"What a day that was" - Martina Navratilova recalls making political asylum request in America as an 18-year-old while competing in US Open 1975

Former World No. 1 Martina Navratilova has recalled making a political asylum request in the United States of America in 1975 as an 18-year-old.

Navratilova hails from former Czechoslovakia, a country that was troubled by tensions with the Slovaks at the time. In 1992, it split into two countries — the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Navratilova was good friends with Americans Billy Jean King and Chris Evert as a teenager, which did not sit well with the authorities back home. The Daily News reported on September 8, 1975, that the Czech Tennis Federation had asked her to return home before the US Open even got underway.

The-then 18-year-old surprised everyone, including her family and friends, when she requested political asylum in the USA.

A recent social media post on X (formerly Twitter) recalled that September 6 marked the day Navratilova made the request for political asylum in the USA.

"On this day in 1975, 18-year-old tennis star Martina Navratilova of Czechoslovakia, who would go on to be one of the sport’s greatest, requested political asylum in the United States. Navratilova made the request in New York, where she had been playing in the U.S. Open," read the post.

Navratilova responded to the post by saying:

"And what a day that was..."

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“I didn’t have enough opportunities to play tennis” - Martina Navratilova on seeking political asylum

Martina Navratilova at the 2023 Internazionali BNL D'Italia at Foro Italico in Rome, Italy.

When news broke out in 1975 about Martina Navratilova seeking asylum in the USA, she became the talk of the town, especially in the tennis community. Back home, she was stripped of her Czechoslovakian citizenship.

Explaining the reasons behind her actions, Navratilova stated that she was not getting enough opportunities to play tennis due to the interference of Czechoslovakia's communist government.

“I didn’t have enough opportunities to play tennis. I had to ask permission to play in this tournament or that tournament. They didn’t want me to play here. They wanted me to return home and finish school. They thought I was becoming too Americanized. They wanted me to skip Forest Hills and read about it in a newspaper,” she said in 1975.

The 18-time Grand Slam champion also disclosed that she was never thinking about asking for political asylum until people began openly speculating about it in her home country.

“I had stayed two weeks longer than I intended to in this country. Back home they were already saying that I was going to stay forever in the United States. I had not even thought about it until then,” she added.

She was granted temporary residence before becoming a US citizen in 1981.