She was diagnosed with throat and breast cancer, after finding an enlarged lymph node in her neck while competing in Texas last year.
LONDON, UK — Martina Navratilova has been told by doctors that, “as far as they know, I’m cancer-free,” and that she should be “good to go” after some additional radiation treatment.
The 66-year-old Navratilova, an 18-time Grand Slam singles champion and member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, discussed her health in an interview with Piers Morgan on TalkTV scheduled to be aired Tuesday.
Navratilova said in January that she had throat cancer and breast cancer and would be starting treatment.
Navratilova said then that she underwent testing in November of 2022 after finding an enlarged lymph node in her neck during the WTA Finals in Fort Worth, Texas. Her doctors found stage one throat cancer and, later, unrelated stage one breast cancer.
She battled breast cancer once before in 2010, undergoing a successful lumpectomy to remove the cancerous cells.
“I didn’t need to have chemo,” she told CNN at the time. “The surgery was minor. I was out of the hospital that day so nothing to really knock me on my butt and really suffer from, so I was fortunate that I got the kind of cancer that you can control this way.”
During the interview with Morgan, according to The Sun newspaper, Navratilova said that when she was diagnosed, “I was in a total panic for three days, thinking I may not see next Christmas” and came up with a bucket list of things she wanted to do.
Navratilova, widely considered one of the best tennis players of all time, has won 59 Grand Slam titles overall, including 31 in women’s doubles and 10 in mixed doubles. The last was a mixed doubles championship with Bob Bryan at the 2006 U.S. Open, a month shy of her 50th birthday.
Navratilova originally retired in 1994, after a record 167 singles titles and 331 weeks at No. 1 in the WTA rankings. She returned to the tour to play doubles in 2000 and occasionally competed in singles, too.
She has worked as a TV analyst in recent years.
