Martina Navratilova
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 July 2012
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway is the legendary tennis player, Martina Navratilova.
In an extraordinary career she's won 59 Grand Slam titles - her last just a few weeks short of her fiftieth birthday. Her life off the court has been equally eventful - she grew up in communist Czechoslovakia and, as a teenager, threw rocks as Soviet tanks rolled in; tennis offered a way to see the world and she defected to the US when she was 18 years old. After thirty years at the top of her profession she retired - and says she finally found time for the rest of her life: "Tennis really was a total commitment, you didn't have much time for anything else. So, when I quit, I was going through something emotionally that most people go through when they're 18, 20 years old. Really having the time for personal relationships, developing friendships and taking the time with everybody. I think I've caught up by now."
Producer: Leanne Buckle.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:06.0 | For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast. |
| 0:10.0 | For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:17.0 | Radio 4. The My castaway this week is Martina Navratilova. Her career in tennis is unparalleled and her life off the court has been equally eventful. |
| 0:44.0 | She was only 18 when she defected from Czechoslovakia |
| 0:48.0 | playing at the highest level for the next 30 years. |
| 0:51.0 | Her last Grand Slam victory was just a few weeks short of her 50th birthday. She has |
| 0:55.8 | said, my father told me about tennis, told me to play aggressively like a boy. I already |
| 1:01.0 | did. To take a chance, invent shots shots he told me I would win Wimbledon someday I believe that part |
| 1:07.4 | So Martina Navratilova you have picked up 59 Grand Slam wins in an astonishing career. |
| 1:13.2 | How old were you when your father told you |
| 1:15.2 | you would one day when Wimbledon? |
| 1:16.7 | Well, I think it was around 7, 8, 9, you know, |
| 1:19.7 | maybe 8, 9, because I really didn't have a beforehand |
| 1:22.0 | until I was 7, because I was too't have a beforehand until I was seven because I was |
| 1:23.2 | too little I played with my grandmother's racket and it was too big to hold with one |
| 1:27.6 | hand so I had to just hit two-handed backhands and when I could finally hold |
| 1:31.0 | it with one hand that's when we got on the court but I mean the passion was always there |
| 1:34.6 | But I think my father realized that I was amazingly gifted my life charm. He called it my golden arm the golden arm he just thought that I had the talent you |
| 1:44.7 | know he kind of saw it early on and when he said that you'd win Wimbledon you know we tend to |
| 1:48.3 | seven eight nine we pretty much believe most things her parents tell us did you |
| 1:51.8 | believe him when he told you that? |
... |
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