"Literally a pain in the neck": Martina Navratilova opens up about struggles with night matches

Former world number one Martina Navratilova has revealed that she suffered with neck pain while playing during night matches in her playing days. The 68-year-old is regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of women’s tennis in the singles category in the Open era, having won as many as 18 Grand Slam titles.

Navratilova, in a post on her official account on the social media platform X — previously known as Twitter — where she talked about struggling playing under lights because of neck pain. "I used to get a stiff neck from having to keep my head upright during night matches because of the glasses fogging up- literally a pain in the neck!!" she wrote.

Navratilova retired from professional tennis in 2006 after winning 354 titles in her illustrious career, by far the most by a men or a women player in the Open era. She won 167 singles, 177 doubles and 10 mixed doubles titles in her career. Interestingly, despite all those titles, Navratilova never managed to win an Olympic gold for her country.

She also won the WTA Tour Finals eight times in her career. Her most successful Grand Slam event was Wimbledon where she lifted the title nine times. Her first major title in the singles category was Wimbledon in 1978, where she defeated the former world number one Chris Evert in the final with a score of 2-6, 6-4, 7-5. Her last major title was also Wimbledon in 1990, where she defeated America’s Zina Garrison in the final in straight sets with a score of 6-4, 6-1. The year 1983-84, Navratilova was at her very best where she ended up winning six out of Grand Slams in the singles category. During that time, she only failed to win the French Open in 1983 and the Australian Open in 1984.