Background and career
Martina Navratilova (Czech: Martina Navrátilová, pronounced [ˈmarcɪna ˈnavraːcɪlovaː] ; née Šubertová [ˈʃubɛrtovaː]; born October 18, 1956) is a Czech-American former professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 in women's singles for 332 weeks (second-most all time), including as the year-end No. 1 seven times, and was world No. 1 in women's doubles for a record 237 weeks. Navratilova won 167 top-level singles titles and 177 doubles titles (both the Open Era records), including an Open Era record 59 major titles: 18 in singles, an all-time record 31 in women's doubles, and an Open Era record 10 in mixed doubles. Her nine Wimbledon singles titles are an all-time record. Alongside Chris Evert, her greatest rival, Navratilova dominated women's tennis for much of the 1980s.
Navratilova won a record six consecutive singles majors across 1983 and 1984 while simultaneously winning the Grand Slam in doubles. Navratilova claims the best professional season winning percentage, 98.9% in 1983 (going 86–1 for the season), and the longest all-surface winning streak of 74 straight match wins. She reached the Wimbledon singles final 12 times, including for nine consecutive years from 1982 through 1990. Navratilova is one of three tennis players, along with Margaret Court and Doris Hart, to have accomplished a career Grand Slam in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles, called the career "Boxed Set". She won her last major title, the mixed doubles competition at the 2006 US Open, shortly before her 50th birthday, and 32 years after her first major title in 1974.
Originally from Czechoslovakia, Navratilova was stripped of her citizenship when she asked the United States for political asylum in 1975. She became a US citizen in 1981, and in 2008, also acquired Czech citizenship. Navratilova has been openly gay since 1981, and has been an activist on gay rights.
Navratilova was born Martina Šubertová in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Her parents divorced when she was three, and her mother, an accomplished gymnast, tennis player, and ski instructor, moved the family to Řevnice. In 1962, her mother Jana married Miroslav "Mirek" Navrátil, who became her first tennis coach. Martina then took the name of her stepfather (adding the feminine suffix -ová), thus becoming Martina Navrátilová. Her biological father, Miroslav Šubert, was a ski instructor and had died when Martina was still a young girl.
Navratilova has a younger sister, Jana, and an older paternal half-brother. Her grandmother, Agnes Semanska, was a tennis player for the Czechoslovak Federation before the Second World War and had a ranking as high as No. 2 among Czechoslovak women during her amateur career.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth, in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
