Lesbians in Tennis
There is a fine line between sanity and madness and sometimes people can make you wonder which side of the line they are on? Strange habits grow on people which showcase a complete different side of their personality. This holds true for some of the famous female tennis stars who had their affiliation with a forbidden group. The situation gets clearer by looking into the life-styles of Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, and Amelie Mauresmo of the tennis world.
Martina Navratilova was a Czech American and former Czechoslovak tennis player. She was a supporter of L*****n rights. Martina was stripped off her citizenship in 1975 at the age of 18. She entered United States and applied for political asylum. She received her green card and played the first US Open in the same year.
Since her first game in 1975, she formed a rivalry with US tennis star Chris Evert.
The rivalry lasted for 10 years and both these players contested against each other more than 80 times. At the end Navratilova won more matches than her foremost contender in the game. Despite their greatest rivalry on court, they were the best friends off.
Martina formed relations with a L*****n author who was known as Rita Mae Brown.
In 1980 she publically announced that she was bisexual. That did not prove to bring any good to her life and she lost many of the sponsors for her game. Nevertheless, she continued her success as a good tennis player.
She remained the partner of Judy Nelson for eight years. The long lasting relationship came to an end in 1991 when they broke up. Nelson took legal action against Martina and claimed 15 million dollars. It was very fleshy issue, so the media gave it full coverage. However, the case was out soon.
Martina was a great supporter of L*****n and g*y rights in America. She opposed the anti-g*y Amendment 2 in 1993 in strongest possible terms and filed a lawsuit against it. In the same year, she delivered a speech at the National March on Washington for L*****n and g*y rights. She also helped the promoters of these rights with money. She was attached to the Rainbow Endowment for quite some time.
In the same category of players, Billie Jean King was also very popular. She was a L*****n tennis star who really took the women tennis to a new level. Billie won 12 Grand Slam singles titles and 14 doubles titles. Billie Jean King put a lot of effort to gain a good reputation as female tennis player. In 1970s some of the female players boycotted the game due to the less prize money. Billie played an instrumental role and raised her voice for the equal amounts for men and women.
In the social scenario, she had married her college mate, Larry King but the relationship shattered when Billie started having affairs with other women.
Billie worked for the development of women tennis very actively. She actually founded an association under the name of “Women’s Sports Foundation”. She also started a magazine for women sports.
In the year 2000, she was honoured with the Capitol Award by the g*y and L*****n Alliance Against Defamation. Elton John’s song “Philadelphia Freedom” is also believed to be a tribute to Billie Jean King.
French Amelie Mauresmo was another L*****n player who had reached the top spots in the game of tennis. She was ranked World Number 1 in 2004. She won the French Open and Wimbledon in 2006. Regardless of her sexual orientation, she proved herself on the court as a best player.
All the women of this category had difficulties in managing a good reputation for them. They were avoided by the sponsors and criticised by people for their odd habits but still they rocked the tennis world.
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