“I wouldn’t leave the Trump’s home for America”

Fifty years ago, Martina Naratilova left everything she knew in communist Czechoslovakia to launch a new life in the United States.

At that time, an 18-year-old student in high school, she was one of the most blinded Cold War defects-and would become one of the most iconic tennis players.

But speaking with Amol Rajan to the BBC, she says she is afraid of the United States now “would not let me go.”

“I’m not loyal to (US president) Donald Trump,” she says, adding that she is worried that the US has become a “totalitarian” country.

Since President Trump took office in January, his administration has Medicone Immigration raidssparks Protests in parts of the countryS He also created a ban on travel for Citizens from 12 countriesand there are reports of Tourists have been detained at the borderS

“If I was still in the same position now (as in 1975) and I had to go to live somewhere, it would not be America, because at the moment it’s not a democracy,” she says.

When she talks about American politics, Navrailova’s impotence is tangible. She believes that people have not noticed what she says is a situation that is gradually getting worse.

The United States, she adds, “definitely turns against migrants.”

“I want to say that people get out of internal security, they get out because they are not completely on board with Donald Trump’s agenda … because they don’t kiss the ring,” she says.

This decision to defect the United States in 1975. It was not easy to make, she says. She describes that she has an “idyllic” childhood growing up in Revnice, in a modern Czech Republic, with a loving family that she leaves behind. “I never knew when I would see my parents again – or if I see them.”

But this changed the course of Naratilov’s life. At that time, she told a press conference that she had left Czechoslovakia because she wanted to become a world number one in tennis – and that “she cannot do so in these circumstances at home.”

It really continued to turn into number one – both in women’s single for 332 weeks and in pairs for women for a record 237 weeks. Now it is considered one of the largest tennis players in the world.

Navratilova is a double American and Czech citizen and still lives in the United States with his wife, model Julia Lemigova. Is it worried that in the current political climate he can lose his own citizenship?

“Everything is in the air right now and that’s the whole meaning. All go on egg shells without knowing what will happen.”

However, there is an extremely separation object that she earned earlier that she agreed with President Trump – the involvement of transsexual women in sports.

Navratilova is firm in her belief that the inclusion of trans women in women’s tennis is “wrong”.

She says she disagrees with the rules of the current World Tennis Association (WTA), which state transgender women can participate in women’s games if they provide a written and signed declaration that they are women or non-bodies, that testosterone levels are below a certain limit for two years and that they maintain these testosterone levels.

She says she believes trance women have biological advantages in women’s sports – a faith that is discussed hotly.

“There should be no absentmism, there should be no harassment,” she says, “but men bodies have to play in men’s sports. They can still compete. There is no ban on transwomen in sports. They just have to compete in the right category, which is the male category. It’s so simple.”

She adds: “By including the male bodies in the women’s tournament, now someone does not enter the tournament – a woman does not enter the tournament because now the man has taken his place.”

Last December British British Tennis Association changed your rulesThe importance of transgender women can no longer play in some women’s tennis tournaments.

And in April, the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that the legitimate definition of a woman was based on biological sex. Asked if she believes that tennis should follow the UK court leadership, she says, “100%”

They pressed whether we need to “spend a little more time by sympathizing with” trance people, Navrailova replies: “Very nice – but this still does not give them the right to women’s sexual spaces.”

Navratilova has been open to its cancer battles over the last 15 years.

She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, at the age of 52. Then, 13 years later, she returned – along with a second, completely unrelated cancer in the throat.

“The way I understood, I went like that,” Navratilova says, striking her hands on the sides of her face, as if shocked by something. “And I’m like,” Oh, this lymph node is a little bigger. “And a few weeks later, it’s still more bigge.”

After scanning, doctors also caught the second cancer in her breast.

“We got the results and it’s cancer,” she says. “And I’m like,” Oh God, I’ll die. “

Although she says the treatment was “hell”, she feels “all well” now.

“Knock on a tree, all the clear and no side effects – except that red wine still has no good taste, so I went away to tequila and vodka,” she laughs. “I am lucky. The cure was hell, but the consequences were great.”

Has the cancer changed Navoralova at all?

“Cancer taught me to appreciate really every day, which I did almost anyway,” she says. “But most of all, don’t sweat the little things. It’s fixing.”

AMOL RAJAN interviews: Martina Naratilova is on BBC 2 at 19:00 on June 18 and of BBC IPLAYERS