Only Margaret Smith Court has won more total (62) majors. Adding in her 38 doubles titles, Navratilova won 56 Grand Slam championships. She finished with 18, including four U.S. She won only three major singles titles before she was 25, an age when many women players are ready to retire. With a wicked serve, a rush to the net, and a ferocious volley, she was a full court drama, complete with emotional outbursts. Though raised on the slow clay courts of Czechoslovakia, Navratilova eschewed the polite, baseline-anchored woman's game. citizen six years later, and dominated tennis in the eighties the way Bill Tilden did in the twenties. Martina became a one-name celebrity, like Michael and Reggie, like Magic and O.J. "When she came into the game, she was the European among Americans she leaves as the American among Europeans - and the only grown-up left in the tennis crib. "To have achieved so much, triumphed so magnificently, yet always to have been the other, the odd one, alone: lefthander in a righthanded universe, gay in a straight world defector, immigrant the (last?) gallant volleyer among all those duplicate baseline bytes. "How gratifying it must have been for her," Frank Deford wrote. Her public perception advanced from animosity to acceptance to adulation. It was even more difficult winning over the fans. It was hard shaping up and winning a record nine Wimbledons, including six consecutively on the hallowed grass. It wasn't easy for Martina Navratilova, born a Czechoslovakian but with the heart of an American. Martina Navratilova won 56 Grand Slam championships, second only to Margaret Court. Two decades later, she left tennis as the queen of the game. She came to the United States to play tennis and became the queen of Burger King. Martina Navratilova named SportsCentury athlete No.
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