Navratilova wins biggest challenge of all

London: Martina Navratilova revealed on Tuesday that she had overcome her breast cancer, after tackling the illness with the same determination that she once used to overpower her opponents at Wimbledon.

"I was very lucky," she said, "because I dodged a bullet."

Navratilova's exploits in tennis made her a heroine to many, and her almost superhuman reserves of strength and self-belief were confirmed by the way she continued to play even as she underwent debilitating radiotherapy treatment. Remarkably, Navratilova won the senior women's doubles at last month's French Open with her partner Jana Novotna, even though she was "having problems seeing the ball" after a session in a Parisian hospital.

"When you get diagnosed with something like that everything stands still," Navratilova said.

Prison term

"The hard part was the emotional side, lying there on the table [for radiotherapy treatment] every morning before the French Open. It was like a six-week prison term that you have to serve out, you have no freedom and every day there is that reminder."

On June 16, she finished six weeks of radiotherapy and had a party to celebrate the all-clear.