Following growing friction with Czechoslovak sports authorities, who resented her increasingly Americanized style and independence, Martina Navratilova applied for asylum in the United States. The move effectively ended her ability to return home and launched a career in which she would become one of the greatest tennis players in history, eventually winning 18 Grand Slam singles titles and becoming a U.S. citizen in 1981.
Czechoslovak tennis officials had grown wary of Navratilova's independent streak, her friendships with Western players, and what state media described as her decadent tendencies, including a fondness for American fast food that had, by her own admission, added unwanted pounds. She had just finished playing the U.S. Open in Forest Hills when she decided the risk of never being allowed to travel again outweighed the terror of leaving her family behind, possibly for good.
She walked into the offices of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in New York and requested political asylum, telling officials simply that she didn't want to go back. The decision, made largely alone at eighteen, meant years of separation from her mother and sister in Czechoslovakia, since the communist government retaliated by effectively erasing her from Czech sporting history and denying her family exit visas for years.
The gamble paid off athletically beyond anything she could have imagined. Navratilova went on to dominate women's tennis through the 1980s, forming a fierce rivalry with Chris Evert and redefining the women's game with an aggressive, athletic serve-and-volley style. Her defection also made her one of the Cold War's most visible sporting symbols, a walking rebuke to the Soviet bloc's claims of superiority.