Thursday, March 28, 2024

Martina Navratilova Comes for ‘Racist’ Tennis Legend Margaret Court in Open Letter

Margare Court (L) and Martina Navratalova
Margaret Court (L) and Martina Navratalova

*Martina Navratilova is calling for the renaming of Margaret Court Arena in Australia’s Melbourne Park after calling the 74-year-old tennis great “a racist and a homophobe.”

The 18-time tennis Grand Slam champion made her plea in an open letter after Court spoke to a Christian radio station on Wednesday and said “tennis is full of lesbians” and that she believed transgender children are the work of “the devil.”

Navratilova responded through an open letter published in The Sydney Morning Herald, where she wrote: “We celebrate free speech, but that doesn’t mean it is free of consequences—not punishment, but consequences.

“We should not be celebrating this kind of behavior, this kind of philosophy. The platform people like Margaret Court use needs to be made smaller, not bigger.”

Navratilova said she had forgiven Court, who has 24 Grand Slam titles, for comments she made in 1990, when she said the Czech-American was a bad role model due to her homosexuality. But Navratilova went on to explain that she was unaware of Court’s remarks about the apartheid regime in South Africa.

“South Africa has the racial situation rather better organized than anyone else, certainly much better than the United States,” the Australian said in 1970, according to the BBC.

“It is now clear exactly who Court is: an amazing tennis player, and a racist and a homophobe,” Navratilova wrote. “Her vitriol is not just an opinion. She is actively trying to keep LGBT people from getting equal rights (note to Court: we are human beings, too). She is demonizing trans kids and trans adults everywhere.”

Melbourne Park is the venue the Australian Open every January.

Navratilova finished her letter by suggesting the venue in Melbourne be renamed as the Evonne Goolagong Arena, a 14-time Grand Slam winner of Aboriginal descent, adding: “Now there is a person we can all celebrate. On every level.”

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