Tennis Player Martina Navratilova Diagnosed with Stage 1 Cancer

In a statement to the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) on Monday, January 2, Martina Navratilova explained why she won’t be covering the Australian Open as was originally planned.  In 2010, the then-53-year-old was diagnosed with breast cancer. Reportedly, she cried “for about 15 seconds” before moving on to figure out her next steps. She had played tennis professionally from 1974 to 2006 and went on to claim, and still hold over a decade later, the WTA Tour’s all-time record of 167 titles won during her long career.

During the WTA Finals in Fort Worth, TX in the first week of November 2022, Navratilova discovered swollen lymph nodes. For someone with her cancer history, this was obviously concerning, so she went to her doctor who confirmed that what she had found was Stage 1 throat cancer. Later, they found a suspicious lump in her breast which was also found to be Stage 1 cancer.  Luckily, the cancers were found early and are treatable with good expected outcomes. “This double whammy is serious but still fixable,” Navratilova says.

As an athlete, Martina Navratilova is a legend. After her long professional career, she went on to coach and broadcast for the WTA Tour. She used her platform to promote the importance of preventive health care, specifically in reference to diseases like breast cancer.

As a public figure, her legacy is mixed. She was outed as bisexual in 1981, then later went on to identify herself as lesbian. She married long-term girlfriend Julia Lemigova in 2014. Being an out lesbian in sports makes her someone to look up to. That said, her stance on trans women in sports leaves a bad taste in the mouth and echoes transphobic rhetoric about the erasure of women.

Regardless of the controversy around her, Martina Navratilova is undeniably a fighter. Her good friend, Pam Shriver, a great tennis player in her own right, says, “You’ve got to put together quite the collaborative medical approach, and… she’ll put together the best team… And the way she competes, the way she relies on your ability to roll up your sleeves and compete.”

Navratilova intends to arrange Zoom arrangements for the upcoming Australian Open, since she will be unable to attend physically.

Photo courtesy of social media