Martina Navratilova : Greatest Living Legend

Martina Navratilova (Czech: born October 18, 1956, in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a tennis player and former World No. 1 woman's player.

Billie Jean King said about Navratilova in 2006, "She's the greatest singles, doubles and mixed doubles player who's ever lived."Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, named her as the second best female player of the 20th century, directly behind Steffi Graf. Tennis magazine has selected her as the greatest female tennis player for the years 1965 through 2005.

Navratilova won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 Grand Slam women's doubles titles (an all-time record), and 10 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. She reached the Wimbledon singles final 12 times, including 9 consecutive years from 1982 through 1990, and won the women's singles title at Wimbledon a record 9 times. She and King each won 20 Wimbledon titles, an all-time record. Navratilova is one of just three women to have accomplished a career Grand Slam in singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles (called the Grand Slam "boxed set"). She holds the open era record for most singles titles (167) and doubles titles (177). She also recorded the longest winning streak in tennis history (74 consecutive matches) and three of the six longest winning streaks in women's tennis history. Navratilova, Margaret Court, and Maureen Connolly Brinker share the record for the most consecutive Grand Slam singles titles (six). Navratilova reached 11 consecutive Grand Slam singles finals, second all-time to Steffi Graf's 13. In women's doubles, Navratilova and Pam Shriver won 109 consecutive matches and won all four Grand Slam titles in 1984. They also tied Louise Brough Clapp's and Margaret Osborne duPont's record of 20 Grand Slam women's doubles titles as a team.

Originally from the former Czechoslovakia, she lost her citizenship when she defected to the United States in 1975 at the age of 18 and became a U.S. citizen in 1981. On January 9, 2008, she had her Czech citizenship restored. She has stated that she has not renounced her American citizenship nor does she plan to do so and that the restoration of her Czech citizenship was not politically motivated.

When you add up her professional singles titles (a record 167), her doubles crowns (another record at 177) and mixed-doubles championships (10), the total is a staggering 354 (see chart). That's nearly double Billie Jean King's second-place total of 179 titles. For the record, John McEnroe (156) is the leading man.

Most Career Titles

Player	Singles	Doubles	Mixed	Total
Martina Navratilova	167	177	10	354
Billie Jean King	67	101	11	179
Chris Evert	154	8	0	162
Margaret Court-Smith	92	48	19	159
John McEnroe	77	78	1	156
Jimmy Connors	109	19	0	128
Ivan Lendl	94	6	0	100
Stan Smith	39	61	0	100

She was the national champion in her native country from 1972 to 1975 and won the junior girls championship at Wimbledon in 1973. By the end of 1974 she had played in the singles finals of a number of professional tournaments and, with American tennis player Chris Evert as her partner, won several doubles championships.