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Martina Navratilova at the US Open 2022
Photo: Tim Clayton - Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova says she is cancer-free. The 66-year-old announced this on Twitter after undergoing extensive examinations at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
"Thank you to all the doctors, nurses, proton and radiation magicians, etc. – what a relief," she wrote.
Navratilova had announced in January that she had been diagnosed with laryngeal and breast cancer. In the same month, she began treatment. For the tennis legend, it was not the first cancer. In 2010, she had already been diagnosed with non-invasive breast cancer, and after six months of treatment, the former world number one was considered cancer-free. At that time, she "cried for about 15 seconds" and then asked the doctor, "Okay, what can we do, what's the next step?"
In an interview with British presenter Piers Morgan in March, she called the new treatment "definitely the hardest thing I've ever done". When she learned of her recent cancers, she had "total panic" for three days, "because I thought I wouldn't live to see Christmas," Navratilova said. She had made a list of all the things she still wanted to do.
"And that may sound very superficial, but I thought to myself, 'What awesome car do I really want to drive if I live another year or so?'" Giving up, giving in, quitting – that's out of the question for her, Navratilova said. »Giving up is just not in my DNA.«
The 18-time Grand Slam singles champion had noticed an enlarged lymph node on her neck in November 2022, and a biopsy revealed early-stage laryngeal cancer. In March, she resumed her television work on the Tennis Channel.
kjo/dpa/AP