Navratilova: Defection & Content Writing Career

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The US Open was still played in Forest Hills, green clay. On Friday, September 5, 1975, Martina Navrátilová joined the semifinals against Chris Evertová and in the second set at 4: 3, the referee denied her regular ball. The eighteen -year -old Czech man decided that the next nine fifts lost – and thus the whole match.

It was a key moment of the duel for New York journalists and did not solve anything else after it. Naturally, they had no idea that behind the scenes the story is much more important. For Navrátilová and indeed for world tennis.

The young player headed straight to the immigration office. Ask for political asylum.

Although the event was prepared in advance, everything was not smooth. The Navrátil manager had no experience with such things, so he asked a lawyer who worked at counter -intelligence during the Korean War and knew people in the right places, including the FBI. What he did not know, however, was the exact address of the office. In addition, a holiday started Rosh of Ha-ShanaJewish New Year, and it was not easy to get a taxi that would quickly take them from Queens to Manhattan.

In the end they got there in time and Navrátilová signed all the necessary documents. “You are from the Communist country, you will certainly get asylum,” she assured her immigration clerk.

She was right. Navrátilová won the green card in 30 days. After half a year, she also got rid of the supervision of federal agents who protected her from the threat of Eastern European secret services. The most famous sports escape came to Happy End.

Navrátilová has already entered the fateful US Open as a deployed three, plus finalist Roland Garros and Australian Open. Beautiful start of career. But in Czechoslovakia and quite a problem.

The officials played a young hope abroad with an ever -less willingness. They urged her to concentrate on the completion of high school, as education in socialist society is more important than the ephemeral sports successes.

However, they bothered even more that they behave too independently abroad. Freely. She spends her free time with American tennis players, doesn’t live with the rest of the expedition, and once even without the knowledge of MS. The offices in the US extended to complete another tournament.

“You are very American,” she heard after returning from the comrades from the Union.

Therefore, in August 1975, she flew to New York with a plan that she would not return home and go to her tennis dreams. She didn’t tell anyone about it. Not even parents. Even after applying for asylum, she wanted to keep the thing secret for some time, but the next day the message of escape unexpectedly appeared in The Washington Post. The editors apparently had a good resource for immigration.

The Navrátilians had no choice but to leave the hotel in a hurry and hide with friends. In order to have peace from journalist calls for a while, she organized a press conference shortly before the Sunday final of the male singles. She said that the main motive for emigration is the desire to become a world leader, which she would hardly succeed in Czechoslovakia, where the fate of athletes depends on the will of party officials.

Homemade fans who have not tuned Voicethey learned of the escape with a almost two -week delay. The Union of 18 September issued a statement, in a similar way as always in such cases: “The tennis career means playing only tennis, going from one tournament to another, having your own bank account and not watching what will happen next.

For a long 14 years it was the last longer mention of Navrátilová in the Czechoslovak media.

Abroad, the escape of a talented tennis player became a sensation and the news of him got to the front pages of the main diaries. Even in the US, however, not only supporters admiring her courage to go to an unknown world.

For example, some journalists have found inappropriate that a high school student with a Gucci handbag and an expensive watch, which earned $ 134,000 in eight months in tournaments, was talking about freedom and democracy. They also attributed its emigration exclusively economic motifs. They did not believe that the top athlete could even bother social or political issues. It was a fundamental mistake, as they should have found out over time.

Probably the most tone of the normalization printing approached the Canadian letter The Gazette. “Martina refugee chose money,” said the headline, whose author suggested that the word emigration in connection with Navrátilová should be put in quotation marks. “We don’t even use it for our hockey stars when they apply for US citizenship for financial reasons.”

He also read that she was happy to escape the cold -warrings longing for international tension and that she could damage the promising sports contacts between East and the West. “Certainly everything could be solved more elegantly,” he decided.

On the other hand, it is true that Navrátilová in the first months of the new life went similar to opinions opposite and successfully gave the impression of a naive girl dazzled by the tinsel of capitalism. She shopped at Tiffany’s accompanied by reporters, at other times she boasted what new car she would buy. During her matches, her wrist rattled five gold bracelets and three necklaces swaying on her neck, which irritated some fans.

“I thought I was a perfect appearance, but I probably exaggerated it a bit,” laughed it ten years later in the autobiography written with American journalist George Vecsey and translated by writer Josef Škvorecký for his exile.

At the same time, with the passage of time, she could admit that the obsession with shopping was a manifestation of the emotional instability that had been emigrated after emigration. She was young, abroad alone, and she was just looking for real friends and a new home. She had no one close to direct her.

Moreover, it was not even on the court. At least not as she wanted – and how the tennis world expected it.

In particular, 1976 was critical.

Navrátilová gained noticeably, resulting in her weakness for hamburgers, milkshaky and night pizza. Who knew her at the age of 80. As a model of the perfect professional who spent hours in the gym and paid a nutritional advisor, he would not believe that it was one and also a person.

She won only two tournaments for the whole season, and offended to fourth in the ranking. She argued with the judges and was able to decide one controversial verdict, sometimes the matches ended in tears.

A really hard fall came to the US Open, where Janet Newberry succumbed in the first round. She cried right on the court and avoided journalists with an arc.

A year after the famous escape, she was referred to as a pamper, Spratka, Ufnukánek. Fortunately, it was not a lasting state for her and for female tennis.

In 1978 Navrátilová finally won Wimbledon and became the world leader. Although to a large extent that Rival Chris Evertová released part of the season. However, she proved that she could be a champion, not just a talented girl from Czechoslovakia.

At the same time, Congress asked for early citizenship. Although the matter justified the wish to represent the US in the Fed Cup, the main motif was purely practical. In order not to undergo unnecessary bureaucratic procedures when returning to America, so that it is under the official protection of a new homeland abroad.

But she was not complied with. Given her political preferences, it is a funny paradox that the application was supported by the Republican Congressman of Texas, while his democratic colleague from Pennsylvania wondered why it should have an advantage over other applicants. She had to wait until 1981.

Even this time it was not a simple procedure. In a way, also for political reasons.

It has not been a secret in tennis circles for years that Navrátilová understands more with women than with men (so she later characterized her mood herself), but she was afraid that if she began to talk publicly, as a too controversial person would not have to get citizenship. All the more so because in some American states – for example in Virginia where she was just living – homosexuality was of iure still with a crime.

Therefore, the lawyer adopted the whole process in liberal California. With a happy ending: July 20, 1981, she composed a solemn oath and became a US citizen.

Only then – though a little unplanned – did the coming out. Reporter New York Daily News He published a few weeks old and very personal conversation, although he originally promised to consult his timing.

The canceled advertising contracts lost about ten million dollars. She also had to listen to tiring debates about how much lesbians were harmful to tennis and how many of them were in the TOP 10. However, it seemed that the award of citizenship and coming out shakes all the previous weight (moreover, for the first time in the US, she hired a permanent coach).

Although many experts have already depreciated her, she was 25 years old and had “only” two titles from Wimbledon, only then her journey to sports history began.

In the next three seasons, she lost only six (!) Matches and her female tennis clearly reigned. In 1984 she won 74 singles in a row and became the fourth best paid athlete in the world. She had higher incomes than the NBA stars, earning more than Wayne Gretzky and Diego Maradon.

In total, she dominated 167 tournaments in her career and was the world leader for 332 weeks. She won the last Grand Slam title in July 1990. Not long after the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

When American journalists in November 1989 asked what all the news in Eastern Europe was saying, she remembered her escape. “Looking back, I ask myself: God, where did I take the courage back then? But I am proud to have done it. I just regret that I wasn’t allowed to see my parents for a long time.

Martina Navrátilová became a citizen of his native country again in 2008.