Talk:Martina Navratilova/Archive 2

equipment section is missing, where Navratilova is especially noteworthy in tennis history
Navratilova, being a former #1, really should have an equipment section. She is also noteworthy for having played so long ago that she had several wood racquets with her name on them as well as having played professionally as recently as 2006 (when she won the US Open Mixed with Bob Bryan using a Bosworth graphite racquet). She is also noteworthy for really capitalizing on the large (midsize, but large for the time) graphite racquets in women's tennis. Although others used them, her game went to the next level with her switch to the Yonex R-7 and then R-22. Particularly noteworthy is her comment in 1982 or so that those racquets (larger than standard size graphite racquets) should be banned from the sport because they make the game too easy. She said she would use one until any ban went into effect so as not to be handicapped but felt they were a degradation of the sport. So, even though her greatest dominance came with those racquets she was willing to play without them. That is very unusual. Most professional tennis players, when asked about reverting to wood or standard size racquets, are very opposed if they did not have their best results with them, making protectionism for their results more prominent than the good of the sport. Navratilova criticized the effects on the sport from the increasingly powerful equipment as the years went on, even as she played, around 1999, with the stiffest racquet ever introduced to the public, the Prince More Game — which had an RA rating of 80 or more. So, she did not waver in her position. Other players, like Agassi, have said polyester strings have degraded the game and should be banned. He said they would have helped him as a player but they unbalance the sport by making returns too good versus volleys. McEnroe has also said the powerful graphite racquets are an unwelcome change, arguing that his recent Dunlop graphite racquet let him serve faster in his 50s than he did in his prime, which was not a good thing. McEnroe also produced a formal letter that was signed by Rod Laver, Martina Navratilova, and others, advocating for a return to low-power small-headed racquets. Like Navratilova, McEnroe had his best results with a midsize racquet (a flexible low power graphite, but still a larger more powerful racquet than a standard wood), so his comments appear to be more than just pining for the past which is the frame critics of their position usually try to dismiss the argument by using. McEnroe, Laver, and Navratilova have also cited things like slowed homogeneous hard courts replacing grass and indoor carpet as also being factors in the loss of serve and volley and all-court playing styles, in favor of the primarily baseline play with heavy topspin that dominates the game. 24.33.93.239 (talk) 05:34, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * A former player and now tennis authority (whose name I can't recall but he was the ATP president recently) said there was a purposeful decision by the governing body to slow court surfaces and homogenize them. His argument is that audiences prefer to see longer rallies. This argument seems obsolete, really only accurate in the context of a comparison with the dominance of quick points in the era of Ivanišević, and even then it is a subjective one that doesn't fit with a lot of spectators (who enjoyed watching the short points created by aggressive net rushers). That Ivanišević was one where graphite racquets had become powerful enough to make serve and volley dominant, especially the serve, but strings, head sizes, and court surfaces had not yet become so favorable for topspin from the baseline. Many complained about the shortness of points at Wimbledon in particular in the time when Ivanišević won it but making tournaments, players, and matches homogenized will result in a more boring sport overall. That is the argument those who favor returning to the older equipment make. They say the three major styles of play were rather evenly balanced when standard wood was around, with more grass tournaments, indoor carpet, and some fast hard courts. They cited the relatively equal success of players in the same era like Chris Evert (a baseliner) and Austin (also a baseliner) versus Martina Navratilova (a serve and volleyer) or Margaret Court (a serve and volleyer). Bill Tilden (who holds the highest winning percentage in men's tennis even today) mainly played from the baseline and so did Wills Moody so the argument that standard wood on grass favored the serve and volley style too much is not supported. Additionally, tennis has been losing popularity, especially in America, so the homogenization of the game does not look like it has had the intended result of improving the sport's marketability. Navratilova's role in this debate really deserves its own section, since she publicly made strong statements when the big racquets were first being adopted, capitalized on them anyway since they weren't banned, and continued to support her original position periodically with public statements over her very long career. 24.33.93.239 (talk) 05:40, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You know, instead of writing the same complaint on dozens of articles, get off your duff, do some research and write it yourself. This is a volunteer website and we could always use some help. Just whining about things does no good at all. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:28, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Insulting people who make suggestions is also hardly particularly productive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.33.93.239 (talk) 05:14, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Second sentence re: Tennis magazine naming her best female player for years 1965 to 2005
"In 2005, Tennis magazine selected her as the greatest female tennis player for the years 1965 through 2005 and she is considered one of the best, if not the best, female tennis players of all time.[5][6][7]" None of the provided citations refer to the Tennis magazine article. Also, although I eventually figured out that Tennis must have been simply been limiting its consideration to the years since 1965, it initially sounded like the claim was that Martina was the best player during the entire time from 1965 (when she was 9) until 2005 (when she was 49). Suggest something like "... greatest female player of the era starting in 1965." Yeltommo (talk) 07:59, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Greatness RfC that may affect this article
Just a note to let editors know that there is an ongoing RfC about the term "greatest of all time" (especially in the lead). The discussion ongoing at Talk:Rod Laver. Either way you bend it could affect this article. Join in if you wish. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:36, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Weird sentence
Let me first state that I understand tennis extremely well and have followed it closely for decades. Now let me ask what is this trying to convey?


 * She is one of only five tennis players of all-time to win a multiple slam set in two disciplines, matched only by Margaret Court, Roy Emerson, Frank Sedgman and Serena Williams.

This sentence needs to be rewritten for clarity. I have no idea what it is trying to tell the audience. A non-tennis fan won't get it because I don't. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.173.218.150 (talk) 14:55, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It means they are the only players with at least two career grand slams in two of the disciplines singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Two career grand slams in singles means winning each grand slam event at least two times in your career. Navratilova has two career grand slams in singles, an incredible seven in doubles, and one in mixed doubles. Serena Williams has three in singles and two in doubles. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:40, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
 * So update the article to be that clear — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.173.218.150 (talk) 01:48, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Trans woman coach
I added a sentence about Navratilova hiring a trans woman coach. This was reverted by with the reason that such info "doesn't reflect a neutral POV". This is nonsense. It is absolutely pertinent to the story, indeed to remove it is not acting neutrally. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 19:55, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, I agree this is a non sequitur and should not be added. Donald Trump has employed hundreds of non-white people, he is still incredibly famous for expressing racist views and is a magnet for race hatred. That Navratilova once employed a transwoman, does not stop her views from being transphobic, or, let's say as we do on Wikipedia because we never read minds, her published words being seen to meet the most commonly used definition of transphobic against transwomen. --Fæ (talk) 20:14, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * While I don't think we need to the added sentence on Richards, I think every bit of Fae's writing is baloney. Talk about POV. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:24, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * How does saying "She also gave a coaching job to Renée Richards" (a transwoman from the source, a notably right wing UK newspaper) demonstrate that Navratilova is a "famously tolerant star"? All that really shows is that Navratilova has not been illegally discriminating against LGBT+ people as an employer, pretty much we can say the same thing about Donald Trump. Hardly "baloney". --Fæ (talk) 20:30, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * More baloney. Again, I don't think we need the added sentence but your extreme liberal bias also has no place here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:57, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
 * layoff the ad hominem attacks, they are the thing that has no place here. Others in this discussion disagree, we have been attempting to boil down to the facts in a contentious news fest, where overwhelmingly the sources are repeatedly misgendering transwomen. What you think is in my head, or anyone else's, is irrelevant and is your deliberate choice to be hostile. My interest in LGBT+ topics and current affairs is none of your concern, and deriding me as an "extreme liberal" is a level of fantasy conspiracy theory rubbish that should remain in the right wing press. --Fæ (talk) 08:35, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Then lay off the pov baloney and stick to facts and all will be well. My concern is about properly writing an encyclopedic article about a prominent tennis player. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:55, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The fact that she happened to hire a trans person one time does not, on its own, have anything to do with the matter at hand. (And the source you cited - an article whose title says "the trans lobby shows how intolerant and extreme it has become" - is obviously biased.) Now, if Navratilova has defended herself by talking about working with Renée Richards, fine, that is relevant and we can note her comments. Wandering Wanda  (talk) 20:34, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I am not going to fight to include the statement about Richards. However, people who make objections to the use of that source are wrong. The Telegraph is accepted as a reliable source by Wikipedia, irrespective of whether it is "rightwing" or not, and the sentence that I added from the source is a simple statement of fact, not an editorial opinion. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:44, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
 * This is quite accurate. The source is perfectly fine. Whether it's proper to add it is my only qualm. All her coaches should be listed in a coaching section, with years etc. None should be in her infobox unless it's a current coach... just like we do for today's players. I just don't think it's the best idea to tell readers which coaches are straight, gay or trans. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:04, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Calling some time out to examine the Kirkup Telegraph source in detail.

I have access to the article on LexisNexis (February 21, 2019 Thursday 5:00 PM), and it does not look the same there as the version quoted in the article, which makes me wonder if it was edited by Kirkup to remove the word "bigot" or perhaps "trans lobby" from the title before the database version was released (which I think is probably the version reused by other publishers and certainly is the 'official' version that gets archived). Both versions have the same release time, but the titles are: The archive version lacks the photograph illustration and its byline of The famously tolerant star has been vilified for asking legitimate questions about ‘trans’ women in sport.
 * web published ''By branding Martina Navratilova a bigot, the trans lobby shows how intolerant and extreme it has become
 * archive ''Martina Navratilova is serving up sense on gender

I have not registered with the Telegraph online, so have only compared the text of the first two paragraphs which look the same on a quick check. If someone wants to do a side by side comparison of the full text, I have a pdf of the archive version for research purposes which I can email you.

In terms of content, Kirkup makes a series of (very) controversial assertions to make his thesis that a pro-trans lobby are using "intolerant tactics". Unfortunately these are built on non-facts like:
 * stating that all the extreme views define "the transgender debate"
 * one trans-rights advocate has suggested she should be "executed" but not naming who, or providing a reference
 * Though many gay-rights campaign groups have embraced the trans agenda, many gay people have doubts - these are the sort of vague assertions of hearsay, which really mean nothing apart from looking like evidence
 * two paragraphs are about the Karen White prisoner case This is a highly recognizable anti-trans trope that has been used across the internet to constantly derail calm discussion about gender identity, and does nothing to illuminate a discussion about transwomen in sport or Navratilova's stated views
 * the web version has "trans lobby" in the title, but there is no explanation of what group this is, from the available evidence this appears to a way of creating a false opposition to fight against, similar to the way the press once routinely used "gay agenda". Its removal may indicate that Kirkup had doubts about using the phrase

If the Kirkup piece is used as a source, it should be directly balanced by other reliable sources with alternative viewpoints and a different bias. It is an opinion piece which is highly reliant on biased hearsay and lacks references. --Fæ (talk) 09:17, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not following here. The article in question is used as a source for one thing... to confirm that Navratilova hired a transsexual coach, namely Renee Richards. If the problem is usage of the term "trans woman" (as seems ok in the wikipedia Transsexual article), then that could be easily changed to simply "transsexual" with the same source. Or a different source like Tennis.com could be used in its place. For me the question is does it help the article to emphasize her coaches gender when none of her other coaches' genders seem to matter? To me it's trivial and unneeded in the tennis article and doesn't seem all that relevant to the section. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:43, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
 * We should be cautious and prefer less controversial sources over op-eds which are written to be controversial to attract readers, in this case by a political journalist who is also the director of the SMF. Finding better stable sources about Renée Richards is not difficult, there are plenty in the BLP to reuse, or one can google for reliable sources which review the 2011 film of her life, or get a copy of her 1983 autobiography from a library and quote from it. As the autobiography was published whilst she was coaching Navratilova, it probably gets a mention. --Fæ (talk) 09:56, 28 February 2019 (UTC)


 * PaleCloudedWhite since you weren't happy with my edit I did try and figure out a way to work Renée Richards into the section in a way that felt more relevant to the current controversy. I'm always happy to try and find a middle ground. :) I read through Navratilova's opinion piece specifically to see what, if anything, she said about Renée Richards there. And, well, she does spend a couple paragraphs talking about Richards, but what she has to say is so bizarre that I'm not sure how to even begin talking about it, let alone working it into the article. So I'm leaving that aside for now.


 * Meanwhile, I've made some other tweaks: 1. You removed an Athlete Ally quote from the section. I get why - it was a bit long - but I think if Navratilova is afforded a brief quote on this, Athlete Ally should be as well. I've restored a pared down version of the quote. 2. You changed deplores "a growing tendency..." to is critical of "a growing tendency...". But "deplore" is the specific word that Navratilova used and I think it better captures her overall tone. Wandering Wanda  (talk) 16:07, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

For anyone who hasn't read Navratilova's piece, it is very weird in a way I don't think news reports have really captured. One of her main points seems to be: it is OK for trans women to compete, as long as they don't have penises. Seriously. At least, that's my interpretation of what she's saying. The piece has been described as transphobic but I think, alternatively, it could be credibly described as penisphobic. She starts off by quoting one of her tweets, which says: "There must be some standards, and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard." She goes on to say that we have to draw a "critical distinction" between trans people who have had bottom surgery, and trans people who have only had hormone treatment. And then she implies that male genitalia somehow directly improves athletic performance by saying that people who have had bottom surgery "rarely enjoy competitive advantage": Let me make a critical distinction between transgender and transsexual athletes. Transsexuals have decided to change their gender and have had the deed done, surgically. They have made the full commitment. They are few in number and rarely enjoy a competitive advantage. She says she had no objection to Renée Richards competing, noting that Renée changed his [sic] sex through surgery. Meanwhile, she objects to athletes that have only had hormone treatment, and says she fears that someone who hasn't made the "full commitment" of getting surgery might take hormones solely so that they can compete in women's sports, then "reverse his decision" (something that, as far as I know, has never happened once in the history of sports): a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organisation is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he so desires. It’s insane and it’s cheating.

Anyway I don't know how we'd distill the odd positions she's staked out in the piece. I suppose we shouldn't try unless we can find secondary sources that do so, since we're not supposed to interpret primary sources. Wandering Wanda  (talk) 16:55, 28 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, Navratilova's exact words are bizarre. Since the original publication, she has gone on to affirm that she has always said that "trans women are women", though this has only happened in response to her own words being used by anti-LGBT+ lobbyists using her example as a way to deny equal rights in the U.S. My view at this point, is that we should let the media frenzy die down before making anything more than this being a mention in the Wikipedia article. It seems likely that Navratilova will refine and revise her views in the coming weeks, and may even now regret making potentially damaging statements about transwomen in sport without reviewing them with a more diverse set of fact checkers and well established experts, rather than pundits. --Fæ (talk) 17:07, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

A quick follow-up with regard to the writer James Kirkup being a possible future source on transwomen in sport. Kirkup on 3rd March, wrote a vicious piece attacking transwomen for the Mail Online. The repeated use of the conspiracy theory that transwomen have a secret agenda and will stop at nothing to attack any critic is bizarre, and a direct parallel to the nasty 1980s newspaper pieces that endlessly promoted the fantasy of a gay agenda. I'm going to dump a quote here, hopefully this will put editors off using anything that Kirkup writes about transgender people in the future, certainly they cannot be used as a unbiased source - "The transgender equality agenda has advanced through Britain's institutions with extraordinary speed. In a few years, promoting 'trans rights' has become central to healthcare, policing, education and the law, raising many troubling questions. The only thing more extraordinary than the rapid spread of this new orthodoxy is how little scrutiny it has faced and the aggressive intolerance directed towards those who question it. [...] No policy made in the shadows can stand for long in daylight. As more come to see the doctrinaire trans agenda and its consequences - for sport, schools, prisons and women - the more the agenda will falter." --Fæ (talk) 10:01, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * This is the talk page for the Martina Navratilova article, not a platform for espousing views on whether sources meet personal preferences. However I will respond by noting that the information that I extracted from the Kirkup article - that Navratilova had a transwoman coach - could have been extracted from this source or this source, both of which have what could be regarded as an opposing editorial stance to Kirkup, though I am unsure whether they qualify as RS. It is articles that should be unbiased, not sources per se. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:31, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * There are plenty of sources, it's not hard to avoid the most extreme editorials simply to support a widely published and uncontested fact. --Fæ (talk) 09:17, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * But I was more certain that the The Telegraph is RS. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 09:28, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Rather than being stuck in a loop, please recognize that editorials are editorials, actually commissioned for the known bias of the pundit/rent-a-gob. Cherry picking a purported fact from clearly biased editorials, is not the way to source an encyclopaedia when perfectly good and far less biased alternatives exist to substantiate the same fact, in this case even the autobiography of the person the fact is about. Even worse is when an op-ed is the single source for a fact about the employment and transgender status of a living person. --Fæ (talk) 10:08, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Anti-communism section should be renamed Anti-Republican
The "Anti-communism" section says that "perhaps her most consistent theme...has been her unstinting opposition to Communism". However, having begun with that one short paragraph and a quote about her opposition to (pre-1989 European) communism, the bulk of the section deals with her criticism of Republican government in the United States. The section should be renamed, deleted, or re-written to give a clear and detailed account of how, where and when she demonstrated this "unstinting opposition". 2001:BB6:4713:4858:DD3F:571:6A6A:DB36 (talk) 10:04, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Length of Introductory Section
I fully agree that Navratilova is one of the top 2 or 3 female tennis players of all-time, and in some respects it can be argued she is the best female tennis player, even if she is not the best female SINGLES tennis player. The introductory section is much longer than the ones for Chris Evert, Serena Williams and Billie Jean King, and also somewhat longer than the one for Stefi Graf. The length makes it difficult to ascertain the real significance of her - it probably deters a lot of readers from reading about her - plus a good chunk of the information is repeated in the detailed sections. I proposed to remove information that is repeated elsewhere, move some excessive details to the later sections in order to reduce the length by about 1/3rd and to have it contain information more similar to those other 3 tennis greats. I would also propose to reduce the one on Stefi Graph by about 1/5th or 1/4. I await to hear if anyone objects to this.
 * While I'm not sure she is top 3 in 150 years of tennis, she is one of the greatest. I agree the lead is WAY overbloated and should really be trimmed by about 1/2 at least. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:17, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Martina Navratilova's nationality
What is the correct standpoint about Navratilova's nationality between 1975 and 1981? Most of the sources counts her as American. Is it right? --OPES-FRM (talk) 08:50, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * That'll depend on the context of the query. From 75 to 81 she was country-less so as far as banks, and passports, she was a big zip. Sports is different. You need a country sponsor to play ITF tennis and the United States took Martina under their wing. You don't need to be a citizen to be a US tennis player. From a sports standpoint she was American. When she became a citizen in 1981 she could also play Fed Cup for the US. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:03, 7 December 2019 (UTC)