“I wouldn’t leave the house for America Trump”

Fifty years ago, Martin Novutilov left everything she knew in Communist Czechoslovakia to start a new life in the United States.

Then the 18-year-old high school student, she was one of the loudest Cold War defects, and she went to become one of the most iconic tennis players.

But while talking to Amol Rajan BBC, she says she is afraid of the United States now “would not allow me”.

“I am not committed (US President) Donald Trump,” she says, adding that the US has become a “totalitarian” state.

Ever since President Trump has taken office in January, his administration has conducted extensive immigration raidsSpark protests in some parts of the country. It also created a ban on travel Citizens from 12 countriesand there were messages about Tourists who are delayed on the border.

“If I remained in the same position now (as in 1975), and I had to live somewhere, it wouldn’t be America because it wasn’t democracy at the moment,” she says.

When she talks about the US policy, the frustration of Novutilov is sensitive. She believes that people did not notice that, she said, this is a situation that is gradually deteriorating.

The US, she adds, “is sure to turn against migrants.”

“I mean that people who are knocked out on internal security.

Such a decision on defects in the US in 1975 was not easy to accept, – she says. She describes the “idyllic” childhood that grew up in the revision, in the modern Czech Republic, with a loving family she left behind. “I never knew when I saw my parents again – or if I saw them.”

But this changed the course of Navurav’s life. At the time, she said a press conference that she had left Czechoslovakia because she wanted to become a world number one in tennis – and that “she couldn’t do it under these circumstances.”

It really became to become a number one – both in the female singles for 332 weeks, and in the doubles for a record 237 weeks. Now it is considered one of the greatest tennis players in the world.

Nautilov is a double citizen of the United States and Czech, and still lives in the US with his wife, model Julia Lemiga. Is she worried that she may lose her own citizenship in the current political climate?

“Now everything is in the air, and it’s all right. Everyone goes on eggshells without knowing what it will happen.”

However, there is one extremely separate topic that she had previously said she agrees with President Trump – transgender participation of women in sports.

Nautilov is firmly convinced that the inclusion of trans -zianchin in women’s “wrong”.

She says she does not agree with the current rules of the World Tennis Association (WTA), which state transgender women can participate in women’s games when they provide a written and signed declaration that they are female or non -brown, that testosterone levels were below a certain limit for two years.

He says he feels that the Trans -women have biological advantages in women’s sports – the faith that is passionately discussed.

“There should be no ostracism, there should be no bullying,” she says, “but male bodies should play in men’s sports. They can still compete. It is impossible to ban transvo in sports. They just have to compete in the proper category that is a male category. It’s just. ”

She adds: “By including men’s bodies to the women’s tournament, now someone does not go to the tournament – the woman does not go to the tournament because now the man has taken her place.”

Last December, British Law Tennis Association changed their rulesThat is, transgender women can no longer play in some home tennis tournaments.

And in April, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled that the legal definition of the woman was based on the biological sex. Asked if she feels that tennis should monitor the Britain’s leading court, she replied: “100%”

Nautilova replies to us whether we should “spend a little more time, compassionate to” Trans -people, replies: “Very compassionate – but it still does not give them the right to women’s sexual spaces.”

Nautilov is open about their cancer fighting over the last 15 years.

For the first time, she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, at the age of 52. Then, 13 years later, she returned – together with the second, unrelated with cancer in her throat.

“The way I learned, I went like that,” says Nautilov, striking my hands on the sides of the face, as if something shocked. “And I like,” Oh, this lymph knot is a little bigger. “And in a couple of weeks it is still bigger.”

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

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

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

“Knock on the tree, everything is clear and no side effects – except for red wine, it still does not taste, so I went to tequila and vodka,” she laughs. “I’m lucky. The medicine was hell, but the consequences were great.”

Has Novutilov’s cancer changed?

“Cancer taught me very much every day I did practically,” she says. “But most of all, not to sweat things. This can be fixed.”

Interview AMOL RAJAN: Martin Navailov is on BBC 2 at 19:00 on June 18, and on BBC iPlayer.