Famous Immigrant of the Week - Martina Navratilova

This week our ball is in the court of hall-of-fame tennis player, MartinaMartina-Navratilova Navratilova!  From her biography.com page:

Navratilova played in her first tennis tournament at eight years of age. A left-handed player who ranked number one in Czechoslovakia from 1972 to 1975, she won international notice when she led her team to victory in the 1975 Federation Cup. In that year she went into exile in the United States; she became a U.S. citizen in 1981.

By 1990 Navratilova had won the women's singles championships of the French Open twice (1982, 1984), the Australian Open three times (1981, 1983, 1985), the U.S. Open four times (1983, 1984, 1986, 1987), and Wimbledon a record nine times (1978, 1979, 1982–87, 1990). In 1987, along with her singles championship, she won both the women's doubles and the mixed doubles to become the first triple-crown champion at the U.S. Open since 1970. On winning her 158th title in 1992 in Chicago, Navratilova had accumulated more championships than any other player, male or female, in the history of tennis. She retired from singles play after the 1994 season, having won 167 titles in all.

Her career totals include 59 Grand Slam titles: 18 singles, 31 doubles, and 10 mixed doubles.

Navratilova went on to write an autobiography and a series of mystery novels.  She was also one of the first sports super stars to openly admit that she's gay and she's very active in the gay rights movement.  You can read more about Navratilova in her autobiography Martina.

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