Disillusioned with the US, Martina Navratilova defects again

Martina Navratilova has regained Czech nationality more than 30 years after fleeing a Communist regime she now compares favourably to that of her adopted country America under President George Bush.

The nine-time Wimbledon champion and one of the world's greatest ever tennis players, Ms Navratilova was born in Prague. She fled in 1975 at the height of the Cold War after being denied the right to compete in professional tennis in the US, where most major tournaments were then played and to where she later moved.

After angering the Communist authorities and living in America for six years, she became a US citizen.



Yesterday, however, she told a press conference in Tokyo that she now has her home citizenship back. "I lost it at the time I defected. I got it back on 9 January," she said.

The widely respected star had previously spoken of her disdain of the government of her adopted nation. "The thing is that we elected Bush", she told the Czech newspaper Lidove Noviny. "That is worse. Against that, nobody chose a Communist government in Czechoslovakia."

She will now maintain dual citizenship with both the US and the Czech Republic.