay - unless of course those fans are very very young :)
