Monica Seles

The most prolific winner of professional tennis tournaments turns 53 years old Sunday – and she still is active in World Team Tennis competition. Here’s a look at her incredible career, as documented by Bud Collins in his book ON THIS DAY IN TENNIS HISTORY ($35.95, New Chapter Press, www.TennisTomes.com)

As the game’s most prolific winner of the Open era—prob­ably ever—Martina Navratilova, the puissant left-hander, contin­ued to add to her record totals, as recently as 2006, getting on with her tennis life… indefinitely? Yet a presence in doubles, she won the Wimbledon mixed in 1995 with Jonathan Stark and, incredibly, buoyantly, in 2003, the Australian and Wimble­don mixed with Leander Paes of India. Enough? Not quite. As the climax of the 2006 U.S. Open, she hitched onto another star American lefty, Bob Bryan, to win the mixed—her 59th major! They beat a pair from Martina’s homeland, the Czech Republic, Kveta Peschke and Martin Damm, who probably looked up to her as children, 6-2, 6-3.

She couldn’t scale Aussie Margaret Court’s Everestian record of 62 singles, doubles and mixed. But Martina gave it a jolly good try through the 32 years from her initial major, the French mixed of 1974 with Colombian lefty Ivan Molina, 6-3, 6-3, over Mexicans Rosie Reyes Darmon and Marcelo Lara. So the supposedly con­cluding total (59) amounts to 18 singles, 31 doubles, 10 mixed. Through merely 33 years, those are figures for the majors. Career: 168 singles, 177 doubles, 10 mixed—355 championships.

Marvelous Martina may have “retired” from singles at the 1994 year-end WTA Championships at Madison Square Garden, an opening-round defeat by Gabriela Sabatini, 6-4, 6-2, as thou­sands cheered and wept, saying goodbye and thanks for the memories. After all, she had done so much in New York, win­ning that prime championship eight times in singles (five times runner-up), 10 times in doubles, plus four singles and 11 dou­bles titles across the East River at the U.S. Open. But, as it has turned out, nobody wanted her to leave—least of all herself. By the time her second home, Wimbledon, rolled around in 2003, she would catch up with her old pal Billie Jean King’s record with a 20th title at the Big W, the mixed with Indian Leander Paes, over Anastasia Rodionova and Andy Ram. She was 49 years, ten months, nine days when she and Bob Bryan won the U.S. Open, obviously the—shall we say?—most experienced personage to grab a major, somewhat longer in the tooth, but with plenty of bite, than the bygone Mellburnian, Norman Brookes. He was 46 years, two months, in winning the 1924 Australian doubles. Well, it’s certain she’s the most prominent mature champ, but it must be pointed out that another Aussie, Horace Rice, was 52 while winning the Australian mixed with Sylvia Lance in 1923. Prob­ably Martina can accept that, and settle for second place.

Nobody, ever, has such a glittering trove of numbers. As a pro since 1973, she played the most singles tournaments (389) and matches (1,661), and won the most titles (168) with a won-loss mark of 1,442-219. She won more prize money, $21,626,089, than all but Ivan Lendl and Pete Sampras.

Her doubles feats, attesting to a grandeur of completeness, were also sparkling: Second most tournaments (347), most matches played (890), most titles (177) and matches won (747), with a won-lost mark of 747-143. Including mixed doubles (27 tournaments played, 10 titles and a 94-19 W-L record), she holds records for most titles (337) and matches won (2,521, against just 353 losses). Thus, she batted .872 in singles, .890 in doubles, .832 in mixed—.877 for everything. It means she won 48.6 per cent of all the tournaments she entered. Whew!

Arguably the greatest player of all time, Martina was born on Oct. 18, 1956, in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and became a U.S. citizen in 1981, after defecting six years earlier. She was raised by her mother, Jana, and stepfather, Mirek Navratil, whose name she took.

Despite her upbringing on slow clay in the small town of Revnice, outside of Prague, she has always been a tornado-like attacker, a net-rusher. She attracted notice at 16 in Paris, the French Open of 1973, by serving-and-volleying a clay specialist, and former champ, No. 5-seeded Nancy Richey to defeat, reach­ing the quarters unseeded.

Her lustrous 16-year rivalry with Chris Evert was launched that year in Akron, Ohio, an indoor defeat. “She was overweight, but eager and gifted,” Evert remembered. “It was a close match [7-6, 6-3]. Even though I’d never heard of her, and couldn’t pro­nounce or spell her name, I could tell she’d be trouble—espe­cially if she got in shape.”

She was trouble, and eventually the 5-foot-7-1/2, 140-pound Navratilova made extreme fitness her trademark in overcoming Evert, who became her good friend. Although Evert led in the rivalry, 21-4, at the high point of her dominance, Navratilova won their last encounter, Chicago, in 1988, 6-2, 6-2, to wind up with a 43-37 edge. Four years later, also in Chicago, Martina eclipsed Evert’s seemingly unattainable record of 157 pro singles tourna­ment victories. By beating Czech Jana Novotna from two match points down, 7-6 (7-4), 4-6, 7-5, she nailed victory No. 158, and kept going. She had unknowingly begun to stalk Evert at home with her initial title, Pilsen, in 1973.

Her proudest times were spent in the game’s temple, Cen­tre Court, Wimbledon, where she became the all-time singles champ by defeating Zina Garrison in 1990, 6-4, 6-1, her ninth championship. The record of eight had been achieved more than a half-century before when Helen Wills Moody beat Helen Jacobs in 1938.

Navratilova began her run at Moody by beating top-seeded Evert in the 1978 final, 2-6, 6-4, 7-5. She repeated over Evert, but was deterred, momentarily, in the 1980 and 1981 semis by Evert and Hana Mandlikova. Rebounding, she reeled off champion­ships in six successive years, snapping Suzanne Lenglen’s mark of five straight (1919—23). Driving to the 1988 final, she had rolled up 47 straight match wins, three short of Moody’s Wimble­don record streak. But Martina was stopped by the Grand Slam­mer of that year, Steffi Graf, 5-7, 6-2, 6-1.

Graf beat her for the title in 1989, too, but, when Graf lost to Garrison in the 1990 semis, Martina triumphed again in her elev­enth final. There would be one last Centre Court singles final, the twelfth, in 1994, where she lost to Conchita Martinez. The Big M left some lofty records at the Big W for her 22 years besides the titles: Most consecutive finals (nine), most matches (279), singles wins (119), doubles wins (80), overall wins (243). She was 119-13 in singles, 80-14 in doubles, 44-9 in mixed.

Navratilova also won four U.S., three Australian and two French singles. The Australian: 1981 over Evert, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-5; 1983 over Kathy Jordan; 6-2, 7-6 (7-5); 1985 over Evert, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2. The French: 1982 over Andrea Jaeger 7-6 (8-6), 6-1; 1984 over Evert, 6-3, 6-1. Winning the U.S. was her most frustrating trial. Not until her eleventh try, in 1983 (having lost the 1981 final in a tie-breaker to Tracy Austin) did Navratilova make it: 6-1, 6-3, over Evert. She duplicated the next year over Evert, in a high quality struggle, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, adding 1986 over Helena Sukova, 6-3, 6-2, and 1987 over Graf, 7-6 (7-4), 6-1. In 1991, almost 35, she was the tourney’s oldest losing finalist since 40-year-old Molla Mallory in 1924, bowing to Monica Seles, 7-6 (7-1), 6-1.

Only one prize, a singles Grand Slam, eluded her—barely in 1983 and 1984. Although 1983 was her most overpower­ing season (16 victories in 17 tournaments on an 86-1 match record), it was 1984 (13 victories in 15 tourneys on 78-2) when the Slam seemed certain. With three of the titles in her satchel, she reached the semis of the last major that year, the Australian, on a pro record 74-match winning streak. However, Sukova, who had ball-chased for her in Prague years before, intervened, 1-6, 6-3, 7-5, snapping her streak of six consecutive major titles. Man­dlikova also snipped her second longest streak, 56, in the 1987 Australian final, 7-5, 7-6 (7-1).

Navratilova did, however, register a doubles Grand Slam with Pam Shriver in 1984. Perhaps the greatest of all teams, Navratilova-Shriver won 20 majors (equaling the record total of Americans Louise Brough and Margaret duPont, 1942-57). The Navratilova-Shriver combine produced 79 tournament victories, including 10 season-climaxing Virginia Slims titles, and a record 109-match winning streak between 1983 and a 1985 loss in the Wimbledon final to Liz Smylie and Kathy Jordan, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.

From 1985 to 1987, she was in the final of all 11 majors (Aus­tralian not held in 1986), winning six, a singular feat until Steffi Graf played in 12 straight between 1987, and 1990, winning 10. In 1987 she made a rare triple at the U.S. Open (singles, doubles, mixed), the third of the Open era.

Phenomenally, for almost two decades, 1975-91, Navratilova was no worse than No. 4 in the WTA rankings, seven times attain­ing No. 1 (1978-79, 82-83-84-85-86). Returning to the top in 1982, she embarked on a record run of 156 weeks into 1987, until sup­planted by Graf, who broke the record with 186 straight weeks.

Martina moved to the United States in 1975 after learning that sports federation authorities in the communist Czecho­slovak government reportedly planned to curtail her travel because they disapproved of what was called her increasing “Americanization.”

“I knew I had to defect,” she said. She announced her inten­tion of becoming a U.S. citizen at the 1975 U.S. Open. For years, she was considered a “non-person,” her results never printed or announced in Czechoslovakia.

Returning to her homeland in triumph (and to the govern­ment’s discomfort) as a U.S. citizen in 1986, she led her adopted country’s team to a Federation Cup victory, as she had done for Czechoslovakia 11 years before. Playing for the U.S., she was peerless, unbeaten, winning the decisive singles over Mandlik­ova, 7-5, 6-1 and helped win two other Federation Cups, 1982 and 1989, as well as one Wightman Cup in 1983.

Navratilova credits one of her coaches, pro basketball lumi­nary Nancy Lieberman, for “turning my career around in 1981. Even though I’d won two Wimbledons, she sternly lectured me that I was wasting my talent, needed to work harder than ever, give tennis total commitment. Thanks to her burning me I did.”

Oakland was her last tour stop prior to the Garden in 1994, and Martina’s last final on her own. She lost narrowly and gamely to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, 1-6, 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-3). “It would have been nice to have said goodbye to the tour with a win,” she sighed after the two-hour, 23-minute test. As it devel­oped, she didn’t say goodbye, only “see-ya in a bit.” She dabbled in doubles for three tourneys in 1995, got the Wimbledon mixed title, with Jonathan Stark, reappeared in 2000, and found out she could keep up with the kids, and then some. With Natalia Zvereva in 2002, she resumed adding to her record, winning Madrid over Sanchez Vicario and Rossana Neffa-de los Rios. For a lark, she entered one more singles tournament, Eastbourne. Astoundingly she beat No. 25 Tatiana Panova, then nearly upset Daniela Hantuchova. “What’s that lady doing charging the net?” the kids wondered, thinking they’d seen the ghost of champi­onships past. An intelligent, good humored, often opinionated ghost. In 2004, she made more singles cameos, playing five sin­gles tournaments, including the French and Wimbledon. Both majors were ended by Argentinean teenager Gisela Dulko, 6-1, 6-3 in Paris and 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 at Wimbledon. All was in prepara­tion for her clinching a spot on the 2004 U.S. Olympic team. She was an ancient Olympian in Athens—the oldest competi­tor ever in the tennis competition at age 48—but fell short of medaling with partner Lisa Raymond, losing in the quarterfinals of doubles.

Another of her coaches, Renee Richards, had it right at the Hall of Fame induction in 2000, calling her “Martina the Magnificent.”

MAJOR TITLES (59)—Australian singles, 1981, 1983, 1985; French singles, 1982, 1984; Wimbledon singles, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1990; U.S. singles, 1983. 1984, 1986, 1987; Australian doubles, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987,1988, 1989; Australian mixed, 2003; French doubles, 1975. 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988; Wimbledon doubles. 1976, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986; U.S. doubles, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990; French mixed, 1974, 1985; Wimbledon mixed, 1985, 1993. 1995; 2003; U.S mixed, 1985, 1987, 2006.

OTHER U.S.TITLES (8)—Indoor singles, 1975, 1981, 1984, 1986; Indoor doubles, 1979, with Billie Jean King; 1981, 1984, 1985, with Pam Shriver.

FEDERATION CUP—1975, 1982, 1986, 1989, 20-0 singles, 16-0 doubles. WIGHTMAN CUP—1983, 2-0 singles, 1-0 doubles.

SINGLES RECORD IN THE MAJORS—Australian (46-7), French (52-10), Wimbledon (120-14), U.S. (89-17).