Article by Luminița Paul – published Wednesday, June 18, 2025, 17:02 / Updated Wednesday, June 18, 2025 17:02
The legend of tennis Martina Navratilova (68 years old), winner of 18 Grand Slam titles, is worried about the situation in the United States and says he would not have left Czechoslovakia, at 18, to come to “Trump's America”.
Exactly 50 years ago, in 1975, Martina Navratilova He left Czechoslovakia and the communist regime to start a new life in the United States. He was 18 years old, she was a high school student, and at that time she got an unexpected celebrity: she had become a “fugitive” with a marked profile.
It would arrive much more than that: it won 18 Grand Slam titles, 31 in double and 10 in mixed doubles, most recently in 2006, at the US Open. He spent 332 weeks in the first position of the Simple WTA and 237 ranking, record in the double.
Martina Navratilova: “I would not receive me anymore, I am not a loyal to Trump”
Looking at both, when and at present, Navratilova confessed in an interview for the BBC that he is now fearing that the US would “not receive me”. He also argued why: “I am not loyal to Donald Trump“, Adding that he fears that his country does not become” a totalitarian state “. Just like the one from which he left five decades ago.
Her position is supported by the things that have happened in the United States of America in January, when Donald Trump has entered his duties. Raids to identify and deport to immigrants, travel prohibition for citizens from 12 countries along with rumors that some tourists are detained on the border.
“If I were now in the same position as in 1975 and I should go to live else“She emphasized.
Navratilova puts on the table frustration, including the one related to compatriots who do not notice how the situation is progressively worsen. “The US is entitled against immigrants. People are rejected by Homeland Security because they disagree with Donald Trump's ideas because they don't kiss the ring”, Explained the legendary former player.
Martina Navratilova, “idyllic” childhood in Czechoslovakia
She confessed that it was not easy in 1975 to make the decision to go to the US. He had had an “idyllic” childhood in Revnice, a town with 3,800 inhabitants, located in the current Czech, 16 kilometers from the capital Prague. A loving family he left behind, admitting that “I didn't know when or if I would see my parents again”.
At the time he left Czechoslovakia, he said in a press conference that he wants to become the world number one, something impossible “in the circumstances at home”. He fulfilled his dream, but now the doubts have appeared.
Martina Navratilova and her trainer, Vera Sukova, in 1973, at Prague Photo: Imago Images
167of WTA titles, record for era Open, has Martin Navratilova track
Martina Navratilova has double citizenship, American and Czech, and lives in the US with her wife, Julia Lemigova (52 years old), former model and Miss USSR 1990.
Fear he could lose his US passport? “Everything is in the air now, that's about it. The world goes like eggs without knowing what will happen”, The former WTA leader concluded.
