Tennis legend Martina Navratilova has returned to TV work at the Miami Open, less than three months after saying she had throat and breast cancer.
“It’s great to be back. Thrilled to be here,” the 18-time grand slam singles champion said on the Tennis Channel on Tuesday.
“So happy to be working. How many people can say that?”
The 66-year-old Navratilova said her sense of taste disappeared during the treatment for cancer and she lost seven kilograms.
She did not appear on television during the Australian Open in January or at Indian Wells earlier in March.
“It puts you face-to-face with your mortality, No.1, because at the beginning I wasn’t sure if it was treatable, so that was hard,” she said, wiping away tears.
“But once I got into the program, it was a little easier emotionally, but more difficult physically. But I’m still standing.”
In an interview with TalkTV‘s Piers Morgan shown later on Tuesday, Navratilova said she has been told by doctors that, “As far as they know, I’m cancer-free”.
“I definitely won’t be missing any of my check-ups. I will be very, very diligent about it. But the prognosis is excellent,” Navratilova said.
Navratilova said she noticed an enlarged lymph node in her neck while attending the season-ending WTA Finals in Fort Worth, Texas, in November, and a biopsy showed early stage throat cancer.
While she was undergoing tests on her throat, she said, the unrelated, early stage breast cancer was discovered.
Announcing her “double whammy” of cancer in January, Navratilova said it was “serious but still fixable”.
“I’m hoping for a favourable outcome,” she said.
“It’s going to stink for a while but I will fight with all I have got.”
Navratilova had previously been diagnosed with a non-invasive form of breast cancer in 2010 and had a lumpectomy.
She won 59 grand slam titles overall, including 31 in women’s doubles and 10 in mixed doubles.
The last was a mixed doubles championship with Bob Bryan at the 2006 US Open, a month shy of her 50th birthday.
Navratilova originally retired in 1994, after a record 167 singles titles and 331 weeks at No.1 in the WTA rankings.
She returned to the tour to play doubles in 2000 and occasionally competed in singles, too.
-with AAP
