{"id":86768,"date":"2025-07-23T19:57:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T19:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/86768\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T19:57:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T19:57:10","slug":"she-is-the-player-who-martina-navratilova-beat-to-get-her-last-ever-win-at-wimbledon-when-she-was-47-years-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/86768\/","title":{"rendered":"She is the player who Martina Navratilova beat to get her last ever win at Wimbledon when she was 47 years old"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Venus Williams and Martina Navratilova have highlighted how tennis players can still continue competing into their forties.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Williams stunned Peyton Stearns<\/a> in her return to the WTA Tour<\/a> at the Washington Open<\/a>, with the 45-year-old winning her first singles match in nearly two years.<\/p>\n

There has been a huge reaction to this victory for the American, with Williams receiving messages from Naomi Osaka and Billie Jean King<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Williams\u2019<\/a> victory is unprecedented, Navratilova<\/a> stands ahead of her in the record books in this statistic.<\/p>\n

\"CatalinaPhoto by Clive Rose\/Getty ImagesCatalina Castano: The WTA player who Martina Navratilova beat to win her final ever match at Wimbledon<\/p>\n

After initially retiring from singles in 1994, the year Navratilova lost in the Wimbledon final<\/a>, she began to play some matches again from 2002, something she claimed was to help sharpen her doubles skills.<\/p>\n

However, ahead of Wimbledon<\/a> in 2004, the 18-time Grand Slam singles champion was the world number 700 and had not won a main tour singles match in two years.<\/p>\n

Despite playing very limited singles competition, nine-time Wimbledon champion Navratilova<\/a> was granted a wildcard into the main draw.<\/p>\n

This would mark her first singles appearance at the grass court major since losing that 1994 final, with Navratilova 47 years old at the time of Wimbledon in 2004.<\/p>\n

Navratilova\u2019s first round opponent was Colombian Catalina Casta\u00f1o, who was the world number 102 at the time and had never won a match at Wimbledon before.<\/p>\n

Experience showed on this occasion, as Navratilova emphatically beat Casta\u00f1o, 6-0 6-1, to become the oldest player ever to win a WTA level match at 47 years old.<\/p>\n

Navratilova would not win another singles match again, with the last of her career coming at the WTA tournament in \u2018s-Hertogenbosch in June 2005.<\/p>\n

While Casta\u00f1o, who is still only 46 years old in 2025, ended her career without ever winning a singles match at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

Michael Stich called Martina Navratilova\u2019s win \u2018a terrible thing for women\u2019s tennis\u2019<\/p>\n

While this was a historic moment for Wimbledon and women\u2019s tennis, not everyone thought it was a good thing.<\/p>\n

One of those was 1991 Wimbledon champion Michael Stich, who claimed that Navratilova winning matches at 47 years old showed there was \u2018no depth in the game\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Martina does go through to the third or fourth round of the championships, then I think it would be terrible for the women\u2019s game,\u201d Stich told media outlets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe girl she beat in the first round should just pack up her racket and go home. To lose to Martina \u2013 even on grass \u2013 6-1, 6-0 is a terrible thing for women\u2019s tennis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe result shows there is no depth in the game at all and that you have [only] four or five girls at the top who could win the event.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GermanPhoto by Suzy Spieldenner\/Bongarts\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Navratilova would subsequently lose her next, and what turned out to be final, singles match at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

In the press conference<\/a> after her defeat to Gisela Dulko, Navratilova directly responded to Stich by calling him a \u2018one-hit wonder\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I could win a few matches,\u201d said Navratilova. \u201cYou know, but\u2026 That\u2019s not a knock on women\u2019s tennis. I get really upset when I see, you know, one-hit wonder, one-Slam wonder Michael Stich criticizing the depth in women\u2019s tennis, that I won my first-round match so easily. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow many games did [Roger] Federer lose today in the second-round match? You know, [Goran] Ivanisevic comes, wins two matches. He hasn\u2019t played for a few years. I\u2019m not knocking the depth in men\u2019s tennis but they\u2019re quick to knock the depth of women\u2019s tennis. Look at how I hit the ball, not at the result. Not at the fact that I\u2019m 47. But how do I play.\u201d<\/p>\n

While she was eliminated from the singles event, Navratilova would go on to reach the semifinals of the women\u2019s doubles event and quarterfinals of the mixed tournament.<\/p>\n

Navratilova would officially retire from tennis in 2006<\/a>, after winning the US Open<\/a> mixed doubles title alongside Bob Bryan.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Venus Williams and Martina Navratilova have highlighted how tennis players can still continue competing into their forties. Williams…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":86769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[58473,50638,62,1464,67,132,68,2071,2212],"class_list":{"0":"post-86768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-catalina-castano","9":"tag-martina-navratilova","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-wimbledon","16":"tag-wta"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114904317489943567","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}